Asuswith its Zenfone 3 editions have targeted premium, but is the new Laser worth its price? Besidesthe ZenFone 3, ZenFone 3 Ultra, and ZenFone 3 Deluxe, there's another ASUS smartphone you should watch for in 2016: the ZenFone 3 Laser.. But unlike the other ZenFone 3 models launched in May, the newly unveiled Laser feels less like a luxury phone and more like a step above most phones in the budget category. It's certainly an upgrade over its predecessor, last year's ZenFone 2 Zenfone3 Review Build & Design. The Asus Zenfone 3 is one of the most beautiful smartphone I've seen so far. They've decided to go with 2.5D curved corning gorilla glass on both sided of the Zenfone 3 instead of metal and the result is quite remarkable. On the rear side of the Zenfone 3, is the rear camera hump which has the laser auto Sayangnyaharga Asus Zenfone 3 Laser ZC551KL dibanderol cukup mahal, karena smartphone ini dipasarkan dengan harga melebihi 3 Juta Rupiah. Namun dibalik mahalnya harga Asus Zenfone 3 Laser ZC551KL, penggunanya akan dimanjakan oleh berbagai macam fitur menarik, yuk simak spesifikasi detailnya berikut ini sobat Sinyaliti. TheZenfone Max now runs on Android Marshmallow out-of-the-box, wrapped under Asus' ZenUI. Like last year though, the UI still preloads all the essential services as separate apps. AsusZenFone 3 Laser on iso askel rakennuslaadussa verrattuna ZenFone 2:een, koska edellinen jĂ€ttÀÀ jĂ€lkimmĂ€isen kokonaan muovisen rakenteen alumiinille. TĂ€mĂ€ materiaalien vaihto on erittĂ€in tervetullut, sillĂ€ tĂ€ssĂ€ kĂ€ytetty alumiini tuntuu erittĂ€in korkealaatuiselta ja kiinteĂ€ltĂ€ kĂ€dessĂ€. Bu9Zi. The ASUS Zenfone 2 Laser series from last year proved to be an attractive offering for those who are looking for Laser AF-packing smartphone without breaking the bank. They even released three variants – and a For 2016, ASUS took almost everything that made the Zenfone 2 Laser series successful, improved on it, then crammed it inside a single successor – the Zenfone 3 Laser. Design and ConstructionDisplay and MultimediaOS, UI, and AppsCameraPerformance and BenchmarksConnectivity and Call QualityBattery LifeConclusion Design and Construction The Zenfone 3 Laser’s design is very much different from its predecessor. It is now sleeker and more premium. Gone are the chunky build with a rounded rear and plastic body. Replacing it is a thinner and lighter body at and 150g vs and 170g of the ZF2 ZE550KL, aluminum chassis, and a glass covering the entire front of the of the front, we have the display. Above it are the earpiece, sensors, and the 8MP front camera. Down below are three unlit capacitive buttons for Back, Home, and Recent the left, we have the hybrid SIM card tray while on the right are the metallic volume and power/lock keys with concentric circle top is the headset jack and microphone, while the down at the bottom is the loudspeaker, microUSB port, and it on its back and you will see the 13MP camera, dual-tone LED flash, Laser AF, and the fingerprint scanner. You can also notice that the back part is segmented, the middle one is all metal while the top and bottom parts are the hand, the Zenfone 3 Laser is nice to hold thanks to its slimmer and lighter body. The cold aluminum back also feels good on the hands. All in all, it’s more attractive and mature-looking compared to the Zenfone 2 and Multimedia The Zenfone 3 Laser now has a IPS display with a Full HD resolution or equal to 401ppi. If we look back at the Zenfone 2 Laser family, the only model that has that kind of resolution is the 6-inch variant. Protection is handled by Gorilla Glass 3 and not Gorilla Glass 4 like with the 6-inch ZF2 expected, display quality is good with punchy colors and good viewing angles. It’s also bright enough to be used outdoors during a sunny day. Like with most Zenfones, you tweak the display’s color temperature and select your preferred screen color mode inside loudspeakers, on the other hand, are very audible and is good enough for calls, music, and movies. It has good trebles and soft bass but tends to distort at louder volumes. There’s an Audio Wizard on board as well should you wish to tweak audio UI, and Apps The software is handled by Android Marshmallow with ZenUI It uses an app drawer and squarish icons with rounded corners. Although running fairly new Android system, some of its features like the App and Widgets tabs reminds us of older Android versions, but you can easily remedy that with a has been criticized before with their pre-installed apps, but sad to say they haven’t done anything drastic about it yet. Like the rest of the Zenfone 3 family, the ZF3 Laser comes with tons of ASUS apps and third-party apps Puffin, Amazon Kindle, Instagram, Trip Advisor, Beauty Plus, Facebook, Messenger, Lazada, Need For Speed No Limits, and Sim City. Not to mention Google’s own apps as well. After setting up the device, you will be bombarded by app updates from the Play Store, and if you have a slow internet connection, it will take a while before all of these apps are good news is, you can uninstall those apps that you don’t need which saves precious memory from its 32GB of storage with a usable space of You can further expand it via microSD card, but at the expense of dual-SIM Imaging is one of the strengths of the Zenfone. At 13MP with Sony IMX214 sensor, it can produce sharp, yet clean photos with good colors. With the help of Laser AF, it can achieve fast focus times so all you have to do is point and 8MP selfie camera, on the other hand, has a wide-angle lens for those group selfies and comes with a beautify feature which is a staple in current Zenfones. Check out the samples below. As for in-camera features, the ZF3 Laser has tons. It has Auto HDR, HDR Pro, Manual mode, Super Resolution, Low Light, Depth of Field, Panorama, Smart Remove, and Time Lapse to name a videos, the ZF3 Laser maxes out at Full HD at 30fps in MP4 format. Although no 4K, it has 3-axis EIS and 6-direction EIS compensation for stable videos. It works well and was able to keep shaking at the minimum even when we’re casually walking. Watch the sample videos below watch the second video for the EIS testPerformance and Benchmarks Powering the Zenfone 3 Laser is a modest Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 octa-core CPU clocked and an Adreno 505 GPU. However, ASUS equipped it with 4GB RAM which is found in most high-end smartphones. That should be enough to handle multiple apps at the same time. True enough, it was able to handle light to heavy tasks with ease, even in gaming as tested with NFS No Limits. Check out the benchmark scores below* AnTuTu – 43,542 * Quadrant Standard – 20,484 * Vellamo – 1,700 Multicore, 1,216 Metal, 2,393 Chrome * 3D Mark – 290 Sling Shot using ES * PC Mark – 4,848 Work 3,344 Work 3,287 StorageConnectivity and Call Quality The Zenfone 3 Laser features connectivity functions important to users such as dual-SIM connectivity with 4G LTE, WiFi, Bluetooth, and GPS. However, as mentioned earlier, the SIM tray uses a hybrid setup so if you use a microSD card you will lose the dual-SIM function. We didn’t encounter any issues with mobile data can detect even a weak LTE signal. Calls are loud and clear as well as long as your area has a health Life Providing power for the Zenfone 3 Laser is a 3,000mAh non-removable battery. With light calls and texts, heavy social media on WiFi, with a little bit of gaming can yield 9 to 10 hours of life, which is not Mark’s battery test yields 9 hours and 54 minutes, while our routine video loop test 1080p video on loop in Airplane mode with headset plugged in at 50% brightness and volume got us 11 hours and 32 minutes which is ASUS did a good job in making the Zenfone 3 Laser. It’s a worthy successor to the Zenfone 2 Laser thanks to the improved and more premium design, upgraded internals, and good pricing. At Php11,995, it’s not heavy in the pockets and in fact, it’s the most affordable 4GB RAM smartphone in the Zenfone 3 family. So if you’re one of those who is looking for a smartphone with said strengths, the Zenfone 3 Laser should be on your Zenfone 3 Laser specs IPS LCD 1080 x 1920 pixels, 401ppi Corning Gorilla Glass 3 Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 octa-core CPU Adreno 505 GPU 4GB RAM 32GB internal storage Expandable via