Finally, the budget segment in smartphone category looks quite filled with a few brands. First, it was Motorola coming up with the very good performing Moto E, then Micromax and Lava came up with their own products to compete with Moto E, and now, Asus has put in its efforts to launch a device priced actually lesser than the whole lot, but expected to do quite well to compete with the former. It’s the ZenFone 4 from Asus, which is priced at Rs. 6000 in Indian market.
The ZenFone series includes devices from 4-inch to 6-inch and all of them are designed the same, the trend which Samsung has used since years for several smartphones that it launched. But here, the thing that is noticeable is that Asus has put in some efforts to make the devices look good from every angle. While making the external look stand out, there was nothing ignored in the interface because the Zen UI gives offers a lot to the users.
On the first look, the ZenFone 4 doesn’t fail to impress, just like we were happy with the Asus ZenFone 5. It is the Charcoal black variant we tried, and this although doesn’t have much gloss and is a fingerprint magnet on the back, it doesn’t show the dust or colors like the white one did.
The bottom rim below the display looks quite neat and at least because of that, we don’t really get a chance to complain about the amount of space wasted unnecessarily. The rear side has the camera and just beside to that, is the speaker grill. Quite a lot of branding, but nothign annoying – ASUS, Zenfone and Intel inside. The MicroUSB port on the left side though should be a problem sometimes if you are someone who uses docks to charge a phone. The buttons for lock and volume are very rightly placed, because for a phone of that size, the buttons are very easily accessible when on the right side.
The back cover of the Zenfone 4 is removable, and you get the direct access to the battery, although that isn’t needed to be removed for inserting the SIM cards and MicroSD card. These slots are on the top and right bottom, which don’t disturb the battery at all.
The Zenfone 4 comes with a 5-megapixel rear camera which isn’t really bad at all, although the absence of a flash would be a strong point to consider for many, because the flash is used for more than just photos in budget phones. The modes, effects and several settings ensure that we get a very appreciable quality of capture in the end. For us, this is much better than the Moto E camera because apart from the good picture quality, there is Auto and Manual focus for focusing on an object.
The Zen UI is something which attracts quite a lot, but for a few, it might annoy with a lot of pre-installed apps. But then, if you are someone who loves to start off trying the apps which the company has provided, they are not all useless apps. The notification panel looks brilliant, with the quick settings section having quite a lot of options for connectivity, profiles, brightness settings and a few other options. The pre-installed apps include Amazon Kindle, AudioWizard, Do It Later, Mirror, Omlet Chat, Party Link, Power Saver, Share Link, Sound Recorder, Splendid, SuperNote, WebStorage, What’s Next apart from the Google Play Services based apps.
Overall, the Asus Zenfone 4 is a pretty sleek, very comfortable and light, and in the end quite a worthy device for the price you are paying for it. The camera is a lot better than the Moto E and Asus has hit the right market at the right time, with the competitors like Motorola and Xiaomi coming up with comparable devices in the similar price range. The review would be up soon, but for those early hoppers who are wondering if they are spending the money on the right device, this device is quite worth it.
