Early this year in CES 2015 the Taiwanese smartphone giant, Asus created a big hype and a lot of buzz in the smartphone market. Literally shaking up the entire smartphone industry. And cribbling up the entire industry in pieces. All other smartphone manufacturers took a note of it. And the bigger question was, how much damage it would do to other smartphone manufacturer considering the cheap and affordable price tag at which Asus was offering the Asus Zenfone 2 Ze551ML.
Right after its launch the entire tech community went nuts. Some people also tried to install a full-fledged operating system like Windows 8 on it. And I wasn’t surprised to see it not just only work but also fly through the entire operating system. People started comparing it with their high-end netbooks and also laptop computers for that matter. Memes about this smartphone was all over the internet as how this pocket-sized device manages to outperform and humiliate some of the regular household computers. But of course everything was taken as a grain of salt, unless and until we would’ve tested it ourselves. So here we present our review and our thoughts on the Asus Zenfone 2 Ze551ML.
Also check out our coverage on Asus Zenfone 2 Deluxe: It’s Hot <- Click Here!!
Box Contents
The Asus Zenfone 2 ZE551ML comes with very little and necessary items in the box. There isn’t much enough to look at, as the only things that it comes with is a 2 amp power brick and a USB to MicroUSB cable, along with couple of paperwork. Right after opening up the box you will find the Asus Zenfone 2 right up on top and if you dig a little bit deeper you will also find rest of the accessories. Something that I have to say about the Asus Zenfone 2 accessories that I don’t say about some other smartphone’s accessories is that everything feels a lot sturdy and premium to hold. Which is a nice thing considering that you will be using it for a long time, hence it won’t be wearing off or will get damaged that easily. The wall adapter is also rated at 2 amps, so it won’t be as good as fast charge, but definitely the charging speed will be a lot close and it will be considerably better than the regular 1 amp chargers.
Display
The display on the Asus Zenfone 2 is something, that I don’t really say about any other smartphone, but it’s great. The viewing angles, the color reproduction and just the overall look of the display is exceptionally great and I personally love how the colors pop out. The screen isn’t overly saturated and everything is well balanced. For more additional controls, Asus has also incorporated a standalone application called ‘splendid’ which allows you to tweak the colors and adjust everything accordingly to your own liking. The screen is a 5.5-inch 1920x1080p IPS panel, which is a bit on the bigger side and is a little bit wide when compared to the OnePlus One. Overall, I’d say that Asus has nailed in terms of the display resolution, color and how everything turns out in terms of display. The display is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 3. So for the most part the Asus Zenfone 2’s display will be protected from all sorts of scratches, bumps and what not.
Performance
Performance on the Asus Zenfone 2 is something that’s not worth talking about. Cuz let’s face it, we all know that the Asus Zenfone has some killer high-end specifications under the hood, making it not only one of the best performer out there, but also one of the most killer specifications on paper. It has 4GB RAM, which technically means, that no matter what you’ll never run out of RAM, and whatever you throw at it. It will handle it like a champ. In our review video, I demonstrated how even after having so many applications running the background, how the Asus Zenfone 2 manages to get over 2GB of free RAM. And it is quite funny because that is more RAM than most of the devices come with these days. The Asus Zenfone 2 also packs in Intel Atom Z3580 Quad-Core processor which is clocked at 2.3GHz. Now this particular processor is mobile-computer grade processor and is a perfect combination to go along with 4GB RAM. Overall, what all I can say to an average Joe, that the RAM and the Processor combination is absolutely-perfectly-killer. Which essentially means that NO-MATTER-WHAT, it can handle whatever you throw at it. It also comes with PowerVR G6430 GPU, for all those essential graphics rendering.
Also check out our coverage on Asus Zenfone 2 Laser: I swear you’ll love it!! <- Click Here!!
