Hands on: Asus ZenFone 6 Comment



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Asus manufactures many of the best laptops. But judging by the distribution of his phones aloneyou might assume that it was an upstart. ZenFones has not reached the critical stage yet.

The work of Asus ZenFone 6 is to reverse this trend. It has some high-end specifications and a gadget-tactic camera, but still costs much less than the most expensive phones from Huawei, Samsung and Apple.

Let's take a closer look at ZenFone 6 to see if it really deserves more attention than its predecessors. The phone starts at £ 499 for the version with 64GB of storage and 6GB of RAM.

You'll have to shell out £ 50 more for 128GB of storage or £ 599 for the more upscale with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.

Design

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There are two highlights Asus ZenFone 6, and they are related, like brothers and sisters. These are the camera and the front fill screen.

The phone has a motorized camera. Two of the things are sitting on the back. Their housing turns around to tell you when it's time to take a selfie.

You can not help but notice that these cameras look a bit "tall". The ZenFone 6's mobile camera is less subtle than the OnePlus 7 Pro or the opal cheese front camera.

It takes you a little less than a second to see you in the face. It's not very fast, and the fact that this face unlock with ZenFone 6 is an obvious assumption. But this is not the case. You can use the face unlock if you wish. It's just not like the OnePlus 7 Pro.

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Asus says the mechanism has been tested for 100,000 operations. And that it is made of "liquid metal", similar to that used in eyeglass hinges. It is designed to withstand rough treatment.

Liquid metal looks like sci-fi film or, more likely, nonsense marketing. But there is substance to that. These alloys have a shape different from that of the usual aluminum alloys of conventional telephone housings.

But do we imagine the chances of the ZenFone 6 Hinge against an angry five-year-old child who takes it wrong? Not really.

Aside from the concerns, this mechanism releases the ZenFone 6 screen. The borders are thin and there are no punch holes or nicks in the movies you stream from Netflix. You will probably see many more of these screens without holes in 2019.

Set aside the early bird extras and the Asus ZenFone 6 seems like a pretty conventional phone. Its back is Gorilla Glass 6, the sides are aluminum. And the front window has a slight curvature 2.5D style at the extreme edges, not the big step of a Samsung Galaxy S10 or Huawei P30 Pro.

Still, it's a decent look, and comes in silver or black with a sparkling finish when it catches light.

In addition, ZenFone 6 is neither heavy nor thin considering its huge battery and unusual technology. It also has a headphone jack, which gives the impression of touching the jackpot now that very few phones have one.

Display

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The Asus ZenFone 6 has a 6.4 inch screen. It's big enough to be compatible with high-end phones with even more recognizable names, but it's not so big that the phone looks like a real monolith.

It is an IPS screen of 2340 x 1080 pixels, a lower level than the best in many ways. High-end phones have a higher pixel density and in a dimly lit room you can see the backlight glow. You will not see this in an OLED phone such as the Samsung Galaxy S10 or OnePlus 7 Pro because they do not have a traditional backlight.

In many ways, it is an excellent screen. Asus says that the brightness is above 600 nits, the color is glowing. And if you do not want the super-bright standard look, the Asus Splendid feature lets you cool down the saturation levels.

After a test on Asus ZenFone 6, an obvious area could be improved. There is a significant drop in brightness in one corner. The best LCD screens show less of this effect.

Software and specifications

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Most of the previous Asus phones were weighed down by software that was too big. Asus uses ZenUI software on its phones and tablets. Previously, it was often necessary to pack them with unexpected additional applications and a visual layer slowing down the system, which degraded the overall experience.

The ZenFone 6 has ZenUI 6, but you can easily confuse it with Android standard. Its software does not look so different from a Pixel 3 XL.

There are still some additional Asus apps and some extra features under the surface. But Asus is no longer desperate to put his indelible imprint on Android.

The outdoor mode is one of the additional features you get. It raises and lowers the alert volumes according to the ambient noise. Pretty smart, right?

The Asus ZenFone 6 material exactly matches our expectations and expectations. It has the Snapdragon 855 processor, the most powerful processor currently available on Android phones. It's an excellent chipset, and you get either 6 GB or 8 GB of RAM depending on the specifications you want.

The storage starts at 64 GB, a little stingy next to what offers Honor. But upgrades to 128GB and 256GB are very reasonable.

Camera

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You already know the camera structure of ZenFone 6. It's strange. But is the hardware inside the flip case useful?

The Asus ZenFone 6 incorporates the 48-megapixel Sony IMX586 sensor into a rapidly growing host of phones. Better not think of this as a real 48 megapixel camera because it is designed to take 12 megapixel photos.

This reduction in resolution takes place through a process called "binning pixels", in which the information that four pixels from the sensor make it into the final photo.

Taking photos is fast and responsive, but there are some signs that this may not be the best camera in its class. There is a Super Night mode that takes several seconds to capture nighttime shots, but they look a little lighter and noisier than the best ones. And the autofocus of Asus ZenFone 6, although generally quite fast, has been slow to react repeatedly.

We will dig that in our comprehensive review.

The motorized camera offers tips that you will not see elsewhere. You can record a fully stabilized 4K selfie video with electronic image stabilization and the natural depth of field effect of its f / 1.79 lens.

You also get manual control over the camera engine. Do you want to shoot at a strange angle? Just press the volume button while you are in the Camera application, which slips like a little robot.

Asus suggests using this option to shoot very low subjects without having to kneel to see the screen. We will see if this sounds: it is a little strange at first try. However, you can also use it to create panoramas (remember?) Without moving and panning on the fly while shooting.

Some motor movements may be audible in quieter sequences.

You also have a 13 megapixel wide angle lens. According to a quick test, it does not seem as high-end as the wide-angle camera Huawei P30 Pro, but it is not surprising given the price. And it takes dark pictures inside without turning them into porridge.

Battery life

Whether you are convinced by the style of the camera or not, the battery of the Asus ZenFone 6 is undeniably attractive.

The phone has a 5000mAh battery, about 20% heavier than the highly durable Huawei P30 Pro. We have not yet had the time to test its longevity, but Asus says it will last two full days of use, 33.3 hours of call or 26 days standby.

If it is not a soldier of the battery life, we will be surprised and disappointed. The Asus ZenFone 6 has a fast charge, a must with such a high capacity, but it does not have a wireless charge. This is a fairly common omission among packaged midrange phones.

Early verdict

In a sense, the Asus ZenFone 6 looks familiar. It's a phone that wants to get people away from more expensive alternatives by promising them great value and high-end specifications, such as Honor Phones and OnePlus Brigade.

However, it is also unusual. It has a massive battery, a headphone jack and a motorized camera that looks ambitious even next to the Oppo Reno and the OnePlus 7 Pro. Too ambitious? We will judge after further tests.

Image Credit: TechRadar

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