Asus Zenfone C Review

Asus Zenfone C Review

ZenUI, the interface skin Asus has put over Android 4.4 Kitkat, has been a joy to use. It’s user-friendly as the controls and toggles offer simplicity and intuition. It also has an Easy mode to boot, which aims to present a more straightforward menu with bigger icons and more straightforward controls that can be useful for the elderly.

The camera clicks very sharp images and is really fast for this price range. It even comes with auto-focus. But the images are a bit over saturated with an excess of yellow. It gives skin tones a yellow tinge, which might suggest the person needs to be put on jaundice watch. Still, Asus has brought in its low-light capabilities into this range. The phone has just 4GB of storage so you will need to bu y a SD card with the phone.

Flip the device over and we’ve got the 5MP rear camera at the top-center, accompanied by an LED flash just underneath. The long speaker grills are seen at the bottom part. The polycarbonate back shell in a white matte finish looks respectable, but is susceptible to fingerprints and smudges. Inside the shell are the removable 2,100mAh battery and slots for two SIM cards and a microSD card.

Asus has the Android 4.4 KitKat running in the ZenFone C, layered with Zen UI, which is intuitive, useful and something no user would feel confused while navigating through it. I always like and admire the way Asus keeps the lock screen simple, with time and weather information, shortcuts to the most important apps – camera, phone and messaging.

VerdictThe ZenFone C is somewhat of an update to the ZenFone 4, but isnt very different from it in many ways. The larger screen is nice to have, but even so, Asus will have to do a lot more to be competitive as others release newer and more capable products. The Xiaomi Redmi 1S is still the class leader, though its highly restricted availability leaves a lot of room for companies such as Asus to be successful. If you think the ZenUI might be too confusing, there are also plenty of stock Android One devices in the market at this price level.

Similar to Asus smartphones we’ve reviewed in the past, the speaker grill is quite deceiving as the speaker only represents a smaller fraction of its length when the back plate has been removed. Nevertheless, it is able to produce decent sound quality and its loudness can fill up a small, quiet room.

Asus offerings stand out most because of the comp anys ZenUI Android skin. Its one of the more imaginative takes on Android customisation, with useful features all around. The lockscreen has shortcuts to the camera, dialler and messaging apps, and also shows the weather, alarm status and a neat timeline of upcoming calendar events. You can choose different views within the app drawer, and even resize the grid and hide unwanted icons.

Like other Zenfones, The Zenfone C’s camera software is something not to be underestimated. Despite the budget-level premise, the software allows the user to capture photos on different modes. Time Rewind, Tilt-Shift, Macro, and the 2-megapixel low-light mode are some of the modes worth using.

The Zenfone C is a decent entry-level smartphone with an adequate performance. Marking itself as one of the most affordable Intel-equipped smartphones in the market today, its lauded design and build also seen on its other siblings, the increased screen size and battery capacity, and the software skin that is of the ZenUI are some of its great points not to be missed out.

One of the reasons why we loved the ZenFone 5 last year, was the way Asus had designed it. You already get an idea of how we might appreciate the design of the ZenFone C, as it is almost the copy of it with only the smaller size. The metallic rim on the front bottom gives the device a premium look, with the semi circular rings reflecting the light source. The back cover is removable, and the battery is accessible as well. The only issue with the black unit is that it doesn’t resist fingerprints, and there are smudges noticed as well. Sometimes, it is as bad that you might see the entire fingerprint clearly on the back.

The screen is not very good, in terms of resolution and overall quality. Colours are dull and viewing angles arent all that great. Reflections are harsh, especially under sunlight.

The first pull has to be in the price. If Asus can achieve a 4,990 price point in India, this phone will be a better buy than the Moto E or the Asus Zenfone 4. At Rs 1,000 more people might start looking at whether the dual SIM on the new Moto E is a better bet. But if the Zenfone launch showed us anything, then Asus might not really might pushing the envelope with a killer price.

The 2100 mAh battery on the Zenfone C should ideally be enough for this phone. That said, this is another area where it disappoints. In our battery test, the Zenfone C lasts a mere five and a half hours, while competitors like the Lenovo A6000 last at least an hour longer. The battery life could have been better.

For someone looking at a decent interface, good battery life and a well build phone in the budget range, the ZenFone C serves all these. The camera, although good, isn’t the best you see in this price range, and the phone doesn’t have a display that might impre ss you. You better know what you are buying this device for, i.e. as a secondary phone for normal usage, or a primary smartphone if you are someone newly getting into the smartphone territory.

The performance of the device would have been good in the older generation of budget devices, but compared to the Snapdragon 410s that we’ve just started getting, it’s not quite good enough. Intel’s Z2520 SoC seems to be failing majorly on this device.