Asus Zenfone 4 Review
The Asus Zenfone 4 is Asus's new ultra-budget Android operating system phone. It's not going to strike you away with its loaded functions record, but if it offers for the right cost in the UK, this could certainly be one of the more able, and suitable, low-end mobile phones.
Asus Zenfone 4 – Design
As you'd anticipate from a phone set to offer for $99 in the US, the Asus Zenfone 4 is a plastic-bodied phone that doesn't experience particularly elegant or costly. It's mild, it's primary and it's quite little thanks to its 4-inch display.
However, Asus's simple design results in a decent-looking inexpensive phone. It's not without design modifications either, as the bottom of the front of the phone bears the concentric sectors structure seen in Asus's much more expensive Transformer product gadgets, and its Zenbook Ultrabooks.
It's not a particularly thin phone at 11.2mm, but then cheaper, smaller-screen mobile phones hardly ever are.
This is a 800 x 480 pixel display, a resolution that these days is only seen in phones that need to cut a lot of corners in order to keep the price down. It's a TFT screen, but screen quality is fairly good in its class. Colours aren't heinously washed out and while the pixel density is limited, the Zenfone 4 screen does not look truly blocky.
Its processor power is also pretty good among entry-level Androids. Rather than using an basic processor from a big name like Qualcomm or a chip from a company that frequently turns up in low-cost phones like MTK, the Zenfone 4 has an Intel Atom chip, a dual-core 1.2GHz Z2520. We didn't get to spend a great deal of time with the phone, but it seems less laggy than many truly cheap Android phones.
You only get 4GB of internal memory with the Zenfone 4, but there is a microSD memory card slot under the plastic battery cover. The cover comes in five colours too – red, blue and yellow and well as white and black. Connectivity is fairly basic. You get Bluetooth, GPS and Wi-Fi, but miss out on NFC.
The version of the Zenfone 4 we played with ran Android 4.3, which the phone will launch with, but the new ZenUI had not yet been plastered on top. As is generally the case, the ZenUI doesn't look quite as good as standard Android to our eyes, and there's a good chance the custom interface may introduce a bit of lag. Fingers crossed performance will remain sold, though.
The last of the Zenfone 4's features is its array of two cameras, a 5-megapixel one on the back and a basic VGA sensor on the front. There's no flash and we wouldn't advise expecting too much from the phone's image quality, but phones of this price often leave out the front camera as a cost-saving measure.
Review by Trustedreview.com
However, Asus's simple design results in a decent-looking inexpensive phone. It's not without design modifications either, as the bottom of the front of the phone bears the concentric sectors structure seen in Asus's much more expensive Transformer product gadgets, and its Zenbook Ultrabooks.
It's not a particularly thin phone at 11.2mm, but then cheaper, smaller-screen mobile phones hardly ever are.
Asus Zenfone 4 – Screen and Features
The one element that really marks the Asus Zenfone 4 as a low-end phone is its screen. It's not the 4-inch size that's the issue, but the resolution.This is a 800 x 480 pixel display, a resolution that these days is only seen in phones that need to cut a lot of corners in order to keep the price down. It's a TFT screen, but screen quality is fairly good in its class. Colours aren't heinously washed out and while the pixel density is limited, the Zenfone 4 screen does not look truly blocky.
Its processor power is also pretty good among entry-level Androids. Rather than using an basic processor from a big name like Qualcomm or a chip from a company that frequently turns up in low-cost phones like MTK, the Zenfone 4 has an Intel Atom chip, a dual-core 1.2GHz Z2520. We didn't get to spend a great deal of time with the phone, but it seems less laggy than many truly cheap Android phones.
You only get 4GB of internal memory with the Zenfone 4, but there is a microSD memory card slot under the plastic battery cover. The cover comes in five colours too – red, blue and yellow and well as white and black. Connectivity is fairly basic. You get Bluetooth, GPS and Wi-Fi, but miss out on NFC.
The version of the Zenfone 4 we played with ran Android 4.3, which the phone will launch with, but the new ZenUI had not yet been plastered on top. As is generally the case, the ZenUI doesn't look quite as good as standard Android to our eyes, and there's a good chance the custom interface may introduce a bit of lag. Fingers crossed performance will remain sold, though.
The last of the Zenfone 4's features is its array of two cameras, a 5-megapixel one on the back and a basic VGA sensor on the front. There's no flash and we wouldn't advise expecting too much from the phone's image quality, but phones of this price often leave out the front camera as a cost-saving measure.
Early Impressions
Once you get your hands on the Asus Zenfone 4, it's pretty clear that this is a budget phone. However, if it sells for the right price in the UK, this could become one of the most capable ultra-budget phones around thanks to its Intel Atom processor. However, if it gets anywhere near £100, the existence of far more capable phones like the Motorola Moto G could sink it.Review by Trustedreview.com
Hi, can you bring the stock android 4.4.4 ForAsus zenfone 4.
ReplyDeleteBecause the zenui sucks.
As moto e have.