Asus ZenFone 5Z review: Beating the OnePlus 6 at its own game
Taiwanese tech giant, Asus, which is widely known for its laptops and PC components business, has been trying to crack the smartphone market code for a while now. The company released its first smartphone in 2014, and since then, has released a number of devices under the Zenfone moniker.
Though interesting propositions in their own right, none of them have truly managed to make a sizeable dent in the market. Even the budget warrior, Asus Zenfone Max Pro1, touted widely to be the Redmi Note 5 killer failed to shine blindingly bright when faced with the weight of market realities.
However, it did set the stage up for the company's resurgence in the market, a movement that is now being carried forward by Asus' biggest launch of the year – Zenfone 5Z.
On paper, the smartphone maker's flagship for the year looks to have gotten the formula right.
It comes flaunting top of the line internals that are hidden neatly inside a shell that's premium both in look and feel. Starting at Rs 29,999 for the 6GB+64GB RAM and storage variant and going all the way up to Rs 36,999 for the 8GB+256GB one, the pricing looks to be spot on too.
However, before it can be crowned the king of mid-segment flagships, the Zenfone 5Z will need to knock off the OnePlus 6 which currently occupies the high perch.
Let's find out in our review if the Asus Zenfone 5Z has what it takes to do so.
Display and design
Created using an alluminium frame sandwiched between sheets of Gorilla Glass, the Zenfone 5Z is definitely the most beautiful device to have come out of Asus' stables. Yet, the fact of the matter is that much of this isn't because of the efforts of the design team at Asus, but of a rival's working out of Cupertino, California.
Like many other Android smartphone manufacturers, the phone sees Asus unapologetically take the iPhone X's notch and slap it on the Zenfone 5Z to recreate the magic of Apple's $1000 flagship.
Although I'm no fan of the notch on an ultra expensive iPhone, but on the Zenfone 5Z, the notch paired with the slim bezels around the 6.2-inch panel allows the phone to look premium as well as give users a true edge-to-edge experience while viewing multimedia content or playing games on the device – and all without driving the device's price too high.
Apart from the notch, the front of the Zenfone 5Z also sees Asus use a Full HD+ (1080x2246) Super IPS panel which sports a wider than usual 18:7:9 aspect ratio and a pixel density of 402 PPI. The panel is plenty bright, and legibility is not an issue even under direct sunlight. Because of being an IPS panel, viewing angles on the phone are also great, as is the colour accuracy. During my time with the phone, I found the phone's ability to produce deep punchy colours quite pleasing.
Moving to the back, the Zenfone 5Z looks as premium as it does from the front. However, here it does so without compromising on Asus' identity.
The device's glass back uses a light reflective pattern which will be recognisable to anyone who has used an Asus laptop before.
To Asus' credit, the round fingerprint scanner, protruding camera module and a dual-tone led flash present at the back also go well with the pattern at the back, helping the Zenfone 5Z stand-out as one of the better-looking devices available in the market currently.
But it's not only in looks but also in terms of usability that the Zenfone 5Z's design shines. The decision to use alluminium and sheets of Gorilla Glass to construct the phone helps the device feel pleasantly light in the hands without compromising on the build quality that also feels top notch.
The placement of the phone's volume rocker, power button as well as the cut-outs for the type-C charging port, speaker grille and 3.5mm jack on the bottom of the phone also feel very well done.
My only gripe with the design is that its a bit of a fingerprint magnet and is little too slippery too slippery for my taste. However, both these problems are true for any glass back device in the market and as such, it shouldn't be a deal breaker for most.
Specifications and performance
In terms of the hardware it packs in, the Asus Zenfone 5Z is one of the best out there.
Running the show here is the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 octa-core SoC which Asus has paired with up to 8GB of RAM and 256GB onboard storage which can be upgraded using a microSD card.
We reviewed the 6GB+64GB entry variant of the Zenfone 5Z which performed quite well during our time with it. Leveraging the raw power of the Snapdragon 845's four high-performance Kryo cores running at 2.8GHz and four Kryo silver cores running at 1.7GHz, the Zenfone 5Z boots up fast and muscles through anything you through at it. Applications launch fast, and moving between pages and transitions feels buttery smooth.