microSD, up to 256GB uses SIM2 13MP Sony IMX214 sensor Laser AF rear camera w/ dual-tone LED flash 8MP front-facing camera Dual SIM Micro-SIM 4G LTE Wi-Fi Bluetooth A2DP, EDR, LE GPS w/ A-GPS, GLONASS Fingerprint scanner microUSB USB OTG FM Radio 3,000mAh battery Android Marshmallow 149 x 76 x mm 150 gPros * Good build and design * Good performance * Good camera * Above average battery life * Low priceCons * Plenty of pre-installed apps * Clunky UI Asus Zenfone 3 Laser detailed review Remember the teacher’s pet back in school? The kid who would ruin things for all others? That’s pretty much how the sub-20k market works today. Phones like the Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 and LeEco Le 2 ruin things for most other companies. But, does that mean everyone should, or may, provide the same value? Well, Asus doesn’t think so. The Asus Zenfone 3 Laser is priced at Rs. 18,999, almost double its predecessor, and its specifications do not match its price tag, following current market trends. Why, then, is Asus betting that you’ll buy this phone? Here’s what we found in our review of the Asus Zenfone 3 Laser. Build and Design Starting with the obvious, the Zenfone 3 Laser looks similar to the Xiaomi Redmi Note 3. However, I prefer this design. The Laser decidedly feels lighter, thinner and more premium as well, giving it ergonomic value over its competitors. The phone nestles in your palm and the curves near the edges make it easier to use with one hand. While it does look like the Redmi Note 3, the Zenfone 3 Laser is thinner and lighter To be clear, the Zenfone 3 Laser isn’t perfectly suited for single-handed usage, but it’s still a pretty efficient design. The back has a metallic finish, which feels good, especially because of its smudge resistant, and oleophobic properties. It’s smooth and seamless, and feels more “metallic” than similarly designed phones. The body also seems well put-together and sturdy, capable of withstanding usual scratches, like those caused by keys in pocket. It may get scratched if dropped, though. The only real fault in the design is in the cuts for the micro-USB port and screws at the bottom. You probably won’t even feel them, but running your fingers across these holes reveal lack of polish. The corners of these holes are sharp, and can occasionally leave marks on your hands. The capacitive buttons on the front aren't backlit Asus' concentric circles design is seen only on the Power On/Off button and Volume Rocker Also, the capacitive back, home and recents buttons below the display aren’t backlit. Personally, I don’t mind that, but many do. You’ll find the earpiece, front camera and sensor hub above the display, and the soon-to-be obsolete if Apple has its way headphone jack is on the top as well. The biggest misstep with the Zenfone 3 Laser’s design is in the fingerprint sensor. Asus decided to go with one on the back, but with a thinner, rectangular design. This reduces the surface area for your finger to interact with the sensor, and makes it tougher to find. While it’s good at recognising your print, the smaller surface area makes it seem slower because you’ll often be shifting your finger to find the right spot. This, combined with the rather slow phone more on that later, makes the fingerprint sensor quite unsavoury. Interestingly, Asus’ peculiar concentric circles’ design can only be found on the home button, and the volume rocker on the right. This, for me, is a big positive. The concentric circles looked good on the Zenfone 5 and that family, but I’ve found them disagreeable on all Asus phones since then. The phone also has a sizeable camera bump at the back, with a shiny metal lining around the camera unit. On either sides of this are the dual-LED flash and the Laser AF system. Overall, I’m quite satisfied with the Zenfone 3 Laser’s design. Yes, Asus can refine it more, but it’s still one of the better-designed smartphones in this price range. It feels premium enough, and is even quite ergonomic, despite the display. Display You’re looking at a pretty pixel-dense display, measuring 401ppi and with a curved screen on top. It’s reasonably good with colours, although it doesn’t provide the deepest blacks. It’s on the upper end of the IPS LCD family, though, and that should satisfy most. Asus also allows you to tweak the display’s colour temperature, hue etc., using its preinstalled Hue app. There’s a slight shift in colours from some angles, but not enough to complain. The achieves maximum luminance of 598 Lux, which is not the best but works. While colours and sharpness aren’t really an issue, I’m not a big fan of the display’s reflectiveness. The glossy display affects sunlight visibility, which isn’t the best, and LED lights in your home will also be in conflict. You may have to hold the phone in your hand throughout full movies, unless you find a spot away from light sources. Further, Asus uses Corning Gorilla Glass for the screen, which is fine. However, the display is somewhat weak against oily fingers. Moreover, the touch sensitivity doesn’t seem as good as it is on most smartphones today, irrespective of price. Touch latency is good enough, but the display doesn’t feel very premium. User Interface Even Asus’ ZenUI does not feel premium. The Zenfone 3 Laser, like all other phones in the Zenfone 3 family, have ZenUI layered over Android Marshmallow, to be precise. Asus’ UI is bloated and lacks polish. There’s just too much happening on the phone. I can’t remember a time when an Asus app didn’t notify me of something I didn’t care about. Even the Splendid app, which tweaks display temperature, could simply have been put into the Settings menu. Instead, Asus created a whole new app for it, adding to clutter and disturbance. You have apps like Do It Later, Flashlight, Go2Pay, Mobile Manager, MiniMovie, Puffin and so on. All of these can be replaced by better apps from the Play Store, and I had little use for them. There’s even a Game Genie that’ll appear as a floating bubble while you game. It makes no sense, since the Zenfone 3 Laser struggles to render high frame rates on graphically intensive games in the first place. Asus has even provided a Laser Ruler app, which apparently uses the Laser auto-focus to measure the distance to an object. The app, however, can’t measure anything over 50 centimetres, and I didn’t find any practical real-world use case for it. Most of Asus’ apps can’t be uninstalled, either. You can disable them to avoid annoying notifications, but you’d still not get that lost space back, and each megabyte matters today. This is even more of an issue because all of these apps are asking for additional permissions to run, and that can be irksome. Bloatware aside, ZenUI feels like the early days of Samsung’s Touchwiz. I find it childish, and an UI made simply for the sake of differentiation. If there are background enhancements to the Android software, they’re not discernible on regular usage, and that makes the UI all the more unnecessary. The only aspect of ZenUI that’s useful and you’ll really use is Pixelmaster which is built into the camera app. We’ll discuss this when we get to the camera. Performance For me, the most disappointing aspect of the Zenfone 3 Laser is its performance. It’s a slow smartphone that doesn’t justify its price tag. