Asus Zenfone 3 Max ZC553KL preview: A closer look

Introduction

A few months back, Asus announced its Zenfone 3 range. It's a collection of several devices, with specs ranging from affordable to high-end devices such as the Zenfone 3 Deluxe and the Zenfone 3 Ultra. The Zenfone 3 Max is at the bottom end of this spectrum. With this phone, the focus on features and performance has been dialed down in favor of battery life. Like the previous phone in the Max series, the Zenfone 3 Max features a massive battery pack designed to get through an entire day of intensive use or even two.

Having said that, its specs list is not exactly barebones, and there is enough to talk about here besides the enormous 4100mAh battery. Among the most notable features stand out the 5.5-inch 1080p display, the 16 megapixel rear camera, and the fingerprint sensor.

Zenfone 3 Max (ZC553KL) key features

• 5.5-inch 1920 x 1080 resolution IPS LCD; 2.5D glass
• Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 SoC; 1.4GHz octa-core Cortex-A53 CPU; Adreno 505 GPU
• 32GB eMCP storage with 3GB LPDDR3 RAM; expandable with microSD
• 16 megapixel rear camera; f2.0 aperture; laser + phase detection autofocus; dual LED flash; 1080p video recording with 3-axis EIS
• 8 megapixel front camera; f2.2 aperture
• FM radio
• Dual SIM dual standby (nano+micro hybrid), 4G LTE with VoLTE
• Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n; Bluetooth 4.1; GPS/GLONASS/BeiDou
• microUSB connector; 3.5mm headphone jack
• 4,100mAh battery with reverse charging
• Android 6.0 Marshmallow with ZenUI 3.0

As you can tell from the specifications, we have the larger Zenfone 3 Max (ZC553KL) model with us. There is also a smaller 5.2-inch version of the phone with a smaller, lower resolution display, MediaTek processor, lower resolution cameras, and lower memory and storage but we will be taking a look at it at a later date.

Coming back to the one we have at hand, the Zenfone 3 Max has some interesting features, but the most important one is the 4100mAh battery. While the size alone is impressive, like the previous Max models, Asus also lets you use the phone to charge other devices. There is an OTG adapter provided with the phone that lets you connect other devices over a Type-A connector and charge them. With so much power at your disposal, you can easily choose to spare a little.

Apart from that, the specs look pretty much in-line with budget smartphone devices. The closest competitor to the Zenfone 3 Max one can think of is the Xiaomi Redmi Note 3. Like the Zenfone 3 Max, the Redmi Note 3 also has an impressively large battery but the ace up its sleeve is the Snapdragon 650 processor, which is light years ahead of the Zenfone 3 Max' Snapdragon 430. Just how much of a difference this makes, is something we intend to find out on the following pages.