Asus Zenfone 2 review: A balancing act

14 April, 2015
World domination was surely on the mind of at least one top exec over at Asus headquarters, when the crew gathered to outline the Zenfone 2 game plan. The smartphone will be sold globally...

Sort by:

  • f
  • first smartfone wait
  • 9Dq
  • 03 May 2015

I got my 2 gb 551ml zenfone, nice service by flipkart............... Feeling lucky.................. Tentative date was 9th may......... I received it in jaysingpur, sangali.
It looks very nice, just go for it..........

    • D
    • AnonD-390851
    • nCV
    • 02 May 2015

    Marcel, 01 May 2015that trolling was weak and you should feel weak :)Okay. :|

      • M
      • Marcel
      • NCw
      • 01 May 2015

      AnonD-390851, 30 Apr 2015Should I buy the Intel CPU version or should I wait for the... morethat trolling was weak and you should feel weak :)

        • d
        • dexter
        • 7tG
        • 01 May 2015

        Marcel, 30 Apr 2015Both of the 551ML phones have a 5.5" screen with 1080p... moreThanks for taking out time to reply,Marcel.

        I am planning to opt for ZF2 - 551ML(4gb) over xperia Z1,LG G2 and HTC 826.I hope ZF2 is worth it.

        Can you comment on the camera quality of above phones,particularly how ZF2 performs in comparison to these devices.

          • D
          • AnonD-390851
          • nCV
          • 30 Apr 2015

          Should I buy the Intel CPU version or should I wait for the Qualcomm one?

            • M
            • Marcel
            • NCw
            • 30 Apr 2015

            dexter, 29 Apr 2015Which one should id more preferrable ze551ml - 4gb ram,32gb... moreBoth of the 551ML phones have a 5.5" screen with 1080p resolution. Having more RAM and more storage on the phone on one should not change the battery drain by much, other than the 4GB RAM model able to have more applications open at the same time, each using some battery time.

            By contrast, the 550ML has a 5.5" but 720p resolution and therefore uses noticeably less battery power.

            For the 551ML, a day's use is pretty much guaranteed, especially if you use headphones for listening to the music (powering the speaker uses more battery). You can check the review itself where they talk about how long some types of application use take to drain the battery, and judge from there.

              • T
              • T.
              • jIN
              • 30 Apr 2015

              Whoa, those sample pictures look way, way, WAY over-sharpened. Some sharpening is good, as it makes a slightly blurry picture seem less so, but that is so over the top that it looks cartoonish... Hopefully this can be fixed in either a new patch or a custom ROM/camera app?

              Overall, a good review and I'm looking forward to seeing how the 2.3ghz CPU works compared to the competition.

                • D
                • AnonD-385027
                • XNc
                • 30 Apr 2015

                Before recommending Oneplus One please consider its pathetic after sales service & serious touch screen issue. After 2 or 3 months of usage almost every oneplus one is facing touchscreen issue. Moreover if u manage to get serviced the phone by keeping the phone in service center for more than 60 days,the touchscreen issue still exist & will show its presence after some days. For more information please visit Official Oneplus India forum.

                  • d
                  • dexter
                  • bJg
                  • 29 Apr 2015

                  Quantify, 27 Apr 20151) The relative quality of the camera is dependent on the o... moreWhich one should id more preferrable ze551ml - 4gb ram,32gb($318) inter OR ze551ml - 2gb ram,16gb($240) inter.

                  I am more concerned about the battery life between the two,since the 4gb ZF is more powerful hence will soak more battery.I am expecting almost a days battery life from my phone.

                  My usage : I do a lot of browsing and listen to music at the same time.Also I like to use different launchers(nova,next etc) to give a diff look and feel to my UI.

                  I play heavy games,but not very often.

                  Please suggest.

                    • D
                    • AnonD-390851
                    • nCV
                    • 29 Apr 2015

                    Anonymous, 26 Apr 2015battery is very poor i only managed to get 3hours for gaming.It's because Lollipop 5.0. It's buggy. :|

                      • S
                      • Sgtpepper
                      • Bw@
                      • 27 Apr 2015

                      Would u choose zenfone 2 4gb or Alcatel idol 3??