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 430 SoC makes sense on a sub-10k smartphone, but not here, and especially not with a Snapdragon 820-powered device available at a lower price point the Lenovo Z2 Plus. In practice, you’ll easily find lags and stutters on the Zenfone 3 Laser. It lags heavily on games like Injustice Gods Among Us and Asphalt 8, and takes considerable durations to load. The phone’s slow single-core performance speeds increase app load times - for anything from Facebook to Subway Surfer, and calling one app from another results in noticeable lags. As mentioned before, the fingerprint sensor is slow as well. The upside with all this is that the Zenfone 3 Laser doesn’t heat up. Under a temperature of 24 degree Celsius outside, the Laser doesn’t rise beyond 38 degrees after over 15 minutes of gaming, and recording video for 10 minutes takes the temperature to about degrees. This, though, is warranted, given the weak performance. The Snapdragon 430 doesn’t support 4K video, which is disappointing for a camera-centric smartphone, and I’m willing to trade a few degrees for better performance. The Zenfone 3 Laser is slower than a last-gen smartphone like the Moto X Play. The Power Management settings offer slight customisation to the performance. You can choose between Super Saving, Power Saving, Normal and Performance modes. The temperatures above are on the Normal mode, and turning on Performance Mode doesn’t bring much of a difference, either. Our Asus Zenfone 3 Laser stress test has more on this. Camera The absence of snappy, fluid performance also means that the camera app takes a second to load. This means that you’ll often miss a moment, because the camera was loading. However, when it does load, the Zenfone 3 Laser does a reasonably good job. It has a 13MP f/ camera with the Sony IMX214 sensor and pixel size. It’s quite good under well-lit conditions and sunlight outdoors. Under white LED lights, the phone loses some details to noise, and images aren’t very sharp. However, colours are retained quite well across various lighting conditions. Essentially, you’ll be fine unless you’re zooming into photos. Asus Zenfone 3 Laser Camera Samples Asus says, the Laser AF system focuses in seconds, which may even be true under ideal conditions. In practice, though, your hand shakes and the phone will keep changing focus points the longer you point the camera at a subject. Moreover, Laser AF is best suited for close-up photography, and during low light shots. And that is where the Zenfone 3 Laser excels. Under low light, close-ups are decent, but the phone creates considerable noise and loses a lot of details when shooting scenes. Low light shots are considerably enhanced by the low light mode, though, and it is well ahead of most of its competitors. Here again, speed matters. Asus’ slow camera makes it difficult to just point and shoot. You’ll get good photos if you have the time to fix focus manually, or by tapping the screen, but the auto mode isn’t very dependable. On auto, the camera sometimes messes up the white balance and subdues colours. Pixelmaster This is where Pixelmaster comes in. Asus’ camera app gives you a Manual mode with control over ISO, White Balance, Exposure Value, Focus and Shutter Speed. There are also Super Resolution, Low Light, Manual, HDR Pro, Beautification and Children modes. Of these, the low light mode is the really useful one, but it also adds a few button taps, thereby increasing the time taken to shoot a photo. This mode basically increases image brightness, while softening the details. It’s useful, but would have been better had Asus made it a part of the regular Pixelmaster algorithm than instead of adding a separate button for it. The Super Resolution mode allows you to take 52MP photos, by taking multiple images using the 13MP camera and then combining them together. You can have some fun with it, but it remains more of a gimmick, as it has been before. In general, you’ll be using the auto-mode most often, which can shoot in HDR, HDR Auto and simple auto modes. Battery A 3000mAh battery drives the Zenfone 3 Laser, and as in the Zenfone 3, it lasts quite long. On heavy usage, with lots of browsing, calling, texts, IMs, social networking, and some video, the phone dropped from 80% to 20% battery in about 8-9 hours. That’s quite good, considering the usage. A full workday’s battery life is easily obtainable, and for many others, it’ll run for over a day and a half. In practice, charging it every night should be enough, which is pretty much the industry standard. The Performance Mode doesn’t seem to affect battery life much either, which is warranted given that the performance doesn’t increase much, either. You can use Asus’ power manager when needed, but it’s pretty standard. The more intense power saving modes turn off the mobile data and limit both the processor, and screen brightness. I wonder how difficult it would be to drop the screen resolution as well, though. That’s a feature I quite liked on Huawei’s EMUI. Bottomline The Asus Zenfone 3 Laser has a better camera than the Xiaomi Redmi Note 3, LeEco Le 2, Lenovo Z2 Plus and Xiaomi Mi Max. However, these phones are also miles ahead in performance. In my opinion, what those phones lack in the camera department, they more than make up for in others, and that’s why I wouldn’t recommend the Zenfone 3 Laser over them. Asus has done a good job designing this phone, and it has a decent display as well, but there are ifs and buts all over, and the phone is not very good in overall terms. If you want a camera-centric smartphone, the Nubia Z11 Mini which we’ll be reviewing soon is a better buy. It’s cheaper and faster than the Zenfone 3 Laser, with a very good camera. Asus Zenfone 3 Laser Key Specs, Price and Launch Date Price â‚č18999 Release Date 08 Nov 2016 Variant 32GB Market Status Launched Key Specs Screen Size 1080 x 1920 Camera 13 8 MP Memory 32 GB/4 GB Battery 3000 mAh Related Reviews About Me Trying to explain technology to my parents. Failing miserably. Read More The all new Zenfone 3 smartphone series has created a buzz in the market with superior design and cutting-edge hardware specifications. With this new lineup, Asus has gone all premium by leaving the competition of budget smartphones behind. This week we have The Asus Zenfone 3 Laser for review, which follows suit in this new strategy. So how well it compares with previous versions and other devices in the series? Let’s find out! Asus Zenfone 3 Laser Review Display, Design & Build Quality With this new series, Asus has made great changes to the aesthetics of the smartphone. The introduction of Corning Gorilla Glass display with an all aluminum body has added a premium feel to new devices. The moment you hold the Asus Zenfone 3 Laser, you realize this immediately. We reviewed the Zenfone 3 and Zenfone 3 Max a while ago, and the Zenfone 3 Laser follows the same design and build quality aspects. The only substantial difference I found with the Zenfone 3 Laser is that it is lighter than the others as it weighs only 150gms and measures It’s the most comfortable Zenfone 3 series smartphone for a single handed use. The design is similar to the other devices in the series we’ve reviewed. The front is dominated by the big display above which sits the front camera speaker and sensors. Below the screen, there are the back, home and recent apps buttons which are again not backlit. On the lower side of the smartphone, there are the speakers, charging port Not USB-C, microphone and also two big screws one on each side of the charging port. These screws look odd and unnecessary placement for any smartphone in general. On the top of the smartphone, there is the headphone jack, and on the right side, you’ll find the power button and volume rockers. On the left, there is the hybrid sim card tray, which supports dual-sim 4G connectivity. On the back side, you have the rear camera with dual-tone LED flash and laser auto-focus along with fingerprint sensor and the Asus logo on the lower side. The full HD IPS display of Zenfone 3 Laser comes with a resolution of 1920×1080 pixels which effectively gives you a pixel density of 401. Therefore, the display looks sharp, and color reproduction is excellent. The display is bright enough to be viewed in excessively lit conditions or under direct sunlight. I find the Splendid app that comes built-in with Asus smartphones very effective for display. It allows us to adjust the color temperature and it also has a blue light filter which protects our eyes from prolonged usage of the smartphone. Being an IPS display, viewing angles are great, therefore, watching a movie or playing games is fun. The display is a fingerprint magnet, so it needs a frequent cleaning. Performance The Asus Zenfone 3 Laser sports mighty 64-bit Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 octa-core processor with a clock speed of and an Adreno 505 graphics GPU. It has 4GB of LPDDR3 RAM and has a 32GB of built-in storage which can be expanded up to 128GB via microSD card. With this device, you get additional 100GB of cloud storage on Google Drive for two years. For connectivity, it has a Bluetooth Wi-Fi Wi-Fi Direct, GPS/A-GPS, Glonass, and 4G. The only downside I found here, is the lack of USB Type-C