Asus Zenfone 6 hands-on review

Introduction

Asus just announced the Zenfone 6 - the latest in a line that was massively successful a few years ago (the Zenfone 2 was one of the highlights of 2015), but somehow couldn't keep that mainstream appeal long-term. But if any phone will help rekindle that flame, it's this one.

We got to spend a couple of days with the Zenfone 6 (ZS630KL for those who enjoy Asus' naming nomenclature) prior to the announcement, and we've already managed to gather quite a few intriguing bits about it to share here.

We opened with the most obvious one in the clip above - the Zenfone 6 has a dual camera that sits on a motorized platform which rotates 180 degrees and flips the main camera over to take selfies. There's more to it, of course, and we'll go over it in more detail on the following pages.

Asus says the swivel mechanism wasn't meant to be the star of the show, but ended up being a consequence of their push to simply make a good phone for power users. That meant a bezelless display that's as big as comfortably possible, the latest internals for smooth performance, a lot of battery, and good cameras. It just so happened the Zenfone 6's development that this was the only right way.

Speaking of internals, have a quick look at the sheet below, before we move on.

Asus Zenfone 6 specs

• Body: Aluminum frame, Gorilla Glass back, 159.1x75.4x9.2mm, 190g; Midnight Black and Twilight Silver color schemes.
• Display: 6.4" IPS LCD, 1080x2340px, 19.5:9 aspect ratio, 403ppi, Gorilla Glass 6.
• Camera: Motorized rotating dual camera assembly. Main module: 48MP, 1/2.0" SONY IMX586 Quad Bayer sensor, f/1.79 aperture, 79-degree FOV (26mm equiv. focal length), laser/PDAF. Ultra wide module: 13MP, f/2.4 aperture, 125-degree FOV (11mm equiv. focal length), fixed focus. Dual LED flash.
• Video recording: Up to 4K 2160p@60fps with EIS on the main cam, up to 4K@30fps with EIS on the ultra wide, slow-motion up to 1080p@240fps or 720p@480fps (only on the main cam).
• OS/Software: Android 9.0 Pie, ZenUI 6.
• Chipset: Snapdragon 855 (7nm): octa-core CPU (1x2.8GHz & 3x2.4GHz Kryo Gold & 4x1.7GHz Kryo 485 Silver); Adreno 640 GPU.
• Memory: Up to 8GB RAM, up to 256GB UFS 2.1 storage, dedicated microSD card slot.
• Battery: 5,000mAh capacity, 18W QuickCharge 4.0 fast charging, 10W reverse charging.
• Connectivity: Dual-SIM; LTE-A, 6-Band carrier aggregation, Cat.18 (1.2Gbps/150Mbps); Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac/ax MU-MIMO; GPS, GLONASS, Beidou, Galileo; NFC; Bluetooth 5.0; FM radio. USB Type-C, 3.5mm jack.
• Misc: Rear-mounted capacitive fingerprint sensor, stereo speakers.

It's a remarkable set of features beyond the main stuff too - the Zenfone 6 comes with a headphone jack, a dedicated microSD slot, an FM radio receiver, and stereo speakers. If only there was an IR emitter, we hear you sigh - oh, well, that's missing.

Let's move on to the hands-on area, where we'll get to see how the Zenfone 6 does beyond the paper and into the real world.