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Asus ZenFone 5 Review

Asus is not done competing with the low-end smartphone market, as they have a ZenFone family recently announced poised to take over in 4, 5 and 6. What we have here now is the Asus ZenFone 5, the middle-child of the family, not too big, not too small – packing decent specs, good software, a great design and a polishing in almost all places – paired with a really affordable price tag. Does it have what it takes? Read on our full review and find out!

Asus ZenFone 5 (5)

Design and Construction

We let a few people hold the phone and give their impressions on it, and so far, everybody liked it and no bad comment was given about the design. Asus took a lot of work into refining every detail with the ZenFone 5; from the buttons on the left side & the circular design on the bottom bezel of the screen to the curved back, we have no complaints.

Asus ZenFone 5 (6)

As for attracting dirt and debris, Asus has done good as well. The back cover is entirely removable, and everything was easy to wipe off.

Asus ZenFone 5 (8)

Although its body is mostly made of plastic, the handset still looks classy and sophisticated. Despite of being a little thick and bit hefty, it didn’t diminish the overall premium feel of the smartphone.

Display

The display of the ZenFone 5 is, well, 5-inches in size and it’s of the IPS LCD kind. Sadly, we did notice that the ZenFone’s screen still has a few bad angles – but not a serious dealbreaker from what we’ve seen.

Asus ZenFone 5

At first look, we really thought the panel here is full HD – as colors are bright, vibrant and well-contrasted, but it’s actually just 720 x 1280. Nevertheless, text produced still looked sharp, and we’d like to give it to Asus for having a reading mode setting as it helped not straining my eyes using the phone in total darkness.

OS, Apps and UI

Android 4.3 powers the ZenFone, and we’ve received a few updates since we powered up the device already. None of them brought the device to KitKat yet, but we will probably see it in the future.

Asus ZenFone 5 (7)

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again – Asus has done a good job with their skinning here – the Zen UI, It adds lots of features and apps that you’d actually use, and they all look so clean without being too in-your-face all the time. You have organized apps for display and audio settings, and a great set of widgets and apps such as SuperNote. From here, we wish all other manufacturers would take note as this is one of Asus’ big strengths right now in our opinion.

Multimedia & Camera

If you check out the lower back portion of the device, you’ll see a strip of holes dedicated for the speaker, but we find this rather deceptive. Pull off the cover or cover just a specific part of the strip and you’ll find that the speaker is only a small square. Nevertheless, it performs slightly better compared to average phone speakers out there, producing loud and quality audio, but it surely won’t blow anyone away.

Asus ZenFone 5 (3)

The 8 megapixel camera here works great, especially for its caliber. It’s fast and it gives timely suggestions on what photo mode to use in a specific situation, and the modes themselves are really good just like the rest of the software in the ZenFone.

What blows us away is what Asus calls Pixelmaster, a combination of software and hardware that allows you to take bright 2 megapixel photos even in almost no lighting – and it works! We have a gallery of pictures down below covering depth of field, low-light & auto shots, so check those all out for yourself.

[fancygallery id=”106″ album=”110″]

Following up the bright and sharp photos taken by the device, video works well too. We were tapping to focus in the sample video down below, but other than that, we’re contented with what we got:

Performance & Benchmarks

Asus has stuffed an Intel Atom inside this device. And while the chipset didn’t blow us away, we’re thankful that it’s not one of those processors that showboats the number of processors to woo consumers. In fact, despite being a dual-core CPU, it does more than okay and we didn’t encounter any problems with navigation and the like.

What we did encounter, however, are few crashes from opening up games when power saver mode was on. The handset froze on few occassions and when we had to turn off the screen, the whole device shut down as well. It’s probably some GPU related problem, but it didn’t occur that frequently as we were able to play a few graphic intensive games at normal settings (it starts to lag when it gets heavier).

Asus ZenFone 5 (2)

  • Antutu – 22,808
  • Quadrant – 11,033
  • Nenamark – 60.3

Call Quality & Battery Life

With connectivity in mind, we did not have anything deviating from the usual. There is dual SIM support here, the earpiece is okay, and from places where we usually test our gadgets, it manages to capture our WiFi connection easily.

Asus ZenFone 5 (1)

On standby, the Asus ZenFone 5 did really well lasting us days, but after putting it through our battery test, draining the battery with 50% brightness and 50% audio volume on video playback, we managed to drain the battery in around five hours and 10 minutes, which is to say it’s not bad, but it’s not that impressive either.

Charging the battery takes the usual time here, maybe even slower, but we’ve noted that as we tried using the bundled charger on other phones and it will take so long before we even get to half a charge.

Conclusion

With almost nothing to complain about, the ZenFone 5 is one of those phones that say “premium but affordable devices are possible”. Hardware and software combined, the ZenFone is very polished. However, we do have a few gripes with the overall performance, and we’re hoping an update comes to fix that, but apart from what we mentioned, this is one affordable smartphone that’s greatly put together.

Asus ZenFone 5 (4)

The local pricing of the Asus ZenFone 5, as of the time of writing, is still not set. But it’s already available in some parts of the world for USD149 or estimated 6,500 in our local currency, making it a very interesting proposition for the budget-conscious crowd. Let’s just hope that the local SRP will be somewhere close to what we’re expecting.