port which now you can get in smartphones costing almost half the price as this one. Out of the two sim cards, it supports one Micro-SIM and other Nano-sim card. Users have to choose between either two sim cards or a SIM card and a micro-SD card. Both the sim cards can support 3G and 4G connectivity and the ZenFone 3 Laser supports super high-speed LTE CAT with downloading speed of up to 150 Mbps and upload speed of up to 50 Mbps. It runs Android Marshmallow with the company’s ZenUI skin on top. Asus has improved the ZenUI a lot over the years, and most noticeable features are the Zen motion gesture, animated clock and widgets and motion effect on the home screen. The Zenfone 3 Laser performs seamlessly while running daily tasks. There is absolutely no clutter while multitasking or browsing. Games like Asphalt 8, or the Extreme Edition ran smoothly without any issues. The Laser did get a little warm after prolonged gaming and while recording videos at 1080p, but it wasn’t uncomfortable at any point. The fingerprint sensor does its job well. It unlocked the device quickly and responded well for my two-week long usage. Even when I tried unlocking it in different angles, it always recognized me. The speakers are loud enough but can get easily muffled. The headphones with come with the smartphone are decent enough and have a minimal distortion at high volumes. The 3000 mAh Li-Ion non-removable battery performs well as it always had some juice left at the end of the day even while I was using the smartphone frequently at the full brightness for most of the times. The Zenfone 3 Laser doesn’t support fast-charging, so the it takes about 2 hours to charge from zero to 100. Benchmarks For this Zenfone 3 Laser review, we ran AnTuTu and Geekbench 4 tests for benchmarks, and below you can see the scores we got. The numbers appear quite poor for a smartphone that charges you a premium to own. Although, I found nothing to complain during my real world usage. Camera The Asus Zenfone 3 Laser has a 13 MP rear camera with f/ aperture and dual-LED real-tone flash. It supports 1080p video recording at 30 fps. The camera app can be launched even from the lock screen. There are a lot of capture modes to choose from to enhance your images. The best feature of this particular camera is that it has a laser autofocus which helps it to focus on a specific object in about secs as claimed by Asus. The display also brightens up when you click pictures, that helps a lot when you are working in low light conditions. We clicked a lot of images with Laser, some of which you can see below. [metaslider id=19902] The images appear sharp and crisp and the he camera captures a lot of details. The camera is the best feature of this smartphone as it captures beautiful pictures and performs well even in poorly lit conditions. Videos captured are also quite good, and it does manage to capture good videos even when you are moving or in a crowded place thanks to its EIS feature. Its other features include 1/3″ sensor size, geo-tagging, touch focus, face/smile detection, panorama, and HDR. There’s also an 8-megapixel front camera with f/ aperture. The selfies looks great, and it manages to capture all the colors properly. The 8MP does help to catch more details than a 5MP camera, and it shows clearly in the images. Verdict of the Zenfone 3 Laser Asus Zenfone 3 Laser is a significant improvement over the Zenfone 2 Laser. It performs well and has an excellent camera. The metal body design does give it a premium feel, but all of this just doesn’t justify the hefty price tag Asus has put on it. With a price of RS 17,000 Asus does seem to have taken a gamble. With Xiaomi’s Redmi 3S and 3S Primes offering same SoC and other competitors like Samsung Galaxy J7 and Lenovo Z2 Plus offering better value for money. For the extra price you pay compared to the competitors, you get the better camera and much better design and build quality. But if you’re not looking for those, Zenfone 3 Laser might just be an expensive buy! If you enjoyed reading this Zenfone 3 Laser Review, Please Join us on Facebook for more smartphone, PC hardware and game reviews. Check out latest price of Zenfone 3 Flipkart Amazon A ASUS lançou uma nova linha de Zenfones no Brasil este ano e tem recebido um bom retorno dos consumidores. Contudo, existe uma diferença tremenda entre o Zenfone 3 tradicional e o Zenfone 3 Deluxe. Esse segundo aparelho Ă© o mais poderoso da marca e foi feito para concorrer com o iPhone 7 Plus no qualidade de construção Design luxuoso Desempenho excelente Tela de boa qualidade CĂąmera boa e muito rapidaInterface com design ruimPreço muito altoExistem duas versĂ”es bem distintas do Zenfone 3 Deluxe, mas ambas usam o mesmo nomePortanto, ele tem um hardware bastante parrudo, tela grande e acabamento superpremium, bem diferente do Zenfone 3 normal. Para saber se vale a pena pagar alguns milhares de reais nesse smartphone, confira toda esta anĂĄlise e veja se ele combina com antes de começar a ler este conteĂșdo completo, fique ciente de que existem duas versĂ”es distintas do Zenfone 3 Deluxe, mas ambas usam o mesmo nome. O aparelho que a Asus nos mandou para testes tem processador Snapdragon 821 o mais atual da Qualcomm e 256 GB de armazenamento, mas existe um modelo com Snapdragon 820 processador do ano passado e 64 GB de espaço. Existe uma boa diferença de desempenho e tambĂ©m de Zenfone 3 Deluxe simplesmente voa. Ele tem um desempenho exemplar em qualquer game ou app que vocĂȘ pode encontrar na Google Play. Fora isso, como hĂĄ nada menos que 6 GB de RAM, dĂĄ para guardar bastante apps na memĂłria, oferecendo acesso a eles sem recarregamento o monstrĂŁo da Asus com vĂĄrios games, entre eles PinOut, NOVA 3 e FIFA Mobile. O smartphone conseguiu dar conta desses aplicativos sem titubear em qualquer momento e tambĂ©m mostrou uma Ăłtima qualidade grĂĄfica em todos. VocĂȘ consegue inclusive jogar um game, ir para outro jogo pesado e voltar para o anterior sem ter que recarregar o benchmarks tambĂ©m comprovaram que o Zenfone 3 Deluxe tem um dos melhores Androids em questĂŁo de desempenho. Ele se saiu melhor que seus principais concorrentes em vĂĄrios dos nossos testes de benchmark. Contudo, nesses procedimentos, o aparelho esquentou um pouco, e o seu acabamento metĂĄlico ajudou a deixar isso mais destacar ainda que o dispositivo em questĂŁo tem um comportamento estranho quando a bateria estĂĄ acabando ele começa a esquentar sem que vocĂȘ esteja utilizando nenhum app ou game intenso. Contudo, essa caracterĂ­stica jĂĄ foi percebida em outros modelos do gĂȘnero, tanto da Asus quanto de outras a realização desta anĂĄlise, submetemos o Zenfone 3 Deluxe 821 a trĂȘs aplicativos de benchmark. SĂŁo eles 3D Mark Ice Storm Unlimited, AnTuTu Benchmark 6 e Vellamo Mobile Benchmark HTML5 e Metal.O teste Ice Storm Unlimited, do 3D Mark, Ă© utilizado para fazer comparaçÔes diretas entre processadores e GPUs. Fatores como resolução do display podem afetar o resultado final. Quanto maior a pontuação, melhor Ă© o dos aplicativos de benchmark mais conceituados em sua categoria, o AnTuTu Benchmark 6 faz testes de interface, CPU, GPU e memĂłria RAM. Os resultados sĂŁo somados e geram uma pontuação final. Quanto maior ela for, melhor Ă© o Vellamo Mobile Benchmark aplica dois testes ao aparelho HTML5 e Metal. No primeiro deles Ă© avaliada a performance do celular no acesso direto Ă  internet via browser. JĂĄ no segundo teste, o nĂșmero final indica a performance do processador. Quanto maior a pontuação, melhor Ă© o departamento de design, a ASUS fez um bom trabalho com o Zenfone 3 Deluxe. Ele tem uma aparĂȘncia luxuosa, e a qualidade de construção dĂĄ a entender que ele Ă© bem durĂĄvel. A sensação que ele passa nas suas mĂŁos durante a pegada Ă© muito boa. A carcaça Ă© toda construĂ­da em metal, hĂĄ uma saĂ­da USB-C no fundo, ao lado de um microfone e um topo, temos um plugue de 3,5 mm para fones de ouvido e uma gaveta compartilhada para dois chips de operadora e um cartĂŁo micro SD na lateral esquerda. NĂŁo dĂĄ para usar os trĂȘs itens ao mesmo tempo, entretanto. Os botĂ”es de volume e o de energia ficam na lateral direita. HĂĄ um leitor de digitais na traseira, logo abaixo da dispositivo tem uma boa aparĂȘncia geral, e realmente impressiona quando vocĂȘ bate o olho nele pela