                        zf2waiter, 26 Apr 2015Hi Quantify 1)Can you tell me if the camera in ZF2 is Good... more1) The relative quality of the camera is dependent on the other cameras in the comparison set. It is not as good as the camera in a Galaxy S6 or LG G3...There is no OIS, and no laser-aided focus. However, compared to other 13MP, Non-OIS sensors, it is quite good. I've done comparisons on other sites against the HTC Desire EYE and the Moto X 2nd Gen, and the ZF2 is better IMHO.

                        There are certainly software limitations and hardware limitations. Ultimately, the software limitations can be overcome (and the recent update seems to have improved things significantly), but I think the sensor itself is probably not as good as some of the other 13MP sensors, and generates a bit more noise than they do. I am NOT an engineer, this is just my hypothesis.

                        Screen brightness is fine. No issues in real life.

                          • ?
                          • Anonymous
                          • vxr
                          • 26 Apr 2015

                          battery is very poor i only managed to get 3hours for gaming.

                            • Q
                            • Quantify
                            • Ibx
                            • 26 Apr 2015

                            wavooyasir, 26 Apr 2015I bought this one very nice phone but camera very worst ple... moreThe camera is quite good actually. Be sure you're using the latest update, and you may get preferable results with google camera or fv-5. I'm still not enthralled with the video, but stills are competitive with any other non ois 13mp device.

                              • z
                              • zf2waiter
                              • uuC
                              • 26 Apr 2015

                              Quantify, 17 Apr 2015Check out examples linked to here in the comments. Answer:... moreHi Quantify
                              1)Can you tell me if the camera in ZF2 is Good or Average or Bad?Can the photos be viewed on a monitor or TV screen?
                              2)If the photos are not good,is this comparision being made against flagship phones(how about camera comparision between HTC 826 and ZF2).
                              3)Is the IS only the problem in s/w or the camera lens is not par.If it is the IS,can a Upgrade fix it?
                              4)From the review it seems that the phone doesn't have a good Screen brightness,is it that bad (can you give some real life scenario's)?

                                • w
                                • wavooyasir
                                • tdx
                                • 26 Apr 2015

                                I bought this one very nice phone but camera very worst please don't buy

                                  • D
                                  • AnonD-386800
                                  • 492
                                  • 20 Apr 2015

                                  Marcel, 17 Apr 2015I agree it is difficult to tell precisely what the power ba... moreI've looked up the specific version of Google
                                  Play Services this phone has (470) and I manually updated it from 7.0.99 (1809217-470) to the at presetly new 7.3.27 (1857062-470) I also updated the Google Play store to the latest 5.4.12. I have done a lot of things, but I really feel updating these two applications has really helped with battery drain while you are not using the phone. In terms of Power saver, I have the phone set to Optimized mode. Saturday night I went to ~8 hours later the battery had drained to 95%. I'm really happy with losing 5% battery over the course of 8 hours of standby with Cellular and WiFi enabled. There is yet another Google Play Services update that was released over the weekend I will update to. As this review stated, usage of web browsing etc does pull down some of the battery.

                                    • D
                                    • AnonD-269027
                                    • 7tL
                                    • 20 Apr 2015

                                    I m planning a new phone i m impreess one plus one but asus zenphone2 4gb rAm ..... I love this phone but i m confused pixel master camra .... Please detail others camra on this price segment

                                      • ?
                                      • Anonymous
                                      • H4q
                                      • 18 Apr 2015

                                      Hi Quantify
                                      1)Can you tell me if the camera in ZF2 is Good or Average or Bad?Can the photos be viewed on a monitor or TV screen?
                                      2)If the photos are not good,is this comparision being made against flagship phones(how about camera comparision between HTC 826 and ZF2).
                                      3)Is the IS only the problem in s/w or the camera lens is not par.If it is the IS,can a Upgrade fix it?
                                      4)From the review it seems that the phone doesn't have a good Screen brightness,is it that bad (can you give some real life scenario's)?

                                        • D
                                        • AnonD-323767
                                        • u{J
                                        • 18 Apr 2015

                                        I am using zenfone 5 cg500 it has been famous with my friends due to its design and camera . Why the camera in zenfone 2 degraded.. ? ..
                                        everything is gr8 in zenfone 2 .
                                        gr8 battery compared to ZenFone 5 even today many were happy and satisfied with ZenFone 5 even with poor battery . Why ZenFone2 will lag ?