ASUS ZenFone 5 specs:
5-inch IPS LCD display, 1280 x 720 @294ppi
Intel Atom Z2580 2GHz dual-core processor
PowerVR SGX 544 MP2
2GB RAM
16GB internal storage
64GB via microSD
WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
3G/HSPA+
Bluetooth
8MP BSI rear camera w/ LED flash
1080p video recording @30fps
2MP front-facing camera
2100mAh battery
Android 4.3
148.2 x 72.8 x 10.3 mm
144 grams
Colors: Charcoal Black, Pearl White, Cherry Red, and Champagne Gold

What we liked about it:

  • Vibrant 720p display
  • Premium streamlined design
  • Well-performing camera paired with good software
  • Zen UI is polished
  • Fast UI navigation
  • Loud speaker

What we didn’t like about it:

  • Few performance issues
  • Slow charger included

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Avatar for Bob Freking

Bob Freking occasionally contributes articles to the website. He is a UST Graduate of Commerce & Business Administration, Major in Marketing Management, and a full-time Sith Lord with three dragons.

57 Responses

  1. Avatar for sy sy says:

    Sa gaming ok ba to? Kaya ba mga nba15 fifa15 ganun kalalaking gb na games? What so you mean with few performance issue ba?

  2. Avatar for gemerie gemerie says:

    Bumili ako nito for my mom nung Dec 25, naengganyo ako bumili rin for me since maganda performance nya. Updated na sa KitKat at may USB OTG na. Sulit na sulit ang pera. Nabili ko sila ng 7k each. Average battery, minsan lang may freeze issue sa Summoners War kapag biglang nadisconnect data but so far yun lang problema. What I like about this phone is yung tibay nya. Naiwan ko na nakapatong sa drawer sa shower room, ns 6ft yun. May tumawag e nakavibrate, ayun nalaglag sa shower floor na basa. Walang gasgas walang basag na part. Parang walang ngyari. Highly appreciated ko tong phone na to.

  3. Avatar for john john says:

    I plan on buying a phone, how much na po ba ngayon ng zenfone 5??any more problems with the phone??

  4. Avatar for archel archel says:

    i got this phone last december 19. it was great. i encountered a bit of problems at first but it did not interfere the whole experience. the battery is average. good for gaming but playing it for 2 hours will really heat the phone’s back.

  5. Avatar for Prodigy Prodigy says:

    Which would be better to purchase, asus zenfone5 or microsoft lumia 535?

  6. Avatar for meit meit says:

    Which would be better to purchase, asus zenfone5 or microsoft lumia 535?

  7. Avatar for Dodie Dodie says:

    I just got my zenphone 5 today and I have an issue with it. Why does it go to lock screen by itself then I have to wait several minutes, then when it opens, it goes back again to lock screen. Is this a defect or is there a configuration to stop this? I hope you can help me with this because it is driving me crazy!!! When I need to use it, it wouldn’t let me!!!

  8. Avatar for Kaith Kaith says:

    hi, any zenfone owners encountering problems with viber video calling, it seems like mine is not working. :(

    Best phone except for this problem. :(

  9. Avatar for Japhet Japhet says:

    Dagdag ko lang, mabilis lang po syang mag charge wala pang 1 hr full charge na po ito.

  10. Avatar for Elbert Elbert says:

    How’s the battery of this phone?
    Replaceable ba sya incase na masira ung battery nya?
    Or hindi na?

  11. Avatar for asdasd123 asdasd123 says:

    hi guys! gusto ko lang itanong bibili na kasi sana ako ng Zenphone 5. then na discourage ako dun sa sales lady sabi nya maganda daw ang zenphone 5 pero pag dating sa hardware mga 3 months or more pwede na sya masira lalo na at intel atom ung ginagamit na processor hindi daw kakayanin ng hardware? Tunay po ba un?

    • Avatar for james james says:

      Pangalan pa lang na ASUS at Intel mapapagkatiwalaan na sa quality. I do not know what the saleslady was smoking, whatever it was it must be strong. Peace.

    • Avatar for Dave Dave says:

      She would like you to buy something more expensive. Sino naman saleslady magsasabing panget binebenta nila? Listen to people who actually have it rather than people who pretends to know anything about it.

    • Avatar for hahha hahha says:

      hindi totoo yan sa zenfone ko nga kakailang hagis ng pamangkin ko still alive at nahulog sa tubig… nahulog sa hagdan ..
      buhay pa rin… haha..
      i love zenfone5

    • Avatar for lol lol says:

      next time po wag kang maniwala sa mga saleslady. read reviews, and don’t believe every word they say. mapapatunayan mo yan kapag tinanong mo sila ng sunod sunod at ipa explain mo mga specs and functions, sasagutin kalang nyan “saleslady lang kasi kami dito sir, itanong po natin yan sa technician” from experience…

    • Avatar for touchmeenut touchmeenut says:

      Just choose who to believe,this forum or that pretending saleslady. Yugatech or saleslady. Choose your destiny;)

  12. Avatar for paulmg paulmg says:

    good buy wpkfol. Welcome to Android.. =D

  13. Avatar for wpkfol wpkfol says:

    Currently enjoying this phone right now. It actually makes me think twice to have this as my primary phone instead of iphone 5s.

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  16. Avatar for Paul Paul says:

    No mention of the battery being unremovable? Seriously? This wasn’t included in the review? Tsk3x.

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