primeira vez. É inegavelmente um smartphone premium. Contudo, a parte da frente tem bordas com acabamento metĂĄlico brilhoso e detalhes Ă© praticamente a marca registrada da ASUS, mas nĂŁo combina com a traseira, que tem uma elegĂąncia neutra e fosca. Isso nĂŁo chega a comprometer todo o design do aparelho, mas certamente Ă© uma quebra na coesĂŁo visual. Por fim, a parte frontal ainda tem uma borda preta bem esquisita em volta de toda a tela. Ou seja, o bom trabalho feito na parte de trĂĄs nĂŁo foi seguido Ă  risca na ASUS resolveu apostar em uma tela Super AMOLED de 5,7 polegadas. O display Ă© muito bonito e representa bem as cores, mas falta um pouco de saturação – isso de acordo com as configuraçÔes originais do 3 Deluxe tem resolução Full HD em vez de 2KApesar do tamanho e da faixa de preço, o Zenfone 3 Deluxe tem resolução Full HD em vez de 2K. A ASUS provavelmente resolveu usar a opção mais bĂĄsica para nĂŁo comprometer a autonomia de bateria, uma vez que telas com mais pixels gastam mais qualquer forma, isso nĂŁo prejudica muito a experiĂȘncia do usuĂĄrio. Se a pessoa nĂŁo for muito entendida desse assunto, sĂł vai notar a diferença quando vir ao lado do seu celular um outro smartphone com tela isso de lado, podemos dizer que a tela do dispositivo da ASUS Ă© realmente boa para qualquer consumo de mĂ­dia vĂ­deo, games, leitura e tudo mais, mesmo sob luz forte do Sol. Contudo, nĂŁo espere ter uma boa experiĂȘncia em VR nessa software da ASUS Ă© o seu maior inimigo nesse momento. A empresa entrega um excelente smartphone, com hardware parrudo, desempenho invejĂĄvel, mas pisa na bola com sua interface ZenUI, que tem um design muito aquĂ©m do esperado. A empresa tem evoluĂ­do muito pouco na questĂŁo estĂ©tica ao longo dos anos, e atĂ© a Samsung e a LG — duramente criticadas por suas personalizaçÔes “bregas” sobre o Android — jĂĄ conseguiram superar essa Samsung inclusive estĂĄ seguindo a passos largos em busca de um visual mais limpo e moderno, enquanto a ASUS ainda aposta em muitos efeitos desnecessĂĄrios, Ă­cones grandes demais e esquema de cor e design indefinidos, que mudam em cada app original da smartphone ASUS Zenfone 3 DeluxeReview smartphone ASUS Zenfone 3 DeluxeReview smartphone ASUS Zenfone 3 DeluxeReview smartphone ASUS Zenfone 3 DeluxeReview smartphone ASUS Zenfone 3 DeluxeReview smartphone ASUS Zenfone 3 DeluxeReview smartphone ASUS Zenfone 3 DeluxeReview smartphone ASUS Zenfone 3 DeluxeReview smartphone ASUS Zenfone 3 DeluxeReview smartphone ASUS Zenfone 3 DeluxeDiferente de suas concorrentes, a ASUS pegou muito poucas guias de design do Material Design da Google, e nĂŁo dĂĄ para dizer que a empresa seguiu em uma boa direção. HĂĄ ainda falta de coesĂŁo no design da interface, botĂ”es que trazem apenas parte do texto que deveriam mostrar, entre outras pequenas ĂĄrea de notificaçÔes permite personalizar muitos de seus atalhosContudo, a ZenUI tem seus pontos positivos. Sempre que vocĂȘ instala um novo app, ela oferece a possibilidade de organizar o novo Ă­cone em alguma pasta ou categoria, antes de simplesmente colocĂĄ-lo na tela inicial. A ĂĄrea de notificaçÔes, por sua vez, permite personalizar muitos de seus atalhos, e a gaveta de apps tem uma variedade de opçÔes para isso Ă© eclipsado pela quantidade absurda de apps prĂ©-instalados. AlĂ©m do pacote obrigatĂłrio da Google, a Asus manda no Zenfone 3 Deluxe nada menos que 23 apps desnecessĂĄrios. É muita coisa para desinstalar assim que vocĂȘ recebe o dispositivo em cĂąmeras do Zenfone 3 Deluxe sĂŁo boas. Contudo, nĂŁo espere que ele seja o melhor de sua categoria nisso. VĂĄrios top de linha de 2016 que chegaram ao mercado antes do aparelho da ASUS conseguem capturas melhores. Galaxy S7, S7 Edge, iPhone 7 e 7 Plus e Moto Z sĂŁo alguns exemplos. Mas isso nĂŁo quer dizer que o Zenfone tem cĂąmeras ruins. Pelo contrĂĄrio, elas sĂŁo muito boas, sĂł nĂŁo sĂŁo velocidade de captura do Zenfone 3 Deluxe Ă© realmente um de seus pontos fortes em cĂąmera. VocĂȘ toca no botĂŁo e a imagem estĂĄ pronta e salva na galeria. Isso Ă© possĂ­vel graças ao foco a laser, o mecanismo de foco mais rĂĄpido que temos atualmente em esse recurso nĂŁo dĂĄ conta do espaço — com objetos muito distantes —, o foco PDAF entra em cena. Ele Ă© um pouco mais lento, mas consegue resultados melhores que o laser na questĂŁo estĂ©tica da foto. As imagens ficam menos granuladas nessa segunda smartphone ASUS Zenfone 3 DeluxeReview smartphone ASUS Zenfone 3 DeluxeReview smartphone ASUS Zenfone 3 DeluxeReview smartphone ASUS Zenfone 3 DeluxeReview smartphone ASUS Zenfone 3 DeluxeReview smartphone ASUS Zenfone 3 DeluxeReview smartphone ASUS Zenfone 3 DeluxeReview smartphone ASUS Zenfone 3 DeluxeReview smartphone ASUS Zenfone 3 DeluxeReview smartphone ASUS Zenfone 3 DeluxeReview smartphone ASUS Zenfone 3 DeluxeReview smartphone ASUS Zenfone 3 DeluxeReview smartphone ASUS Zenfone 3 DeluxeReview smartphone ASUS Zenfone 3 DeluxeReview smartphone ASUS Zenfone 3 DeluxeReview smartphone ASUS Zenfone 3 DeluxeReview smartphone ASUS Zenfone 3 DeluxeReview smartphone ASUS Zenfone 3 DeluxeReview smartphone ASUS Zenfone 3 DeluxeReview smartphone ASUS Zenfone 3 DeluxeReview smartphone ASUS Zenfone 3 DeluxeReview smartphone ASUS Zenfone 3 DeluxeReview smartphone ASUS Zenfone 3 DeluxeOutro ponto positivo Ă© o realismo na representação das cores, mesmo com o HDR ligado. A cĂąmera nĂŁo prejudica o esquema de cores para conseguir uma foto mais apelativa aos olhos do usuĂĄrio, e isso Ă© bom. O alcance dinĂąmico tambĂ©m Ă© interessante e consegue ajudar na exposição precisa de diferentes software da cĂąmera ainda conta com uma sĂ©rie de recursos para vocĂȘ brincar, incluindo configuraçÔes profissionais, como foco manual, controle de ISO, entre novo aparelho poderoso da Asus tambĂ©m tem uma boa autonomia de bateria. VocĂȘ consegue usar o smartphone por um dia inteiro sem se preocupar muito com a possibilidade de ele morrer antes de vocĂȘ chegar em casa. Claro que estamos considerando nessa constatação o uso moderado, aquele que as pessoas normalmente fazem com um dispositivo desse isso, se vocĂȘ sair para um passeio ou viagem e ficar fazendo centenas de fotos no mesmo dia, certamente a bateria terĂĄ uma autonomia bem inferior do que o esperado. O mesmo vale para longos perĂ­odos de nosso teste de execução contĂ­nua de vĂ­deo, o Zenfone 3 Deluxe da ASUS conseguiu durar 8 horas e 20 minutos em uma carga completa. Isso tocando um vĂ­deo no app do YouTube, com WiFi ligado e brilho da tela no mĂĄximo. A marca Ă© boa para a a pena?O Zenfone 3 Deluxe tem uma infinidade de pontos positivos e eles certamente eclipsam os seus pontos fracos. Mesmo com sua interface malfeita e de design ruim, o smartphone consegue apresentar um desempenho excelente, sem titubear mesmo nas situaçÔes mais exigentes. Mas existe um grande problema com o top de linha da ASUS ele Ă© muito mais caro que seus principais com sua interface malfeita e de design ruim, o smartphone consegue apresentar um desempenho excelentePara tĂ­tulo de comparação, o modelo mais bĂĄsico do Zenfone 3 Deluxe — com chip Snapdragon 820 e 64 GB de armazenamento — custa R$ 3,9 mil na loja oficial da fabricante. Esse celular tem hardware muito similar ao do Moto Z, por exemplo, que custava algo em torno de R$ 2,7 mil na data de publicação desta isso, o aparelho da Lenovo vem com um mĂłdulo de bateria e uma capinha extra nesse pacote. Ele tambĂ©m tem uma tela melhor que a do Zenfone, e sua cĂąmera tambĂ©m faz fotos melhores ou de qualidade similar. Portanto, por que alguĂ©m apostaria em um “smartphone tradicional” como o Zenfone 3 Deluxe o bĂĄsico quando existe a oferta da concorrente que oferece algo superinovador, como a modularidade?Esses competidores nĂŁo contam com 6 GB de RAM, mas note que existe uma diferença de mais de mil reaisAlĂ©m do Moto Z, a oferta da ASUS enfrenta forte concorrĂȘncia de celulares ainda mais populares, como o Galaxy S7 Edge, que tambĂ©m estĂĄ na faixa dos R$ 2,7 mil. O top da Samsung tem Ăłtimo desempenho, design mais atraente e cĂąmera inegavelmente superior Ă  do Zenfone 3 Deluxe. Claro que esses competidores nĂŁo contam com 6 GB de RAM, mas note que existe uma diferença de mais de mil reais entre caso do Zenfone 3 Deluxe com Snapdragon 821, a versĂŁo que nĂłs testamos, o principal concorrente Ă© o iPhone 7 Plus, que custa