Last updated on August 21st, 2017
[AdSense-B]
Recently asus re-entered the smartphone fray in india with its zenfone series , launching 3 smartphones. And zenfone 5 has taken the lead among them , even though the market is flooded with smartphones this phone’s charm is quite impressive which makes it a tough competition for many high-end devices . Zenfone 5 has taken a spoon from many smartphone’s mouth of this price range and doing really good so far. Its a budget phone costing just 10k (8gb) and 13k (16gb variant) with pretty cool specifications at this price range.
BASIC SPECIFICATIONS :
Screen size: 5″ (~294 pixel density)
Resolution: 720 x 1280
Protection: Corning Gorilla Glass 3
RAM: 2 GB
Internal memory: 8 GB
Card slot: microSD, up to 64 GB
Camera: primary-8 MP
front-2 MP
OS: 4.3 (jelly bean), upgradable to 4.4.3
Battery: non-removable Li-Po 2110 mAh
DESIGN:
The design of this device is simple candy bar design yet stylish, the metal strip at the bottom adds to its beauty. On back back cover (available in black,red,white and champagne gold colours) is removable ,having asus logo printed on it ,and 8 megapixel autofocus camera with LED flash giving sharp images in normal day light and using camera filters user can click a decent low light image,one can also observe a slight curve on the back which makes it easy to handle.
Device weighs light as it has non-removalble battery. On front its has 2 megapixel front facing camera which gives pretty good output and it comes with various preloaded camera filters. Both power button and volume rockers are on right side , which company has provided the users to make convenient for one hand use…which is actually quite difficult because of it size. But over all in design this particular is an eye-catcher.
FEATURES:
This device comes with great specification at this price range having 720 x 1280 resolution but what makes the device an eye candy is zen UI , providing flat icons and different customization.
Zenfone 5 runs on android 4.3 (jellybean) but Company has also promised for kitkat update soon .. no assured dates yet though, so hope its available soon. This phone comprises 2gb of ram with 1.6GHz CPU and intel chipset gives this device a 5 star in performance.
One thing that was lacking in this device was OTG support which disappointed many users, but thanks to asus ,with latest firmware update it does support now. The audio output of this device is not very impressive as compared to few other smartphones of this price range however an additional feature called “audio wizard” enhances the sound quality to a better level.
Another major downfall for zenfone 5 is its battery durability , for a heavy user and gamer constant charging is required which isnt possible all the time even though company has provided some preloaded applications for battery optimization but that will not make a major difference , however for a moderate user its a good to go option .
CONCLUSION:
Overall this phone has earned its place as one of the best smartphones within 15k and best smartphone under 10k .zenfone 5 gives user a high-end feel without much of compromises and one will not regret with its performance after getting this phone into hand. Its features and performance give it an edge over most of the competition like moto g and lumia 620 etc., not only in the sub 10k segment but also against many higher-priced phones. People looking for big screen phone with good features and ready to compromise a bit with battery go for it.