Asus has emerged as a strong player in the smartphone segment in the past year. With the Asus Zenfone 2 being a huge hit, the manufacturer didn’t stop there. With the Zenfone Laser, they got laser autofocus to the low end spectrum and the Zenfone Selfie to cater to this selfie generation. The Asus Zenfone Zoom isn’t a surprise launch if you think about it. The device was showcased early last year along side the Zenfone 2 but was never launched officially. After seeing the huge demand for the product, Asus put the product into production and now in 2016 we have it with us.
This is a first impression of the Zenfone Zoom after using it for the past few days. A detailed review of the product will follow soon as I use it as my daily driver. The design of the phone is more in line with the other Zenfone series especially that of the Zenfone 2. From dead front it is very hard to tell what Zenfone it is because of its identical design. The power button moved to the side is the first change that grabs the eye ball along with a dedicated camera button on the side and a button for video recording.
Turn the phone around and it reveals what the Zenfone Zoom is all about. At the back it has a big circular design element that houses the camera on the smartphone. The 13 megapixel camera has 3x optical zoom along with OIS and is bundled with a Dual Tone LED Flash and Laser AutoFocus. The camera also has the lens glass made by Hoya that makes lens filters for DSLRs. The phone feels natural to hold in the landscape mode as the fingers move to the zoom keys and the shutter button naturally.
The camera is impressive, the optical zoom brings the subject closer without having to strugle to capture it. With small tests for video, the results were brillaint. The OIS works quite well and the resultant footage is stabilized, without a single unwanted shake.
While the camera is the highlight of the smartphone, it does pack a lot of muscle under that beautiful body. The device is powered by a Intel Atom Z3590 Processor which is a Quad Core Processor clocked at 2.5 GHz. The processor is backed up by 4GB of RAM that made the Zenfone 2 famous. The powerful processor is aided by PowerVR 6430 graphics chip.
The back cover is removable and reveals the single sim slot and a microSD card slot. The Zoom comes with 128GB of internal storage and the slot allows expansion upto another 128GB. This does makes sense as an SD card can be used to store the pics clicked on the phone and quickly transfer it as well. Under the slots is a 3000mAh battery that has the power to keep the phone running for a single day.
So these were my observations after using the Asus Zenfone Zoom for a few days, an indepth review of the phone is in the making and is coming soon.
