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The article is subjective and expresses the personal opinion of the author.
This meant that I had to go.
So, in the last few weeks I’ve had some major boxes ticked. Battery life. Epic. Camera? Really good actually, especially that 48 megapixel shooter. Another thing was the signal. As you’ll probably be able to tell from some of these pictures, we went to Newquay on holiday. Me and the wife are both on Vodafone. I’m using the ZenFone 6, she’s on a Samsung Galaxy S9. In some of the more remote parts of Newquay and Cornwall, my wife would be cursing the lack of signal as she tried to locate something on Google Maps, however my phone had full 4G. The ZenFone 6 seemed to perform extremely well in this area, and I was usually the one called upon to Google stuff or play music from Spotify because I had a signal … and I had battery life.
I drove all the way down to Newquay with Google Maps running – a trip of some 5 hours or so – and then used the phone in the evening. The battery just went on and on. No problems whatsoever and there’s Quick Charge 4.0 so you can top-up quickly.
Good battery, good signal, good camera.
The speed too, this thing rattles along, and with the 128GB microSD card I’ve added there’s plenty of storage in the 128GB model I’ve got in to review. I’ve basically got a 256GB model now.
Oh, and circling back to that comment about signal, I can also have my work SIM and my personal SIM in this phone too. The tray allows two SIMs and a microSD. How many phones do that?
The Qualcomm CPU just glided along without breaking a sweat, and thanks to the way it’s put together (1×2.84 GHz Kryo 485 & 3×2.41 GHz Kryo 485 & 4×1.78 GHz Kryo 485), it works to preserve battery.
Powered by Android Pie, there’s the Asus ZenUI on here which I didn’t really feel got too much in the way. Most of my apps were within easy reach and, if not, I could just swipe down, grab them and stick them on the “favourites tray”.
The home screen has a number of options, including the ability to remove the “All apps” button so that all your apps are in one place if you want. You can also adjust the icon packs, change the grid size, hide certain apps, icon alignment, label colour, themes and even adjust how the screen scrolls. It’s fully featured.
Meanwhile, up top, you can add and remove tiles to be displayed after you’ve swiped down – there’s even a “retract camera” button there if you want. Oh, and an FM radio.
In the settings you can literally spend hours tweaking every available option, from the colour scheme, night light, colour mode, font type, app scaling and a raft of battery settings – including whether you want it to detect which apps are draining power. I liked that option because, on some phones, you can’t turn that off.
A feature called “OptiFlex” will enhance the speed of app launches and reduces “app reload”. This also saves power on standby. It’ll work automatically based on your usage.
We live in a smartphone world, so it’s good to see an entire section of the settings dedicated to “Digital Wellbeing”, where you can see just how much you’ve unlocked the phone, how many notifications you’ve received and where you’ve spent your time. You can go further and set time limits for each app to prevent you over-using them, even managing or stopping notifications and also setting a “Wind down” schedule to help you rest properly at night.
There’s also a “Brightness Booster” to enhance brightness when you’re out in direct sunlight. Nice that.
An SOS system is built in to let you quickly make an emergency call and send texts, plus there’s “Twin Apps” where you might have two accounts for one app. This comes with a Pocket Mode, a Glove Mode, Screen Recorder, Gestures, a Mobile Manager and the Smart Key.
You also get a 3.5mm audio port too.
Overall
In all honesty, the 48 megapixel camera on here might not be used a great deal. If you leave it on this setting you’ll get no zoom, no HDR+ and no effects. You’ll be switching it down to 12 megapixels (in 4:3) or 9 megapixels (in 16:9) pretty quickly. Although, those photos really are very good.
I was impressed with the fit and finish of this thing and that motorised camera wizardry, which stayed on the right side of “gimmick” and actually proved very useful. In my head, I thought it would annoy and perhaps be a dust trap. But it wasn’t, and it didn’t get in the way. It just worked.
The 5000mAh battery performed incredibly well, and the memory, CPU and storage spec was just top notch. This really is a high-end smartphone, with NFC, dual-band WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth 5.0, fast-charge, a 3.5mm audio port, USB-C and a microSD slot and two SIM cards… but it’s only £499.99. Great price.
The 6.4″ Full HD+ 19.5:9 screen performed admirable considering it wasn’t OLED, and I have to admit that I was impressed with this entire package overall.
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