Asus at Computex 2016 announced Zenfone 3 series smartphones Zenfone 3, Zenfone 3 Deluxe and Zenfone 3 Ultra. Zenfone 3 is a Successor to Last year Zenfone 2.Asus Zenfone 3 comes in two Variant One with 5.2-inch Display with 3GB of RAM ZE520KL and 5.5-inch ZE552KL with 4GB of RAM. We have Asus Zenfone 3 with 4GB RAM and 64GB of internal storage priced at Rs 27,999 in India.Let’s find out if it is worth a price tag in our full review


Design & Display

On Design Asus Zenfone 3 comes with Glass on back and front with metal edges on a side which is similar to Galaxy S7 series. Antenna bands have been a move to top and bottom of the phone. On the front we have a 8 MP front-facing camera sensors, earpiece and notification LED. Below the display, there are three Capacitive buttons which are not  Backlit keys There is a USB Type C port at the bottom, Speaker along with a microphone. On the top, the phone has a 3.5mm audio jack. Volume rockers and the power button is on right side of the phone which is changed as compared to other Asus smartphones. Coming to left we have SIM card slot device comes with Hybrid SIM  supports which means One SIM with MicroSD card or  Dual SIM card support. Back is of Glass and there is Gorilla Glass protection we have a 16MP rear camera with LED Flash and Fingerprint Scanner below the camera module which is first in Zenfone series smartphones. Below we have Asus branding, an Overall design of Zenfone 3 looks great to have to say Zenfone 3 is the best-looking smartphone made by Asus yet. With a use of Glass Zenfone, 3 is a Slippery phone similar to Galaxy S7 and Mi5. It is recommended to use case covers we have been using a device for more than 10 days now haven’t noticed any scratch, yes the phone is a fingerprint magnet. Asus Zenfone measures 152.59 x 77.38 x 7.69 mm and Weight 155 g it is not easy to use Zenfone 3 in a single hand as said above it is one of the slippery phone better to use both in hands for a better grip.

Zenfone 3 feature a 5.5-inch FHD(1920 x 1080) IPS display with 2.5D Curved Corning Gorilla Glass and creates a pixel density of 401 PPI. viewing angles is good in outdoor in direct sunlight conditions.

Performance

Asus Zenfone 3 is Powered by a 2.0GHz Octa-Core Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 Processor with Adreno 506 GPU coupled with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage out of which 54GB is available for user device also supports MicroSD card up to 2TB. Zenfone 3 uses a Snapdragon 625 Processor which performed well in day to day task. we did notice some lag while playing high-end graphics games. Phone did not get heat up while testing Overall the performance of Asus Zenfone 3 is good, not great compared to other smartphones available in this price range with  Snapdragon 820 SoC which is more powerful. Asus Zenfone 3 performed well in our Benchmark test On AnTuTu Benchmark phone scores 62390 points, Geekbench 3 scores 833 on a single core and 4052 on Multicore.

Camera


Coming to Camera  Zenfone 3 comes with a 16MP rear camera and 8MP front camera. Asus has been talking a lot about Zenfone 3 camera. On the rear, there is a 16MP camera Sony IMX298 sensor with a dual-tone LED Flash, PDAF, Laser AF and continuous AF and has f/2.0 aperture, 6P Largan lens, and 4 axis OIS. The phone also comes with camera modes such as Back Light (HDR) Mode ,Low Light Mode ,Manual Mode (for DSLR-like camera detail settings) ,Real Time Beautification Mode,Super Resolution Mode (for up to 4X resolution photos),Night Mode,Depth of Field Mode,Photo Effect Mode,Panorama,GIF Animation Mode,Panorama Selfie Mode,Miniature Mode, Time Rewind Mode Smart Remove Mode,All Smiles Mode,Slow Motion Mode, Time Lapse Mode. All modes have been explained in this post you can check here . Zenfone 3 can also record 4K videos which provide good resolution videos. On the front, there is 8MP Camera with f/2.0 aperture which performance good in daylight, as well as low-light Asus, has also included modes for the front camera like Low Light Mode, Real Time Beautification Mode, GIF Animation Mode, Panorama Selfie Mode.  However, under low light conditions, photos touched up by Beautification mode will be the best for Facebook, Instagram .camera performance is good in Both day as well low light conditions.Overall camera performance in daylight condition was top notch images produces good detail and color camera samples captured in extremely low light was not up to mark in Auto mode with the use of manual mode and low light mode we can capture good images, At the price point it is available offers good camera experience.

Camera modes

Software

Asus Zenfone 3 comes with Android 6.0.1  marshmallow with Asus own ZenUI 3.0 on top of it. Asus has removed some preloaded apps in marshmallow, the interface makes the phone easy to use and even gives a large number of customization options. still, there are some apps which are not used most of the time we can uninstall the apps or disable it. Asus has include power & Boost app which clears the memory which is not used also there is a Mobile manager app which can Scan your phone or remove unwanted files and more we still have some old Asus features like the option to change the themes. Double tap to wake up. The phone has an Easy Mode, which removes most of the UI elements and makes the phone easier to use with the help of big icons and simple layout. You can choose which apps and widgets to add on the home screen.



Asus also lets you select the home screen options, the menu layout, and gives a number of themes, wallpapers, scroll effects, and icon packs when you long-press the home screen.  The phone comes with an Auto switch to Ultra-saving mode. there is an app call ZenUI Movie app using which you can create Mini movie from the photos or videos available in the gallery. One hand mode, the double tap to wake up. It also comes with a theme engine so you can customize the look and feel of Android on despite the heavy customization the interface feels very very responsive, which is a great thing. You don’t ever get the feeling that the heavily customized interface is bogging down the performance of the phone .software performance is fast and responsive we didn’t face any lag or apps closing issue overall software has been improved lot it will be good if Asus can remove unwanted app which comes preloaded

Asus Zenfone 3 comes with Fingerprint Scanner on rear which is in rectangle shape compared to Square and circular as found in other phones, Fingerprint Scanner fast and Quick it works most of time without any issue can be also used to Answer calls, Click photos, Double tap on Fingerprint Scanner to launch camera app

Connectivity and Battery

On Connectivity device include 4G VoLTE Bluetooth, Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n/ac, USB Type C ,GPS/A-GPS, and Glonass. Dual SIM device supports Hybrid SIM and MicroSD card up to 2TB. Speaker output on Zenfone 3 is clear when volume is full but when Volume is little bit low sound is less . Speaker output could have been better output via headphone jack was loud and clear ,Sound on calls there was no issue device supports VoLTE which works fine with Reliance Jio calls also worked for us without any issue both SIM support 4G SIM. Coming to Battery Asus Zenfone 3 is packed by a 3000mAh Battery which is able to deliver 12-14 hours of Battery life  with 5-5.5 hours of SOT with use like Dual SIM , Listening music, Using social networks, Gmail, calls, gaming and more while on Normal use with on WiFi and Single SIM we got battery backup of close to One day.there is also power saving mode. It takes close to 2 hours to charge from 2-100%.

Asus Zenfone 3 with 3GB RAM is Priced at Rs 21,999 and 4GB RAM is priced at Rs 27,999. It offers Good design, Camera, Build, Good battery life, the performance of a device is good but at the price point it is available there are other options with better specs such as Mi5 and OnePlus 3. If someone looking for a Good design and camera phone then this could be the best buy. Price is on higher side and Zen UI needs some improvement apart from this Overall Asus Zenfone 3 is Well built smartphone

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