Asus Zenfone 5 2018 Review

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Introduction

It's no longer news. It's no longer a myth. The notch is real,and it's not going anywhere anytime soon. It's present on the iPhone X,the Oppo R15,and many other big brand phones(like the 40 megapixel Huawei P20 Pro). It's something the tech space will have to deal with for a long time. But back to the star of this show - the Asus Zenfone 5. It's got a notch,and a nice,original design,not taken from the books of any other manufacturer in the tech space,as the picture below will tell.

Very original design

But,despite looking like a carbon copy of the iPhone X,the Zenfone has a few trademarks of its own. The screen to body ratio is 90%,much more than the iPhone X's ordinary 81%. It's got a Snapdragon 636 chipset,a good(but not grand) camera,and other features present in this review. Read on to find out.

Asus Zenfone 5 Review

Asus Zenfone 5 Review : Design and Display

Up top us the top notch notch

As I mentioned earlier,the design of the Zenfone 5 is completely unoriginal. They borrowed all the pages from the iPhone 10's book. From the notch(oh God the notch!)to the vertical placement of the cameras,it's quite obvious where Asus takes inspiration from. But it's not necessarily a bad thing. Though the design is copied,the quality of the design is copied too.The glass - on - glass design is cool,but surprisingly doesn't support wireless charging,like most glass-on-glass phones.The phone is also almost weightless,at 155g.

Asus has also pointed out that their own blatantly copied version of the notch happens to be 26% smaller than that of the iPhone X.Great!

The display is big. But that amazing screen to body ratio,and the thin bezels make this phone almost one handed use friendly. That said,it's only 1080p(actually,it's 2220*1080,which is called Full HD+),and while we understand that this was never intended to be a flagship,it would still have been nicer to see a Quad HD Panel.

Again,its only IPS LCD.(click this link to find out more about screen displays)This would have been great if only photographers were going to use this phone. But that's not the case. Asus has no excuse to not put an AMOLED panel into a phone at this price range. OnePlus is doing it,and their phones still come out top notch(pun intended).But that's not to say that the screen is bad by any instance. It's one of the better LCD displays out there. Sure,the colors don't pop out of the screen,and black still looks like grey,but it's still a good display.

Asus also states that the notch won't affect the usability while watching videos.(for God's sake if you know you'll do anything to limit the user from noticing notch,then don't put it there at all!)

The aspect ratio is a weird 19:9,but that's to accommodate the notch.Weird aspect ratios don't mean much. Just a couple of black bars on either side of the display when watching a video in any other aspect ratio. No big deal.

Given this phone won't cost an arm and a leg,the display is top notch.

Asus Zenfone 5 Review : Camera

The Zenfone 5 sports 12 megapixels of Sony's latest offering : the IMX363 image sensor,actually made for flagships. It also comes with a 1.4 micron pixel size,f/1.8 arpeture and a dual LED flash. There's 4K video recording on board,though at 60 frames per second. There's also a portrait mode feature on the main camera.(the trend with most dual camera smartphones these days). That second lens is a 120 degree wide angle lens. The camera also sports a flexible Pro mode with support for RAW file format and shutter speeds of an impressive 1/10000 to 32 seconds.

As for that notch housed selfie camera,it's an 8 mega pixel camera with an f/2.0 arpeture and an 84 degree wide field of view. There's also a face unlock feature,though that's more of a novelty than a security feature.


Rear and front facing camera samples

This photo was taken in pitch darkness(at 4am) at the back of a roughly moving car with only a streetlight as the brief source of light.

Please note that the images have been compressed to fit the blog. Kindly click on anyone to view it full size.

Photos taken in good lighting are commendably great. Some might even pass as DSLR shots to the untrained eye. There is a good amount of dynamic range,and the saturation is natural,not over saturated like Samsung cameras. The 4K video is great,but even though there's OIS,the footage tends to be shaky if there's too much movement.

The front camera is good also,and produces decent shots with a wide field of view. Just don't turn on the 'beauty modes'.