The phone also impressed when we put it to the sword of synthetic benchmarks. Testing the device using GeekBench 4, the Zenfone 5Z clocked a single-core score of 2343 and a multi-core score of 9032.
Though top-of-the-line flagship hardware on the device is to thank for much of this performance, Asus' work on optimising its Zen UI is also a contributing factor. As opposed to previous versions, the current ZenUI 5 carries very little bloatware and is the closest to stock Android that phone maker has ever shipped.
Another highlight of the ZenUI 5 is its promise of AI-based features. Asus' take on Android Orea enables the phone to use some sophisticated tricks, such as AI Boost which can dynamically manage background processes to improve the performance of the phone.
But that's not all. More than just using AI as a buzzword to market the phone, Asus brings in a number of machine learning features that allow the device to dynamically manage battery, storage, the colour reproduction of the display based on the user's preference and past choice and even the volume of the ringtone depending on the ambient noise around the phone. Asus claims that machine learning and AI are also used for clicking pictures with the phone's cameras which over time learn to adapt to different light and scene conditions.
Cameras
With the Zenfone 5Z, Asus is also making a push to become the best cameraphone in the price segment.
At the back, the phone features a 12-megapixel primary sensor (f/1.8 aperture lens), and an 8-megapixel secondary sensor (f/2.2 aperture wide-angle lens) with a field of view of 120 degrees.
Pretty standard stuff? Not, really.
Though the hardware may be in line with what competing phones in the segment offer, as we mentioned above, the Zenfone 5Z because of its artificial intelligence (AI) based features sets itself apart from the rest.
The phone supports 16 types of AI scene detection modes that make adjustments to aperture, focus, filters, and other settings in order to take the best shot for that scene. The interesting thing is that these modes also evolve over time as they are programmed to learn from your photos and your preferences.
In our time using the phone, the Sony IMX363 sensor clicked some great pictures in not just well-lit surroundings, but also in low light conditions. Pictures clicked using the device came out with good amount of detail and very little noise. The presence of four-axis OIS and EIS on the rear camera also helped with ensuring a low amount of shaky shots.
Up front, you have an 8-megapixel sensor for selfies and video calling. Though it also makes use of a number of AI smarts, the performance of the particular sensor is just average.
Battery
The device gets its juice from an above-par, 3,300mAh battery pack that backed by the energy efficient 845 SoC paired with the 1080p display helps the phone easily get through more than a day on a single charge. The Zenfone 5z is easily one of the best that we have used in terms of battery performance. Even when subjected to battery intensive tasks and being used as a hotspot for other devices, the device got me through the day on a charge.
Add to that the fact that the device also supports Quick Charge 3.0 when used with the 18W Qualcomm Quick Charger that Asus bundles with the phone. The particular technology allows the phone to go from 0-100 per cent in slightly more than an hour making this one of the fastest charging phones available in the market right now.
Is it worth buying?
To be honest, the Asus Zenfone 5Z gets most things right in terms of the features it flaunts and also fares well against the competition in terms of the internals it packs. But it does has its drawbacks. The biggest of them being the software.
There is no denying that the use of ZenUI 5 instead of a stock Android solution does hurt its chances a little in a direct fight with the OnePlus 6. However, because of the sum of its design, internals, cameras and overall performance, the Zenfone 5Z ends up emerging as a much more rounded device than the competition, or anything else currently available in the segment.
But the one defining factor of the Zenfone 5Z which marks it out as a winner in this tightly contested segment is its extremely aggressive price tag.
For a market like ours, and especially the segment the Zenfone 5Z is fighting in, its Rs 29,999 price for the 6GB+64GB, Rs 32,999 for the 6GB+128GB and 36,999 for 8GB+256GB RAM plus storage variants gives it a huge advantage over the OnePlus 6 which come at a substantially expensive price point.
Then there's also the many deals that Asus is bundling with the phone. Currently, users get a straight discount of Rs 2,000 if they choose to pay for the phone using an Axis bank debit or credit card. With the particular deal in effect, the pricing of the Zenfone 5Z essentially comes down to 27,999 for the lowest storage variant while the top end one comes down to Rs 34,999.
Compare the latter to the 256GB storage variant of the OnePlus 6 which retails for Rs 44,999, and it is easy to understand why Asus has a winner on their hands with the Zenfone 5Z.