With the start of CES, we will now see lot of new devices. Manufacturers work hard year round so that they can use this platform to show off their best. This time Asus announced two new Zenfone devices. They have been trying to make a name in the smartphone market for a while now and the Zenfone series has been quite a success. They started competing in the budget segment and gave tough fight to many players in this category. Especially the Zenfone 4 and Zenfone 5 were received well by masses.
This time they are making an attempt at the higher end of the smartphone tree. So they have come up with the Zenfone 2 and Zenfone Zoom. The Zenfone 2 comes with a large 5.5 inch full HD display and an impressive design. It runs a 64 bit Intel chipset with 2.3 GHz processor and comes with a whopping 4 GB of RAM which is the first on a smartphone. It comes with an impressive camera as well and all that is expected at a starting price of $199.
While the Zenfone 2 is not much of an innovation, its price would do the job. If you are looking for innovation, you need to take a look at the Zenfone Zoom. It looks pretty much like the Lumia 1020 on the rear but that is because it has got the large camera ring. Otherwise it is very different in terms of design. As the name suggests, they are focussing on the imaging capabilities of this device. It has got a camera lens with 3x optical zoom. While optical zoom on a mobile phone isn’t new, managing to squeeze in the entire assembly in such a slim device is really innovative.
Design
The Zenfone Zoom is a large device due to the display size. It has got a 5.5 inch display which takes its size up but it has been designed well. The camera module sticks out a bit but even with that, it isn’t very fat. In fact even at its thickest, the device is just over 11 mm thick. This is actually very impressive considering the fact that the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom is over 2 cm thick in the name of optical zoom. So despite the optical zoom, this one will make for a very practical device good enough for everyday use.
The design has some elements from the previous generation Asus Zenfone devices like the concentric circle design below the display and the capacitive keys. It is more rounded near the edges. While it has dimensions similar to the Zenfone 2, the back isn’t curved because of the camera module. Instead it curves near the edges and merges nicely into the front. The device is very heavy and would require you to be cautious while handling for this reason.
Display
The Zenfone Zoom comes with the same display as the Zenfone 2. The display measures 5.5 inches in size and has a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. This resolution on the device will give it a pixel density of 403 pixels per inch which is pretty good. The display is an IPS panel which means that it offers excellent brightness and with good colour replication. It also offers excellent viewing angles and the size would be great to watch videos on. You can also use it to read your eBooks or play games and it will all look good here. The display is protected by Gorilla Glass 3.
Hardware
The Zenfone Zoom shares the hardware with the Zenfone 2 which means that it has got the powerful 64 bit Intel chipset. The quad core processor runs at a maximum clock speed of 2.3 GHz. It gets the PowerVR G6430 GPU and 4 GB of RAM. This is an insanely powerful hardware and the Zenfone Zoom will be one of the very first devices to come with 4 GB of RAM. It gets storage options ranging from 16 GB to 128 GB and also comes with micro SD card slot supporting up to 64 GB storage. The device supports various connectivity options including support for LTE. With hardware this powerful, it is going to be a power hungry device and to handle that, it has got 3000 mAh battery.
Software
Asus did a good job with the operating system on the Zenfone devices and newer tablets. The Zen UI is neat and offers wide range of customisation options. The Zenfone Zoom comes with the Zen UI on top of android 5.0 lollipop. On this, many of the stock android apps have been replaced in favour of their counterparts by Asus. Many of these apps offer improved features and usability as compared to stock android. While the software is good, there are lot of apps that you get preinstalled and are pretty useless for most people.
Camera
Now this is the highlight of this new device. It has got a 13 megapixel primary camera with 3x optical zoom. The camera also offers optical image stabilisation to keep the blur in check. The camera also gets laser auto focus like we saw on LG G3 earlier. This allows for clicking a picture quickly and the camera manages crystal clear images with perfect focus every time. The camera has a 13 megapixel sensor allowing for high resolution images from the primary camera.
For the zoom mechanism, it has got a 10 lens assembly in the primary camera. The lens assembly sits flat inside the phone so the lens doesn’t stick out when zooming in or out. The front lenses handle the zooming bit while the ones followed by it handle focus and image stabilisation. The camera software on this device is very impressive like the previous generation Zenfone devices. Now it allows you to tinker with various settings about the camera like exposure time, ISO and few more giving you more freedom with the end result you get. The secondary camera is also pretty decent 5 megapixel shooter.
Author Bio: The author is an expert in mobile technology and loves to write about different handsets launched. He has listed the specifications asus zenfone zoom for the readers to make an informed buying decision.