It's in low light that things take a turn for worse. The camera just can't capture sufficient detail in dim light,despite it's large arpeture size. The front camera's output in dim light is just a grainy mess. A software update could make this better,but for now,we're stuck with this.

The cameras are great for instagrammers,bloggers ad snapchatters. But not for those who want to replace their DSLRs completely. That prize would go to the Huawei P20 Pro.

Asus Zenfone 5 Review : Software and AI

Of course it's not stock android. Don't even bother asking.

It's ZenUI 5.0 that is Asus' prize child. And luckily,it's on top of Android O. Asus promises that the bloatware would be on the lower side of things,and that was true,as only Facebook(don't forget to like our page there!) and Instagram were preinstalled.

Also,there's ZeniMoji,their answer to Apple;s Animoji. You know,Apple started this AI race with their Animoji,and I knew that other brands would follow. And here we are with ZeniMoji. According to Asus,the Zenfone 5 makes use of AI to learn more about how you use your phone. These include 16 mode scene detection(like food,pets,vegetation,etc),learning adjustments you make to your photos and applying them automatically(it's called "photo learning")plus AI charging,which is designed to remove/reduce the effect of ageing on the rather small 33oo mAh battery. It does this by adjusting the charging rate depending on how(and if)you charge your phone overnight. And Asus says this could double the lifespan of your phone)

Asus Zenfone 5 Review : Battery

It's 3300 mAh,and during my heavy days(with the mobile hotspot on the whole time,the screen at full brightness,interchanging between gaming and more gaming,browsing the web through a data connection,etc)the phone lasted 8 hours before dying o me while I was downloading GTA V. oOn lighter days,it lasted well over 10 hours with an SOT of 4 hours. That's pretty basic battery life today,when there are phones like the Xiaomi Mi Max 2. Battery's good guys.

Asus Zenfone 5 Review : Performance

Do you really need to ask? Snapdragon 636 with 4GB of RAM and 64GB eMMC storage is the perfect combination of performance. The phone flies through tasks,and still holds things in its RAM for over 2 days,provided you don't switch off the phone.
I haven't been able to run benchmarks,but this post would be updated with such tests soon,so subscribe to be the first to know.

Asus Zenfone 5 Benchmark Photos

Zenfone 5 AnTuTu Score

CPU Z

Sure,sure. You may say 'it's not Snapdragon 845,so no show',but believe me,this is a great performance phone. And plus,do you really need all that speed? To me,once a phone can fire up GTA V in less than 35 seconds,it's fast enough,and this one can. Don't let big AnTuTu numbers fool you. Even though I haven't used any Snapdragon 845 phone yet,I've reached out to Samsung Mobile to provide me with an S9,so watch this space.
So,let me wrap up this section by saying the performance actually exceeds the price.

Asus Zenfone 5 Review : Speakers and Audio Quality

Asus has really done well with the speakers on this phone. They're stereo,and each speaker has its own NXP amp. There were also these great looking(and sounding) pair of headphones bundled in the box. Asus calls them 'ZenEar S headphones' and they are tuned by DTS. Asus also includes DTS Headphone X support in the software,and they are also compatible with High Res Audio. There is also an FM Radio,which is surprisingly missing in some some high end phones. Also,using AI,the ringtone can learn to change it's volume depending on your environment. Like,if you're in a meeting and it rings and you silence it,when next you're in a meeting,it would be on silent. That's cool right? Anyway,sound quality through the speakers is awesome and deep,and even though it's not the best,it's more than okay at this price.

Asus Zenfone Review : Wrap Up

Asus includes a lightning quick fingerprint sensor behind the phone. There's also face unlock,but even Asus claims it's not safer than the fingerprint sensor. 

As you would expect from a glass on glass phone,it's a fingerprint,and,worse of all,smudge magnet. But apart from those caveats,the build quality is actually extremely solid. No creaking or flexing,and the buttons are pretty tactile,with a good feedback. Even though this phone costs $500 or there about,it looks and works like a flagship. And even though the screen is only FHD+ and is IPS LCD  and has a notch,for $500,it's worth every penny.

Oh,and by the way,it costs (or would cost) about 150000 to 160000 naira.

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