Design
The design of the Asus Zenfone 2 is something that’s quite controversial, which some may like it, and some don’t. It totally boils down it personal taste and opinion. I personally liked how the Asus Zenfone 2 was crafted and how Asus took inspiration from it’s predecessor and made the existing design better. Sizewise the Asus Zenfone 2 fits right between the Zenfone 5 and the Zenfone 6, and being a second generation device in this series I would’ve loved to see a little design change, but Asus went with the tried and tested look. The spun metal chip seen on each and every other Zenfone makes an appearance here as well. The phone has a curved back which goes from a thickness of 3.9mm, all the way to 10.9mm. And this curve makes it comfortable to hold in hand but also makes the phone look really big and bulky. The device just does not rest flat on the surface and rocks like a see-saw. This device literally weighs 170 grams but the design helps it to mask its weight very well. And I can safely say it is fairly comfortable to hold regardless of the top power button placement.
Camera
The camera on this Asus Zenfone 2 is a little bit disappointed. Actually, I won’t lie but I expected it to be a lot better. Now that doesn’t really means that it straight up sucks, but Asus could’ve made it alot better. With the new Asus Zenfone 2 Laser and Asus Zenfone 2 Deluxe, the camera seems to be a little bit promising. Although I can’t say the same for the Asus Zenfone 2. The phone comes with a 13-megapixel camera on the back with dual-tone led flash and at the front there is a 5-megapixel camera. The rear camera is blessed with Asus Pixel-master technology that helps the phone click better images in low light conditions. The camera app is full of different shooting modes which is very much inspired from the Samsung Camera App and in my opinion it clicks decent images in artificial lighting, the pictures clicked indoors appear grainy and aren’t that inspiring. And when taken out in plenty of light, it sometimes just tend to over-sharpen everything making it look a little gross. But that doesn’t mean that it has a totally unusable camera. And if I had to rate it in the scale of awesomeness, It will just be somewhere in the middle. The front facing camera does an amazing job, and I can easily use if for my Snapchat selfies. Even in low light. And talking about low light. This camera has a dedicated low light mode which can take amazing shots in very minimum available light. And literally it can give a run to other flagships for their money when it comes to shooting in low light mode. The only problem is, it restricts the photo to 3-megapixel image. Considering that you are using a 1080p monitor it’s not that bad as it sounds and for most part it looks impressive, even if you want to print that picture, it won’t be much of a mess. But if you try to zoom in or crop to a certain part of the image. Then surely you will have to compromise on quality.
Asus Zenfone 2 Front Facing Camera
Asus Zenfone 2 Back Camera Indoors
Asus Zenfone 2 Back Camera Outdoors
Asus Zenfone 2 Back Camera Outdoors HDR
Battery Life
The Asus Zenfone 2 comes with a non-user removable 3000 mAh of battery. And trust me it gets very difficult to kill it in one day. Even with heavy usage I was easily able to get through a day and still left with some charge for the next day to begin with. If you are using the power saver mode and using the device concisely then it should last you over 2 days or so. But considering the fact that no one is going to buy a device with this specification to use it as a feature phone, I didn’t test that part in much detailed. But just in case if you are in need then surely you can rely on the Zenfone 2 to be an absolute road warrior.
Build Quality
The Asus Zenfone 2 is made entirely out of plastic, but I can tell you that it is some very high-quality plastic. it feels very quite nice in hand, and gives a perception matte or rubber finish when it comes to touch. But in terms of visual, it looks like the back panel has a brushed aluminum finish. And no one can tell that it is made out of plastic and not metal, unless and until someone touches it and inspects it from a close distance. Since the back looks like a brushed aluminum back, it reflects light beautifully.
Verdict
The Asus Zenfone 2 is a very well built phone with the industry first 4 GB RAM. That just not only makes headlines but also works like a champ. No matter what, you can literally run everything on the Asus Zenfone 2 and still you’ll be having more than enough RAM left to work with some other application in the background. The processor is also something that compliments this 4GB RAM.
Also make sure to check out our full In-Depth video review of the Asus Zenfone 2 on YouTube – click here
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