Asus is a very well known brand in the field of desktop and related accessories. In the recent years, Asus’s Zenfone lineup of smartphones became popular and the company had its own share of world’s first on a smartphone line up like 4GB RAM, Intel Mobile Processor etc. In 2018, Asus had a very good success with the launch of the mid-range smartphone Zenfone Max Pro M1. For the price point, it packed very good specifications and was a strong contender in that segment. We reviewed Asus Zenfone Max Pro M1 and you can check out our review here. The previous generation flagship smartphones from Asus were priced on the higher side and they were in the premium segment. Recently, Asus created another sensation in the flagship smartphone segment with the launch of Zenfone 5Z with a Snapdragon 845 processor at an attractive price of Rs.29,999 and here is our Asus Zenfone 5Z Full Review.

We tested the smartphone for quite some time and here is what we have to say about Zenfone 5Z. During our testing, we got several OTA updates which brought in improvements in camera and overall stability.

Unboxing and Box Contents:

Asus Zenfone 5Z comes in a simple blue coloured box with the model name at the front. Upon opening the box, you will find another small box with a label saying ‘We Love Photo’. It contains the user manual, TPU Case, warranty information and SIM ejector tool. Going down further, you will find the smartphone itself along with USB Type-C cable, Fast charger and In-ear style earphones. That’s it for the box contents.

Physical Overview:

Zenfone 5Z comes with a glass back along with metal that runs through the sides. The glass sandwich design gives it a premium look to it. The back panel is reflective and gives a different pattern when placed under direct light. It is recommended to use the supplied case as the back of the phone is slippery.

The front houses the notch, mammoth 6.2″ display and the usual set of sensors. To the right, you will find the Volume Rockers button and Power ON/OFF button. To the left, you will find the Hybrid SIM Slot with support for Dual 4G VoLTE. To the top, there is just a secondary noise cancelling microphone. To the bottom, you will find the primary microphone, USB Type-C port and the speaker grill.

Display:

Asus Zenfone 5Z sports a 6.2-inch Full HD+ display with a notch and sports a Super IPS+ panel. It has a resolution of 2246 X 1080 pixels. The quality of the display on the 5Z is good with punchy colours and great viewing angles. Thanks to the IPS panel, the viewing angles are very good. When it comes to sunlight legibility, 5Z does a good job here too with no compromises. The display can go super bright and when lowered, can go super low. The saturation of the display is slightly on the higher side and it comes to personal preference. The display sports a notch and it can be easily hidden from the settings panel. Overall, the panel used by Asus is very good and the quality of the display on Zenfone 5Z is good.

Performance:

Asus Zenfone 5Z sports the top of the line flagship Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 Processor which is clocked at 2.7 GHz. It is an Octa-core processor built on the 10nm technology. When it comes to the performance, 5Z handles any task thrown at it with ease. Snapdragon 845 is a beast of a processor when it comes to raw performance and the same translates in Zenfone 5Z too. Applications open up quick with no lag whatsoever and most applications stay in memory and don’t boot out. Thanks to the 6GB/8GB DDR4X RAM, multitasking is a breeze on this smartphone. It holds most of the apps in memory and doesn’t reload applications frequently. Kudos to Asus for optimizing the RAM management.

When it comes to gaming performance, the Adreno 630 GPU handles gaming quite smoothly. Casual games like Subway Surfers, Leo’s fortune ran without any issues. The graphics-intensive titles like Asphalt 8, 9, Modern Combat 5, PUBG ran smoothly too. But in Asphalt 8, we noticed a few random frame drops and the same was in the case of Modern Combat 5. We hope that the issue will be addressed in future software updates.

Battery:

Zenfone 5Z is backed up by a 3300mAh non-removable battery and comes with support for Quick Charge 3.0. It also features AI schedule charging and protection to prevent the smartphone from overcharging. Our experience with the battery life on Zenfone 5Z was a mixed bag for us. With casual usage, we were able to stretch it for more than a day. But with heavy usage, we had to charge the smartphone at the end of the day. Thanks to Quick charge 3.0, the phone charges from 0 to 100% very quickly. Overall, the battery life on Zenfone 5Z was decent.

Camera:

Zenfone 5Z sports a Dual Rear camera and a single selfie camera. It is a 12MP+8MP setup and an 8MP setup to the front. The rear camera is a Sony IMX363 12MP f/1.8 shooter with a larger 1.4µm pixel size. The secondary camera is an 8MP f/2.2 wide angled camera. It has a 120-degree wide angle hardware to capture more area in a picture.

When it comes to the picture quality on Zenfone 5Z, it was very good. The pictures that were taken in daylight come out excellent with great details and colours. The amount of bokeh i.e., depth of field is high as it sports a f/1.8 aperture. The pictures have a great amount of detail and look very good.

The performance of wide angled camera was not up to the mark until the new software update. Prior to the update, there was noise in the pictures shot with the wide angled camera. But with recent FOTA update, it has been improved a lot and the secondary wide-angle camera does a good job.

When it comes to video recording, it can max up to 4K 60fps and the video quality turns out to be good.

Here are some of the samples taken from Zenfone 5Z

Software Update:

Asus released several software updates to Zenfone 5Z which fixed the bugs and improved many things. Recently, we got a software update on our review unit and it added support for Gesture Navigation, EIS support in 4K video, fixed battery drain issues and more. With the recent update, the selfie camera has improved slightly and there is a significant improvement in the pictures taken with the wide angled camera. The EIS feature works well and the same goes for Gesture navigation.

It is good to see brands pushing software updates regularly and we hope the same continues in the future.

Our Verdict:

Asus Zenfone 5Z is priced starting at Rs.27,999 which is a very good pricing for a phone with specifications like this. It is a bold attempt by Asus and gets a thumps up from our side. If you are looking for an ideal flagship phone and don’t want to spend more, then Zenfone 5Z is highly recommended and can be considered for your next smartphone purchase.

Asus Zenfone 5Z

29999

9

Design

9.5/10

Build Quality

9.0/10

Display

8.5/10

Cameras

8.8/10

Performance

9.0/10

Pros

• Design
• Build Quality
• Pricing
• Loud Speaker

Cons

• Images sometimes turn out to be blurry if you don't have stable hands
• Slippery Back Panel
• Battery Life Could Be Better

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