Asus Zenfone 3S Max review: Juiced-up

Performance

With a MediaTek MT6750 under the hood, we never expected jaw-dropping performance. And after using the Zenfone 3s Max for some time the mediocre chipset becomes quite evident.

AIDA64 system readout

Except in some apps the phone consistently feels sluggish. Opening apps has a bit of delay and scrolling can get stuttery at times. The 3GB RAM does help with multi-tasking and even when you are running two apps side by side but there's only so much the RAM can do when the CPU is the bottleneck. The single-core performance on MediaTek chipsets continues to be embarrassing even compared to the low-end Qualcomm chips and this shows in apps that are still by and large single-threaded.

GeekBench 4 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4
  4456
• Asus Zenfone 3 ZE552KL
  4053
• Lenovo P2
  2965
• ASUS ZenFone 3S Max ZC521TL
  2441
• Meizu m5
  2428
• Asus ZenFone 3 Max ZC553KL
  2040
• Huawei Honor 5X
  2035
• Lenovo K6 Note
  2027

GeekBench 4 (single-core)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4
  1546
• Asus Zenfone 3 ZE552KL
  843
• Lenovo P2
  840
• Asus ZenFone 3 Max ZC553KL
  641
• Lenovo K6 Note
  635
• Huawei Honor 5X
  616
• ASUS ZenFone 3S Max ZC521TL
  592
• Meizu m5
  592

The GPU performance too is disappointing but the saving grace here is the 720p resolution, which helps make up for the lack of sheer GPU power. Most of the games we tried ran surprisingly well; better than they would on Snapdragon 430 devices with 1080p screens.

AnTuTu 6

Higher is better

• LeEco Le Max 2
  129461
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4
  85162
• Vivo V3Max
  76170
• Lenovo P2
  63493
• Asus Zenfone 3 ZE552KL
  63358
• Huawei P9 Lite
  52768
• Oppo F1 Plus
  51299
• Lenovo Moto G4
  46949
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (Helio X10)
  45474
• Lenovo K6 Note
  44972
• Meizu m3 note
  44898
• Asus ZenFone 3 Max ZC553KL
  43957
• Meizu m5
  40831
• ASUS ZenFone 3S Max ZC521TL
  39439
• Huawei Honor 5X
  35469
• Samsung Galaxy J5 (2016)
  27487
• Asus Zenfone Max ZC550KL
  25778

Basemark OS 2.0

Higher is better

• LeEco Le Max 2
  2063
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4
  1728
• Huawei P9 Lite
  1242
• Lenovo P2
  1235
• Oppo F1 Plus
  1092
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (Helio X10)
  1018
• Huawei Honor 5X
  874
• Meizu m3 note
  852
• ASUS ZenFone 3S Max ZC521TL
  830
• Asus Zenfone Max ZC550KL
  624
• Samsung Galaxy J5 (2016)
  532
• Lenovo Moto G4
  341
• Asus ZenFone 3 Max ZC553KL
  295
• Lenovo K6 Note
  288

Other aspects of the performance too weren't impressive. The phone struggles with 720p60 YouTube videos, with consistently dropped frames. It may have something to do with the player loading the WebM version of the video instead of the more common MP4, which isn't hardware accelerated, but there is nothing that the users can do about it at their end and is entirely up to YouTube to decide which version to serve and it's possible the YouTube app was having a hard time detecting the chipset on the phone and was serving the wrong version of the video. 30fps videos, however, worked fine.

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• LeEco Le Max 2
  44
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4
  15
• Vivo V3Max
  14
• Asus Zenfone 3 ZE552KL
  9.9
• Lenovo P2
  9.8
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (Helio X10)
  8.5
• Huawei P9 Lite
  7.8
• Oppo F1 Plus
  7
• Lenovo K6 Note
  7
• Asus ZenFone 3 Max ZC553KL
  6.9
• Lenovo Moto G4
  6.5
• Huawei Honor 5X
  5.6
• Meizu m3 note
  5.4
• ASUS ZenFone 3S Max ZC521TL
  5.3
• Meizu m5
  5.2
• Asus Zenfone Max ZC550KL
  1.8
• Samsung Galaxy J5 (2016)
  1.8