exatamente o mesmo preço do Zenfone com 256 GB de armazenamento R$ 4,9 que, apesar de o dispositivo da ASUS ter sim suas vantagens sobre o concorrente da Apple — a começar pela possibilidade de colocar cartĂ”es de memĂłria e ter bem mais RAM —, o iPhone ainda vence em questĂŁo de desempenho, design e smartphone ASUS Zenfone 3 DeluxeReview smartphone ASUS Zenfone 3 DeluxeReview smartphone ASUS Zenfone 3 DeluxeReview smartphone ASUS Zenfone 3 DeluxeReview smartphone ASUS Zenfone 3 DeluxeReview smartphone ASUS Zenfone 3 DeluxeReview smartphone ASUS Zenfone 3 DeluxeReview smartphone ASUS Zenfone 3 DeluxeReview smartphone ASUS Zenfone 3 DeluxeReview smartphone ASUS Zenfone 3 DeluxeReview smartphone ASUS Zenfone 3 DeluxeReview smartphone ASUS Zenfone 3 DeluxeReview smartphone ASUS Zenfone 3 DeluxeConsiderando tudo isso, fica claro que os dois top de linha da ASUS estĂŁo mal posicionados no mercado. SĂŁo produtos de Ăłtima qualidade, mas simplesmente nĂŁo valem o preço que estĂĄ sendo cobrado atualmente. Quem sabe, com um bom desconto, na casa dos R$ 800 ou mais, esses modelos se tornem uma alternativa viĂĄvel para quem quer um monstrĂŁo de celular. Mas, no momento, a gente nĂŁo recomenda gastar quase 5 mil reais no Zenfone 3 Deluxe. ***Perguntas dos leitores1. O Zenfone 3 Deluxe tem carregamento sem fio?NĂŁo. O aparelho da Asus nĂŁo possui essa tecnologia de carreamento. Um leitor chegou a perguntar se isso era uma “heresia”, mas, na verdade, as fabricantes precisam escolher entre fazer um celular com carcaça de metal ou colocar tecnologia de carregamento sem fio. A maioria dos padrĂ”es de carregamento wireless nĂŁo funciona atravĂ©s de cases metĂĄlicas, e isso provavelmente impediu a Asus de incluir o recurso nesse modelo. Contudo, a Qualcomm chegou a comentar em 2015 que estava desenvolvendo uma solução para isso, mas nĂŁo sabemos em que pĂ© anda esse Tem ĂĄudio Hi-Res?Sim. Ele possui ĂĄudio Hi-Res de 192kHz/24-bit, que Ă© quatro vezes melhor que o som gerado por um CD, por exemplo. Entretanto, nĂŁo dĂĄ para notar muita diferença usando os fones originais do aparelho. Esses acessĂłrios sĂŁo intra-auriculares e tĂȘm um som melhor do que o esperado. Isso em qualquer smartphone, nĂŁo sĂł no Ele esquenta muito quando estĂĄ carregando ou durante a jogatina?Ele esquenta sim, mas nĂŁo muito, durante esses processos. Contudo, como a carcaça Ă© de metal, a pessoa tende a sentir mais esse calor e a se incomodar com Onde fica localizado o sensor NFC do Zenfone 3 Deluxe?Segundo este fĂłrum de suporte da ASUS, o sensor fica na parte da frente do celular. Bem ao estilo Xperia ZX. Nada prĂĄtico para uso cotidiano em pagamentos ou compartilhamentos via Android Beam. The Zenfone 3 line-up is diverse and covers the gamut of price ranges. At the top there is the Zenfone 3 Deluxe and at the opposite end is the Zenfone 3 Max, rounded out with a number of models that fall in between those price ranges. The Zenfone 3 Laser is a step above the Zenfone 3 Max so think of it as the second cheapest Zenfone 3 model available. Paying top dollar for a phone and having the latest processor with top benchmark results is not a priority for everyone out there. This is the target market for the Zenfone 3 Laser. It’s obvious to say, but there is some give and take when it comes to budget smartphones. I looked at the cheaper Zenfone 3 Max initially but paying around $50 more for the Zenfone 3 Laser made more sense. After all, the Zenfone 3 Laser is packing a FHD 1920 x 1080p display which is a big selling point for me. I didn’t just get the Zenfone 3 Laser ZC551KL for the sake of a review. This was a $249 CAD purchase I made out of necessity. I wanted to get a second smartphone which meant price was more important than having the latest and greatest hardware. As an overall value I thought this was a great deal for an unlocked Android smartphone. I’ve been using the Zenfone 3 Laser over the past couple of weeks and here are my thoughts and experiences. Quick Specs 5-inch FHD 1920 x 1080 display 500 nits brightness Snapdragon S430 2GB RAM 32GB Storage expandable to another 128GB via microSD card slot 3,000mAh battery 150g weight 149 x 76 x WxDxH Android upgradeable to Android Nougat Dual SIM card 13MP rear / 8MP front cameras Note see for full details Design and Features Asus has a knack for creating beautiful hardware. Even with its cheaper price point, the Zenfone 3 Laser ZC551KL is not a bulky or ugly looking. It’s very attractive with subtle design features. There are chrome accents and comfortable to hold rounded edges. It comes in either silver or gold color and the model I’m reviewing is the silver version. Speaking of the edges and comfortable design, Asus makes use of “hyperfine” sand blasting to polish the metal surface of the phone. I can attest to the benefits. It’s a nice phone to hold. A metallic body provides a premium feel which almost seems counter intuitive to suggest. Although the Zenfone 3 Laser is a device, it feels very light in the hand. Keep in mind that the iPhone 6 Plus weighs in at 172g oz in comparison to the Zenfone 3 Laser’s 150g oz. The iPhone 7 Plus weighs even more than the iPhone 6 Plus! In fact the Zenfone 3 Laser is lighter than the newest Galaxy S8 and last year’s Galaxy S7 models. Of course the lower specs of the Zenfone 3 Laser are part of this weight advantage but still it’s an interesting tidbit. On the rear is a finger print sensor which is snappy to unlock the phone. Location wise I’m not a fan of the rear placement simply because I often have my phone sitting on a table. If it’s charging for example, it’s going to be laying flat. A rear facing finger print sensor means I have to pick up the device to access the finger print sensor. At that point the path of least resistance is to simply use your alternate unlock method. The Zenfone 3 Laser is budget friendly so rather than having a USB-C port, it comes with a standard micro-USB charging port. If this means saving a few dollars it’s well worth the compromise. I’m sure most of us know how to orientate the micro-USB cable when connecting the phone so the real benefits of the USB-C are just limited to faster data transfers. A big design breakthrough for Asus in their Zenfone 3 line-up was having invisible antenna lines. I bet some of you don’t know what that really means. The antenna lines run horizontally across the back of mobile phones. This has been a necessary design from mobile phone manufacturers over the years. However with budget in mind, the Zenfone 3 Laser comes with the antenna lines on the rear of the phone. In my opinion these do not create an eye sore. These lines have a chrome look and feel and could be thought of as part of the phones design. The volume rocker and power button are nice and punchy. They have good response and the engraved concentric circles make them less slippery or more tactile. When it comes to subtle design features Asus rarely misses the mark. The Zenfone 3 Laser also features a microSD card slot for up to 128GB additional storage. If you want to store movies, videos and music, this additional storage can save a bit of hassle. The 32GB of local storage is great for this price, but if you’re keeping your videos on local storage along with apps and games, it can fill up rather quickly. Even with the 32GB listed storage, it’s less than that out of the box because of the pre installed apps and software. Display Lower resolution displays mean better battery life and a cheaper device price. However the Zenfone 3 Laser brings the cheap price without sacrificing on the display. The Zenfone 3 Laser provides 500nits brightness from its 1920 x 1080 FHD display. To me the FHD is worth the price of admission. You can enjoy those 1080p videos and movies which should be enticing for most users these days. More and more we live in an HD world. Maximum brightness is measured in nits and is something to think about. At 500nits, the Zenfone 3 Laser is lower than the 600nits of the Zenfone 3 ZE552KL model. In a side by side comparison there would only be a slight difference between the two. If you are hoping for an ideal mobile phone for use with bright sunlight, the Zenfone 3 Laser is going to do a decent job but it’s pretty much like most other similarly priced phone on the market. Usable, but not ideal. Audio The Zenfone 