Asus Zenfone 3 Zoom Hands-on, First Impressions

The Zenfone 3 family continues to grow as Asus provides multiple variants with varying set of features and price point. Since we already have the Deluxe, the Laser, the Max, and the Ultra, there’s just one more left – the Zoom. Here’s our hands-on and initials impressions of the Asus Zenfone 3 Zoom.

First of all, when we first saw the Zenfone 3 Zoom photos that circulated online, we initially thought of it as a Zenfone 3 Max 5.5 smacked with two rear cameras. Our thoughts were validated upon seeing a live unit.

It’s got the same size at 5.5-inches and Full HD resolution but the Zoom sports a Super AMOLED panel. Paired with its dark aluminum body, it’s a good-looking device — at least for the dark blue color. It’s got a 13-megapixel front camera up top and it relies on capacitive keys for UI navigation.

The volume rocker and power lock button are placed on the right while the left has the hybrid card tray. The bottom end is quite busy with the 3.5mm headphone jack, USB-C port, and the loudspeaker.

The main feature of the Zenfone 3 Zoom is what’s on its back. It joins the current trend of smartphones which is having two rear cameras. Implementation varies per device but since this has the Zoom moniker, the second lens has 2.3x optical zoom. It has 12-megapixel sensors equipped with Dual Pixel + laser autofocus, dual-LED flash, and optical image stabilization.

It’s similar how the iPhone 7 Plus works. With a simple tap, you can easily switch from 1x zoom to 2.3x zoom without any loss in details since we’re dealing with optical zoom not digital.

Here are a few samples we were able to take.

Performance-wise, the unit we’re able to play with is powered by a Snapdragon 625 with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. It’s an identical setup with the original Zenfone 3 and initial benchmark tests give a score above 62,000 in AnTuTu.

Of course, the Zen UI is here again that’s still on Android Marshmallow. It would have been great to have Nougat available out of the box. One more thing about the phone is its battery capacity. It registers at almost 5000mAh which surprisingly big for a phone this size. And before we forget, there’s also a fingerprint scanner on the back.

In summary, we can say the Zenfone 3 Zoom is a combination of the original Zenfone 3 and Zenfone 3 Max 5.5 with the additional rear sensor to make it worthy of the Zoom name.

Asus Zenfone 3 Zoom specs:
5.5-inch Super AMOLED display @ 1920 x 1080 pixels
2.0GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 octa-core CPU
Adreno 506 GPU
4GB RAM
64GB internal storage
Expandable via microSD, up to 128GB (uses SIM 2 slot)
Dual 12MP laser AF rear camera (2.3x optical zoom) w/ dual-LED flash, OIS
13-megapixel front-facing camera
4G LTE
Wi-Fi 802.11ac
Bluetooth 4.1
GPS w/ A-GPS
Fingerprint scanner
USB Type-C
5000mAh battery w/ fast charging
Android 6.0 Marshmallow w/ Zen UI 3.0

The handset is expected to land in the Philippines by February and pricing is still unclear but were told that it’ll not exceed Php20,000USD 341INR 28,892EUR 325CNY 2,482.

Author’s note: The featured device is an engineering unit. The final unit may slightly differ.