The Zenfone 5Z is the most affordable smartphone (starting at Rs 29,999) with Snapdragon 845 processor available in India right now. Let’s see if the smartphone is worth this money and if you should consider it over the OnePlus 6 which is Rs 5,000 costlier.
The Good Things
Design and Build
The Asus Zenfone 5Z is surely a premium device and it looks premium too. It comes with a glass back and a signature concentric circle pattern which looks gorgeous and catches the attention quickly. The glass panel on the back and on the front is 2.5D curved which blends into the body and feels perfect to hold.
Overall the build quality of the Zenfone 5Z is also amazing, the glass on the back is not a strengthened glass (like Gorilla Glass) but you can protect it with the silicon case provided in the box. The smartphone also feels premium in hands, and because of the thin bezels around the display, the overall size of the device is comfortable.
The horsepower: Snapdragon 845
The performance is the best thing about the Asus Zenfone 5Z, it comes with the most powerful chipset ever built for smartphones. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 SoC powers this smartphone and it further coupled with 6GB of RAM. There is no need to explain the performance of this chipset but in one word “Snappy.”
The company also used the artificial intelligence cores of the processor to make almost every aspect of the smartphone smart. Whether it is the camera, the performance, the notifications, the charging, battery and even in the screen. Well, the AI surely helps in some places but not in all the mentioned places.
Display
The display on Zenfone 5Z is a 6.2 inches Super IPS panel with FHD+ resolution. The display comes with a notch on the top side with thin bezels around, the bottom chin is relatively thick but not much to complain. The screen to body ratio is 90 percent and it is gorgeous to look at.
Now, coming to the display performance, it disappoints a bit when comes to outdoor visibility and color contrast. There is a blue light filter in the smartphone which helps a lot to reduce stress looking at the display for so long.
Not so good things
The camera
Yes, I know that providing such hardware and design is a bit difficult at this price range but a consumer does not know that and he wants the full value for his/her money. The dual camera setup at the back is a 12MP + 8MP sensor setup which is not the numbers we want to see on a Rs 30,000 smartphone. The performance is also at par and there is no extraordinary which Asus has done in this smartphone except for the wide angle lens.
The performance of the rear camera is not impressive at all, the picture is full of grains and the picture starts to distort while zooming in. The selfies are also not that great, the color contrast is all way off. Overall quality of the camera is good but the camera on Zenfone 5Z does not justify the price at all.
Camera Samples
Battery and Software
The Zenfone 5Z runs on the latest Android 8.0 Oreo operating system which is layered with the ZenUI 5.0. Asus did some work on their user interface but still, there are lots of things which is keeping it back in user experience. Asus should have gone for vanilla Android experience to get even better performance out of it.
The battery in the Zenfone 5Z is a 3300 mAh and it comes with quick charge support. The stock charger provided in the box is an 18W fast charger, it charges the smartphone to 100 percent in less than an hour. The smartphone lasts for a whole day at an optimum performance.
Conclusion
Asus Zenfone 5Z is an awesome smartphone and company did a great job by providing a flagship hardware at such less price. If you are a gamer and need a smartphone with the best performance available at less price then Asus Zenfone 5Z is the best one for you. But if you do not care about performance but camera then you need to look further for a smartphone suitable for you.