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

• LeEco Le Max 2
  28
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4
  15
• Vivo V3Max
  14
• ASUS ZenFone 3S Max ZC521TL
  11
• Lenovo P2
  10
• Meizu m5
  10
• Asus Zenfone 3 ZE552KL
  9.7
• Huawei P9 Lite
  8.3
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (Helio X10)
  7.9
• Oppo F1 Plus
  7
• Lenovo K6 Note
  7
• Asus ZenFone 3 Max ZC553KL
  6.9
• Lenovo Moto G4
  6.8
• Huawei Honor 5X
  6.1
• Meizu m3 note
  5.4
• Asus Zenfone Max ZC550KL
  3.9
• Samsung Galaxy J5 (2016)
  3.8

GFX 3.1 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• LeEco Le Max 2
  28
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4
  9.5
• Vivo V3Max
  9.4
• Asus Zenfone 3 ZE552KL
  6.2
• Lenovo P2
  6.2
• Huawei P9 Lite
  4.6
• Asus ZenFone 3 Max ZC553KL
  4.4
• Lenovo K6 Note
  4.4
• Lenovo Moto G4
  4.2
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (Helio X10)
  4
• ASUS ZenFone 3S Max ZC521TL
  3.5
• Meizu m5
  3.4
• Oppo F1 Plus
  3.3
• Meizu m3 note
  2.5

GFX 3.1 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

• LeEco Le Max 2
  15
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4
  9.4
• Vivo V3Max
  9.1
• ASUS ZenFone 3S Max ZC521TL
  8.7
• Meizu m5
  7.9
• Lenovo P2
  6.7
• Asus Zenfone 3 ZE552KL
  6.1
• Huawei P9 Lite
  4.9
• Lenovo Moto G4
  4.5
• Asus ZenFone 3 Max ZC553KL
  4.4
• Lenovo K6 Note
  4.4
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (Helio X10)
  3.9
• Oppo F1 Plus
  3.3
• Meizu m3 note
  2.5

GFX 3.1 Car scene (offscreen)

Higher is better

• LeEco Le Max 2
  16
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4
  5.4
• Asus Zenfone 3 ZE552KL
  3.4
• Lenovo P2
  3.4
• Huawei P9 Lite
  2.8
• Lenovo Moto G4
  2.6
• Lenovo K6 Note
  2.5
• Asus ZenFone 3 Max ZC553KL
  2.4
• ASUS ZenFone 3S Max ZC521TL
  1.9
• Meizu m5
  1.8

GFX 3.1 Car scene (onscreen)

Higher is better

• LeEco Le Max 2
  8.8
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4
  5.4
• ASUS ZenFone 3S Max ZC521TL
  4.3
• Lenovo P2
  3.7
• Meizu m5
  3.7
• Asus Zenfone 3 ZE552KL
  3.4
• Huawei P9 Lite
  3
• Lenovo Moto G4
  2.8
• Asus ZenFone 3 Max ZC553KL
  2.4
• Lenovo K6 Note
  2.4

Audio quality was also not impressive. While the headphone audio is fine, the 5-magnet mono loudspeaker tends to get very shrieky at the last few notches. Considering that it does get fairly loud means we actively tried not to max out the volume on this phone to avoid the unpleasant sound.

Basemark X

Higher is better

• LeEco Le Max 2
  33874
• Vivo V3Max
  15430
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4
  13666
• Lenovo P2
  10472
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (Helio X10)
  8540
• Huawei P9 Lite
  7681
• Asus ZenFone 3 Max ZC553KL
  7510
• Lenovo K6 Note
  7480
• Lenovo Moto G4
  6932
• Oppo F1 Plus
  6204
• Huawei Honor 5X
  5009
• ASUS ZenFone 3S Max ZC521TL
  4991
• Meizu m5
  4767
• Meizu m3 note
  4567
• Samsung Galaxy J5 (2016)
  2180
• Asus Zenfone Max ZC550KL
  1844

The fingerprint sensor was also bit of a hit or miss at times, with it failing to recognize fingers occasionally, especially when used at odd angles. The problem could be a result of the initiation process where you add your prints, where it doesn't let you properly scan parts of your fingers and then those areas are never really stored on the phone for it to recognize later. The tips of index fingers, for example, aren't scanned properly while saving them so they are never recognized later when you try to unlock the phone. It seems like a small detail but it adds up to the general level of frustration with the device.