Asus ZenFone Selfie Review

Introduction To The Asus ZenFone Selfie

The Asus ZenFone Selfie is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 processor clocking in at 1.7 GHz and it sports 3GB of RAM. The phone has an internal storage of 32GB that can be expanded up to 64GB via a microSD card. The cameras are the main feature of this phone, as the Asus ZenFone Selfie packs a 13-megapixel primary camera on both the rear and the front.

The Asus ZenFone Selfie comes with Android 5.0 lollipop and is has a battery of quantity 3000mAh which is removable. It measures 156.50 x 77.20 x 10.80 (height x width x thickness) and weighs 170.00 grams.

The Asus ZenFone Selfie is a dual SIM (Dual GSM Standby) smartphone that accepts Micro-SIMs only. Connectivity options include Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth, FM, 3G, 4G. Sensors on the phone include Proximity sensor, Ambient light sensor, Accelerometer, and Gyroscope, etc..

Look And Feel

The Asus ZenFone Selfie, it's looks are based on the Asus ZenFone 2, and has the same general look and feel. The overall styling is all maintained, making this phone unmistakably part of the series. It's most distinctive part is the 13 Megapixel front shooter, due to which the front camera lens is larger and a bit protruding and the front camera is positioned in the centre. and also both the cameras have dual toned flashes, and interestingly the earpiece is vertical not horizontal like other phones in the zenfone 2 lineup.

This phone also uses a hybrid-SIM slot, which Samsung has starting doing these days and that means that one SIM slot doubles up as the slot for expandable storage forcing you to choose one or the other, we find this rather unsettling as we would have loved both the SIM Card slots free and a separate MicroSD Card slot.

As you guys know we love the screen of the zenfone 2 lineup and the Asus ZenFone Selfie has not disappointed us with a screen of 5.5-inch with a resolution of 1080x1920 pixel. Viewing angles, sunlight legibility and colour reproduction are all excellent as well, and also with the software included you can also change the colour reproduction . Like the ZenFone 2 Laser, the as per your liking. Asus ZenFone Selfie is a large phone though, and it has to be classified as a phablet due to its hefty dimensions and screen.

Specifications

The Asus ZenFone Selfie rocks a Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 SoC which is not great but does well, and we feel the lack of the Intel Love in this phone. The review unit which we had came with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage.

4G compatibility on both SIM Cards with dual standby, Corning Gorilla Glass 4 protection, support for up to 64GB microSD cards, and a 3000mAh battery. While the device is not all powerful but it gets the work done and that to not feeling sluggish at all, which gets an applaud from our side.

Camera

The main attraction of the Asus ZenFone Selfie is its 13-megapixel front camera, which consists of an f/2.2 aperture and 88-degree wide-angle field of view which is great for selfies. The rear camera has a similar 13-megapixel sensor, with an f/2.0 aperture and the laser autofocus system that we saw in the Asus ZenFone 2 Laser. Both cameras have 5P Largan lenses, Toshiba sensors, blue glass filters, and dual-tone LED flashes.

The rear camera of the Asus ZenFone Selfie is exactly the same as on the Asus ZenFone 2 Laser, and performs identically. The camera shoots very well in indoor settings, while the outdoor shots are pretty much only average compared to the ZenFone 2. The laser autofocus ensures excellently focused shots mostly close-ups. The laser autofocus system is quick and accurate just like expected, ensuring precisely focused shots most of the time.

Let's just take the front camera at the face value, it will only be ever used for selfies hence the name Zenfone Selfie and also the occasional skype calls. So we limited ourselves to only take selfies and that was tough because i never take selfies. Pictures taken were sharp, detailed and vibrant, with accurate colour reproduction and good low-light performance, and combined with the beautification feature it is awesome for selfies. The front flash is a huge benefit as well.

The camera app is the same as the one on the all the ZenFone 2 series, and is well-designed and robust with a great feature set. Notable features are the standard automatic mode, a detailed manual mode, HDR, panorama, smart remove, slow motion, GIF animation and time lapse. The front camera can also use all these modes, and there's a useful selfie panorama option as well. The app has a nifty sliding self-timer, which is an extremely intuitive way to take self-timed shots.

Performance

The Asus ZenFone Selfie is a great phone and consists of at least so much of power that even a power user can also do day-to-day functions very easily. The 3GB of RAM and the Snapdragon 615 SoC keeps the device running smoothly. The interface runs flawlessly, and apps and games load and run without any trouble. We tested game performance with the game Injustice: Gods Among Us and oh my god it was such a smooth gameplay, although the device did heat up a bit, and also their was heavy battery drain.

The device was put through benchmark tests, and results are listed below.

GFXBench - 13 fps

3DMark - 5256 points

AnTuTu - 38,485

Quadrant - 23,993

While at the start we were sceptical about the pricing of the device as ASUS is charging a bit of a premium for the camera technology, but we found that the performance is good enough to justify the higher pricing.

We found the Battery very powerful as it gave us around 2 days worth of usage from 1 single charge. The Selfie also performed well in terms of call quality, signal strength but, the sound performance from the speaker was on the lower side and we did not like it at all.

Pros -

Great Selfie Camera.

Good Battery Life.

Great Closeup shots.

Cons -

Front Camera protrudes a bit.

Plastic Body.

Speaker's not powerful enough.

Bad Focus shots when the object is far.

Final Verdict -

The Zenfone Selfie is amongst the first generation of Selfie Phones from ASUS and they have put in a lot of features and have made a great phone, but a little polishing is needed like putting in better speakers, improve the range of the shots, etc. but still it is a great device in it's category and any person who loves to take selfie shots should get this phone.

Final Words - It is for a Niche Market and does not have wide-spread approach.

Buy The Phone Here - Click Here