Asus Zenfone 4 – A Premium Budget Smartphone
Asus had been a company which created lots of phones and tablet, I think this zenfone line up was pretty good which we seen in the last review of Asus zenfone 5, Pretty much of asus we also reviewed Asus fonepad 7, Not so good  tablet to be honest. Asus zenfone line up had three devices asus zenfone 4, asus zenfone 5, asus zenfone 6 each represents screen size and increasing order of budget. 4-inch form factor use to be huge in the case when samsung first announced the Samsung Galaxy S2 I was shocked the phone to be huge over 3.5 inch of Apple’s iPhone. In 2014 the same form factor has became very small. Its a complete opinion over the Asus zenfone 4
Specification of Asus Zenfone 4
- 4-inch screen 480 x 800 screen resolution (233 PPI)
- 4/8GB internal with 1GB ram with storage expandable via micro SD card
- 5MP rear camera
- Intel atom Z2520 1.2ghz dual core processor
- Android 4.3 jelly bean out of box upgradable to Kitkat
- 1600 mAh battery
Build
The zenfone line up are exact replica copy of each other differing by the screen size. Zenfone 4 is 4 inch small but quiet bulky phone. It fits in hand perfectly , fits in pocket too perfectly but that bulky. The back is removable  quiet hard plastic, sturdy and not easy to bend, Also there’s removable battery. Same area where sim and micro sd card is to be inserted its a dual sim and micro sim slot phone. Even being bulky the phone is light weight, From front it looks astonishing same as the Asus zenfone 5, the bottom design part puts more area and add more space to the dimension. Well I won’t complain about the bulky form factor just because its small form factor lead to that still the beauty of zenfone line up is been maintained.
Software
The software is well designed same as that what we seen in the asus zenfone 5, I think there is no design issue, not even performance issue, the main issue for asus zenfone 4 lacks in the case of battery life. I know its pretty small battery but just because of software too it doesn’t last long. It was ok when the phone used jelly bean firmware, when it used kitkat it even drained faster than normal. I even thought the OS might be the problem, but somewhere the processor is also the responsible in this case because the intel processors for mobiles are good performer, only it lacks in the case of architecture that doesn’t supports android well and battery drain is seen. The phone is also promised to get lollipop update but I still have a fear such performance would get wrong in the case of lollipop too. It’s a pretty good advantage that whole zenfone line up would get lollipop update but that’s looks great on paper for Asus zenfone 4 not in reality.
Verdict
Well 4-inch form factor feel very small now a days, I precisely think 4.5 is the best form factor. Still some people would definitely love it. I would not recommend asus zenfone 4, only because of increasing demand and competition. The battery life was the thing which stopped me from recommending. It’s a very good performer even Ashpalt 8 performance was smoother on this device which was shocking for me.