3 Laser provides good audio from a single mono speaker. Asus markets this speaker as being “5-magnet for up to 40% better performance”. What that means in real terms, I can’t say. In reality though, the phone can handle volume at its maximum without resulting in crackling or distortion. If you have an external speaker or headset the results are excellent and volumes are punchy. If you are in a pinch and need even more volume or clarity you can also set the audio to “outdoor mode”. Keep in mind with outdoor mode that you get a volume boost but it will not always provide a better or more clear audio experience. A small issue is that it’s easy to accidentally activate outdoor mode so I often needed to check my audio settings to ensure that it was disabled. Asus has their “Audio Wizard” app which gives you some audio presets and EQ settings. This app has far more use when you are using some type of external audio hardware because the EQ and presets are far more noticeable. Battery There is always lots to talk about when it comes to a mobile phone battery. I’m going to break this down into various sections to make it easier. Also please appreciate the wide range of variables which can alter results such as background apps, signal strength, room temperatures, case on or off, among other factors. Battery > Video Playback I ran a variety of video playback tests and used to brightness settings. This should provide you with a good idea on how long you can play videos for without needing to worry about charging the phone. I enabled airplane mode and ensured that all other apps were closed while running these tests. When playing a 1080p movie from local storage, at 100% brightness the battery would drain by approximately 20%. In theory, that would allow you to play around four 2-hour 1080p movies before needing a charge. When playing this same movie under the same conditions with 50% brightness, the battery would drain by approximately 16%. Theoretically that means you could play somewhere around six movies on a single charge provided you dim the brightness to 50% or less. Streaming video via wifi is generally a bit different and more taxing on a battery but the test results didn’t support this theory. I used an online streaming service similar to Netflix for these tests. So wifi was turned on but all other apps were closed during these tests. When streaming the video at 100% brightness, the battery drained by around 22%. When streaming the video at 50% brightness, the battery drained by around 16%. So the streaming aspect of this test wasn’t particularly more draining to the battery than when running a movie off of the local storage. Battery > Gaming I ran a variety of gaming tests under a few different settings. Largely I went either 100% brightness or 50% brightness using the “Normal” performance mode. If you are playing a graphically intensive game it may be best to use the “Performance” mode. For what I was doing the normal mode was sufficient. If you go performance mode obviously the phone will push hard, get warmer and use more battery. Playing a variety of game, you can expect to drain about 8-10% of the battery in 30 minutes of gaming while using full 100% brightness. If you play under the same conditions but lower the brightness to 50%, you can expect the battery to drain about 6-8%. Even at 50% brightness you could lower it even more and still see the screen clearly depending on the lighting conditions. Overall the Zenfone 3 Laser warmed up during gaming sessions but it wasn’t hot. If you put a chunky case then certainly expect a warmer phone and greater battery drainage. I was quite happy with the battery life while gaming. Keep in mind that if you’re using mobile data or have multiple games running in the background then your battery usage is going to be greater. There are lots of variables to deal with but hopefully my testing gives you a good perspective on what to expect. Battery > Standby When you phone sits idle, you hope the battery is around the same level when you pick it up. I ran a variety of standby tests over a couple of weeks. Standby battery drain is a tricky measurement. Any apps in the background can cause issues as can a weak wifi or network connection. I’ve done my best here to recreate common scenarios. With the Android Nougat update, I found the Doze feature to make a big difference. If your phone is entirely motionless the doze feature will just work. So this works well during overnight situations. If your phone is in your pocket and you’re out and about, the doze function will not activate. Asus has a handy performance app which gives you some options to save battery life. For example, you can set a time frame with a power saving setting such as super saver mode. So if you sleep from 11pm to 7am you can simply choose that time along with your preferred power saving mode. If you close out your apps, use “Normal” performance mode with wifi ON, you will see 3-4% battery loss. If you enable airplane mode then you are going to see even less battery loss during standby. Some apps work in the background when wifi is enabled so the best option is to enable airplane mode if you really want to see minimal standby battery loss. Battery > Battery Charge Times There is no fancy Quick Charge technology inside the Zenfone 3 Laser. As I’ve experience on other devices, the Quick Charge technology is only partially useful anyways. To fully charge the Zenfone 3 Laser from a dead battery state, you’re looking at just over 3 hours. I’m sure most users don’t drain their battery though. You can charge 30% of the battery in under an hour. If you’re charging with the battery around 50%, it’s going to take less than hours to fully charge the battery. Overall these charge times are respectable even though there is no Quick Charge technology on the Zenfone 3 Laser. Cameras It’s interesting that the branding of this phone includes “laser” which refers to a super quick laser auto focus. Keep in mind that this technology is employed on the other more premium priced Zenfone 3 models. Asus has made a big push on photography in every model with the exception of the Zenfone 3 Max but let’s see if the cheaper Zenfone 3 Laser can get the job done. Let’s talk capabilities. Video wise the Zenfone 3 Laser is capable of shooting full HD 1080p 30FPS video with 3-axis EIS electronic image stabilization. The front camera is 8MP with a f/ aperture and the rear camera is 13MP with a f/ aperture, 5 P lens. With the “laser” branding, this means a focus time of seconds according to Asus marketing materials. I can verify that it’s very fast. The Asus camera app offers quite a lot of flexibility for either auto settings photographers or for the more courageous manual settings photographers. The number of presets for the auto mode are varied and can help you in certain settings or help you create a particular effect. As I’ve mentioned in other Zenfone reviews, I quite fond of the “Depth of Field” preset which blurs out the background to create a lens blur effect similar to what’s found on expensive dSLR cameras. A good number of the presets will be enjoyable for the younger users in your family as you can create some wild, wacky and funny effects as well. I am in the process of assembling various photos and video samples taken with the Zenfone 3 Laser. These will be added in the next day or two. Overall though, I found the cameras to be a solid performer and the video recording was particularly excellent. Photography wise, I’m a complete amateur who relies on auto modes and presets. I can say on that basis that I found the Zenfone 3 Laser camera to perform admirably in brighter outdoor environments. To be expect though, the camera would prove challenging in those less than ideal environments, namely low light. Certainly this is not an exclusive issue to the Zenfone 3 Laser as most cameras have their struggles with poorly lighted environments. The photo below gives you an idea of how excellent the auto mode photography can be with the Zenfone 3 Laser. This is one of my favorite photos. Bright outdoor conditions allow the Zenfone 3 Laser camera to work its wonders. It has an ability to catch details. Most times the HDR mode resulted in excellent and more accurate outdoor photos. Contrast just seems better and details