Asus Zenfone 3 ZE552KL was launched around two months ago in Delhi since then I have been using the phone. Now at first glance, people call the phone overpriced, Even I thought the same at the event, but I didn’t comment anywhere as you can’t judge a book by it’s cover. Now I have been using the phone for quite some time, and now I feel I have the right to share my experience with you tell you if it’s worth your money.
Build Quality & Design
The design of the phone is, love it or hate it. Initially, I didn’t like how the phone looks from back as there aren’t any single shape, the mix of circles, squares, rectangles. But daily some or the other person used to compliment about the phone saying it looks good. Every time a person used to say that, I tend to like the design of the phone a bit more, So after two months you can guess how much I like the design this phone. To describe it in a single word, It is beautiful. The glass on the back is 2.5D scratch resistant glass which bends in the corners, Along with that circular glass pattern makes the phone look like a precious piece of diamond. This should have made the phone a fingerprint magnet, but I don’t know how it is not, You can hardly see any fingerprint. Maybe that is because my phone is white.
With glass comes slipperiness and damn this phone is a hell lot slippery. If you are going to use it without a case then make sure to place it on an even flat surface, Also if you ride a two wheeler then be extra conscious, It may fall. It is so slippery that sometimes it becomes a major problem.
The front of the phone has the same glass, but this time, Asus got rid of that wide chin and just have the buttons but sadly this time too it doesn’t come with back-lighting :/ Like seriously, Why? I would have preferred on-screen buttons than these buttons which you can’t even see in the dark.
Display
Zenfone 3 has a full HD display. I am a display sucker, and even though the display is great with good levels of saturation, I would have liked a Quad-HD display. If we see the online market, there are several phone priced lower than ZF3 but still have a Quad-HD display, but the thing is even in offline markets there are phones with Quad-HD displays at the same price if not lower(Samsung Galaxy S6). Anyways the 1080p display of Asus Zenfone 3 is much better than any other display, yes better than the display of OnePlus 3.
Call Quality
Usually, with glass and metal phones, the cell reception isn’t that great, but this is not the case with Zenfone 3. The cell reception in my room is pretty low, and only a handful of phones can catch good signals. ZF3 is one of them, and I was able to speak clearly with the other party from my room sitting on my couch B|.
Camera
I would rate the camera of the phone 4 out of 5; It is clearly not the best camera phone in this range. There is a lot of grains in the pictures shot inside. Even with decent lighting, you can see a lot of grains. You can see the real power of the camera once you go outside of your house. The photos are sharp, good accuracy and a little over saturated. I am attaching a few images.
Performance
Zenfone 3 comes with Snapdragon 625 processor and 4GB of RAM. Snapdragon 625 is a decent processor and can handle any task you throw at it. This phone is not a flagship of Asus, so it does not carries say SD820. Asus is trying to cater normal consumers from this phone and not some raw power hungry dude :p. I have played every high-end game on this phone, and it ran the same smoothly. Performance is measured by benchmarks, so here are the results of benchmark tests I did with Zenfone 3 ZE552KL.
Audio
The speakers on the Zenfone 3 are on the bottom which is a great upgrade then the back facing speakers which were found on previous zenfones. The speakers are loud enough and clear as well. You won’t be disappointed by them :). Tn the box you also get a pair of earphones which are not any random earphones, but Asus’s Zen Ears. They are the best earphones I have got with any phone.
Battery
Before using the Zenfone 3, I was using OnePlus 3, and even though Dash charging is freaking fast, the terrible battery life was disappointing. From the day I have switched to Zenfone 3, I no more take my charger along with me to college. The battery life on this phone is really good. You can easily get through 2 days if you are an average user. With my heavy usage(gaming, watching videos, using 4G, on wifi if not using 4G and some calling) I can get a full day of battery backup. As you can see from the screenshots below, I got a screen on time of 8hrs which is stunning for a device with this form factor.
OS
The Zenfone 3 comes with a customizable Zen UI. It is the cleanest Zen UI I have seen till now; it carries the same good old features which were in the previous version of Zen UI but with a lot less of bloat. The UI is smooth, and you won’t face any hiccups. It is based on Android Marshmallow and doesn’t expect Android Nougat anytime soon.
Fingerprint Scanner
The Fingerprint scanner I based on the back of the phone. It is rectangular and pretty different than what we have seen on other phones. However it works well. Ninty percent of the time, It catches my finger in the first try.
Why should you buy it?
You should buy this phone if you want a good looking phone which will never hang/ lag at any task you throw at it. You should buy this phone if you want to capture decent images and don’t mind a bit of grain in indoor pictures. You should also buy this phone if you want a phone with awesome battery life and don’t want to carry a charger all the time.
Why shouldn’t you buy it?
You shouldn’t buy it if you want a phone with the best camera ever or if you want serious raw power.