are more pronounced without getting washed out by too much brightness or contrast. See the sky and contrast in the photo below. Depth of Field is my favorite Asus camera app preset. Here is an example of what’s possible The front facing 8MP selfie camera does a good job at focusing in on faces and even offers a “beautification” mode which some of us may want or need more than others. As with the rear camera, the front facing camera will struggle with focus and proper lighting as the environment is dimmer. Outdoors? No problem. Indoor selfies can prove challenging with less light. Operating System and ZenUI If you have done any research online about the Zenfone 3 models, often you will hear negativity around the ZenUI software and the lack of Android updates. This negativity is largely unfounded based on my experience but let me explain. First, Asus has rolled out Android Nougat for most of the Zenfone 3 models already. In addition, there have been frequent software updates rolled out which improve various performance aspects of the phones over the year since their release. So to me, Asus is not forgetting about or abandoning the Zenfone 3 series at all when it comes to software updates. When I first powered up the Zenfone 3 Laser I was greeted with a software notification which was the Android Nougat update. Regarding ZenUI the Asus layer running on top of the Android OS I have not run into issues. Bloatware is a common and often misused term. For the sake of experimentation, I took the default apps and settings out of the box and diabled and removed every Asus related app on the Zenfone 3 Laser. So the OS at that point was unobstructed and only consisted of the default Google apps that are pre installed on the phone. The Asus keyboard was necessary to leave installed because otherwise there is no way of typing. So the point of that experiment was to prove that removing or disabling pre installed apps is possible and takes only a matter of minutes. I’m not suggesting that it’s essential to disable or remove the Asus apps, but I am saying you have ultimate say in what apps are used. You could in theory install the Google apps to run the dialer, messaging, clock, keyboard, etc. There isn’t a lockdown on the Zenfone 3 Laser operating system. With that out of the way let’s talk about what’s good and what’s bad about ZenUI. The level of customization is excellent and with the ZenUI online store it makes it easy to check out other customizations. Some themes are free, others cost money. You can choose icon sets, themes and wallpapers. You can mix and match an icon set with a different theme as well. When using the online store you can preview themes and icon sets to see what it looks like prior to downloading which saves some time and hassle. Asus also has a settings menu which is accessible with a swipe up when you’re on the home screen. This gives you access to various customizations but also it gets you a way into system settings. This is a seemingly minor feature but with the phones size, it is one way you can get into system settings when you are using one hand. Of course you could move a shortcut to system settings to make it accessible on the home screen but I personally find home screen real estate to be at a premium. The Asus ZenUI keyboard is good and bad. It’s very good with its level of customization. You can truly make this a bigger size and you can also reposition it so that it’s easier with one handed usage. Keep in mind that size adjustments need to be made separately for portrait and landscape modes. The bad is in the keyboard AI. If you are not a skilled touch typist and often add a letter where it shouldn’t be, the Asus keyboard is not that smart in offering the corrected word as a suggestion. Those times when you have two words stuck together, the keyboard AI often fails to identify that it’s two words stuck together and offer them with a space as a suggestion. Over time this can be frustrating if you are sloppy at touch typing like I am. ZenUI offers a lot of paths to the same destination which can add some unnecessary bulk to the software. There are perhaps too many settings in too many areas. Some settings require drilling down through menus which can lead to some confusion if you don’t have a good memory. There is a lot of flexibility and customization within ZenUI which can be a good thing and a bad thing at the same time. Themes, icon sets, wallpapers, Asus has you covered and they have convenient online stores where you can shop for new looks. Both free and paid options are available. There is a very good system in the online store that allows you to swipe the various screens of each theme and icon set so you can see what the changes will look like prior to downloading. It’s an excellent preview system! Performance and Benchmarks The hardware inside the Zenfone 3 Laser has been chosen with budget in mind. Inside are 2GB RAM along with a Snapdragon 430 with an Adreno 505 GPU. As a point of reference, the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus comes with 1GB RAM and processor. Apple has a pretty optimized operating system to work with their hardware but this comparison should illustrate the fact that the Zenfone 3 Laser isn’t exactly a slouch when it comes to hardware. When doing benchmarks for the Zenfone 3 Laser I’ve decided to choose wisely on comparison devices. It’s certainly not relevant to compare the Zenfone 3 Laser to the current flagship phones. So price is an important factor and also I thought it would be fun to add some flagship phones from last year. Today’s phones with slower processors and hardware would be considered flagship phones sometimes as recent as twelve months ago. You can see from the various benchmarks that the Zenfone 3 Laser basically falls in the middle of the pack. This is ultimately as it should be. The Zenfone 3 Laser cannot bring a low price yet be near the top of benchmark results. It doesn’t work this way. In real terms it’s certainly fast enough for the apps and media that you will be consuming on the phone. Bars in a chart don’t speak to how a device is in real terms. All the phone compared in the benchmarks above are all fully capable in their own right. Conclusion First and foremost the Zenfone 3 Laser ZC551KL is an affordable unlocked Android smartphone. It’s even more affordable because these days you’re going to find price drops of around $30 to $40. In Canada it’s as low as $249 and in the US it’s a low as $197. You will see this pricing trend continue into mid 2017. I think of the Zenfone 3 Laser as an all around performer. It doesn’t have top end hardware and it doesn’t have that big battery that the budget Zenfone 3 Max series has. There are no glaring shortcomings and there are no eye bulging features or qualities. It’s right there in the middle as it was meant to be. What you do get though is an excellent FHD 1980 x 1080 resolution display along with a brilliantly light and thin build quality. The Zenfone 3 Laser offers premium looks and that counts for something. It’s budget in price but not in looks. In terms of hardware there is enough processing power and RAM to get the job done. The Zenfone 3 Laser will not struggle to play your 1080p videos or stream content online. It can also manage mobile games without issue. However if you push the hardware like leaving many apps open in the background, the performance can suffer. That’s expected though. Simply close out the open apps running in the background and the performance and battery life will thank you. I don’t generally let customer reviews guide my views on a product but I found the various big retailer customer reviews to be quite telling. As a whole the reviews from customers are extremely positive. It validates my own experience with the Zenfone 3 Laser. The price is right with the Zenfone 3 Laser and I need to emphasize that point. It’s ideal for anyone who wants to get into smartphones and isn’t going to be needing premium hardware performance. The freedom of having an unlocked phone means you can use it on any carrier of your choice which can also save you money. The Zenfone 3 Laser means you can enjoy Android and everything it brings without having to over spend. Prices, Shopping, Availability US Link Canada Link

asus zenfone 3 laser review