ASUS ZenFone 2 / Zoom

[bearxor]

I just can't imagine being in the Android ecosystem and justifying paying more than $400 for a phone. There are so many really good choices underneath that price point that the extras added by something like the Note or Galaxy S don't seem to justify the increase.

 

[zinfamous]

Didn't know about this until the short review on AT today. I wish there was a 5" version, but I still might consider upgrading my beloved SGS2.

Looks like ATT works for all but one band, so assuming my Cricket will work just fine?

 

[Uppsala9496]

Hmmm, $299 is a damn competitive price. Hopefully the bootloader is unlocked so the folks at XDA can root this to get a clean install of android on it.

 

[mmntech]

I'm going to wait for Brandon's full review before making any decisions. $299 is a great price. Hopefully that's what it is here in Canada too.

 

[Ravynmagi]

Yeah, the price is awesome. Intel must be helping ASUS out to make that happen. I don't think any phone even comes close at this price.

Though in North America it'll still be a hard sell where most people are still used to buying their phones on a contract with their service. $200-$300 is what you pay for a flagship Samsung and Apple phone from a carrier.

I think the only thing that makes my nervous is ASUS build quality reputation with their tablets. ASUS kept making what looked like amazing tablets on paper and then ended up screwing up at least one major detail. Hopefully ASUS manages to build these okay without all the manufacturing screw ups or design fails.

 

[Commodus]

I just can't imagine being in the Android ecosystem and justifying paying more than $400 for a phone. There are so many really good choices underneath that price point that the extras added by something like the Note or Galaxy S don't seem to justify the increase.

And that's part of why Samsung is in so much trouble lately. A lot of its energy was spent on trying unsuccessfully to beat Apple in the high-end space, but the biggest danger was from "good enough" smartphones, primarily in China. If you're making a middle class Chinese income (the equivalent to several thousand US) and have to save up to buy a phone, a $320 Xiaomi Mi4 makes a lot more sense than a $650 Galaxy S. After all, they both run Android reasonably well. If you really want something high-end and different, you might as well get an iPhone (hence why Apple is currently the top smartphone maker in China).

The ZenFone 2 definitely underscores that. It may not be the best phone, but at $299... that's a good bargain.

 

[kpkp]

Everyone seems to talk about the $299 version while the $199 is clearly the better value, has no major compromise and has no competition at that price point.
For 2/3 of the price you get basically the same experience.

People have 2 solid budget friendly choices for 5.5" phablets (ASUS, Alcatel), it's absurd that there are no smaller counterparts beside the MI4i.

 

[Ravynmagi]

Everyone seems to talk about the $299 version while the $199 is clearly the better value, has no major compromise and has no competition at that price point.
For 2/3 of the price you get basically the same experience.

People have 2 solid budget friendly choices for 5.5" phablets (ASUS, Alcatel), it's absurd that there are no smaller counterparts beside the MI4i.

I dunno. $200 model only has 16GB of internal space. I think it's well worth the extra $100 to get quadruple the internal storage, double the RAM, and slightly faster processor. Also looks like only the 4GB model included the faster "18W BoostMaster" charger.

Though I agree the $200 is also great and plenty fine for folks that may not need a lot of internal storage.

 

[mmntech]

And the Canada Tax comes into effect. $249 for the base, $379 for the 64GB.
http://mobilesyrup.com/2015/05/18/asus-zenfone-2-comes-to-canada-starting-at-249/

Yay low dollar. Look at all those natural resource and factory jobs... that are being lost while everyone else gets to pay more for stuff. Oops.

 

[KeithP]

Hmmm, $299 is a damn competitive price. Hopefully the bootloader is unlocked so the folks at XDA can root this to get a clean install of android on it.

I really don't understand these OEMs that feel they need to alter the UI. Just put plain Android on the thing and save yourself some time and support costs. If they really want to add to the experience, do it through an app(s) separate from the OS.

I am currently using a 2nd gen Moto G and to me this looks like a great inexpensive upgrade. However, I have no idea how ASUS is with updates to their phones. Are they reliable? Reasonably timely?

-KeithP

 

[Zodiark1593]

Many refer to the Snapdragon 800 as the chip that became the "good enough" benchmark for modern smartphones. Everything beyond that has been incremental upgrades.

If the S6 edge weren't so darn expensive I'd have shelled out for it... but it is about 5x the price of the LG G2 that was on sale at Best Buy last week. Other than the screen quality (which IMO the LG G2's panel is good enough @ 1080p) and the fingerprint sensor, I don't see today's smartphones as much better than the generation of phones that were released 2 years ago. I can't justify buying a $700+ smartphone unless you game heavily and require the latest and greatest SOC and GPU.

I really haven't seen any games that require anything beyond a Snapdragon 800 either, even demanding titles. The only thing really missing for me is HEVC support (added in the 801), and even then, high profile AVC does a fine job of keeping file size from becoming obscene.

 

[kpkp]

I dunno. $200 model only has 16GB of internal space. I think it's well worth the extra $100 to get quadruple the internal storage, double the RAM, and slightly faster processor. Also looks like only the 4GB model included the faster "18W BoostMaster" charger.

Though I agree the $200 is also great and plenty fine for folks that may not need a lot of internal storage.

You are right, from the geeks perspective, but I would argue that almost no one would notice any difference between the 2 models, beside the storage that can be partially mitigated with the SD card.
We are talking 2014 flagship phone like specs for $199, the new Moto G will need to push the envelope to stay competitive. To bad there is currently no ARM SoC in the market that can compete with the Intel (discounted) offering.

I wonder why Qualcomm discontinued the 801 so fast. It's a great SoC that would be superb for midrange phones.

 

[Uppsala9496]

Up for pre-order on amazon right now. Ships in 2-4 weeks. Might as well get an order in and then cancel if the reviews come back poor.

 

[VenomXTF]

Newegg has them in stock with free shipping. Ordered a red 64GB version just now.

 

[MarkLuvsCS]

Has anyone found any nice cases for it? I checked online a bit and it seems there are many cases that just seem to cover the back.

 

[mmntech]

Both NCIX, Canada Computers, and Memory Express all have them listed on back order. Watch out as some cheeky retailers (the first two) are trying to charge $399 for them and are listing $379 as a special "sale price".

Newegg.ca and Amazon.ca don't have them listed yet.

I'm split on whether to get the 64GB or 16GB. Performance wise, there's only a 15% difference. I doubt anybody would notice on day-to-day use. That 16GB storage though is pretty limiting. Doesn't Android place limits on where you can store apps now?

 

[MarkLuvsCS]

I'm split on whether to get the 64GB or 16GB. Performance wise, there's only a 15% difference. I doubt anybody would notice on day-to-day use. That 16GB storage though is pretty limiting. Doesn't Android place limits on where you can store apps now?

Yes, it was around 4.x they disabled installing apps onto other memory than internal, and developers need to put in extra work to be able to use external storage to dump a lot of asset data.

 

[mmntech]

Review from Linus Tech Tips.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtrjwsz6Q6c

Interestingly, Linus says the boot loader is unlocked. So you should be able to install stock Android on it if you don't like the Zen UI. Too bad Cyanogenmod hasn't been ported to x86.

 

[MtSeldon]

I wouldnt change the Zen UI. Cause it's optimized quite good, and graphics are butter smooth . I tried different launchers on Zenfone 5, and they werent as smooth as the ZenUI.

As for the case, i bought a Nillkin sparkle , with a smart cover thing. It works ok. saves me the trouble of turning off the screen everytime.

Asus updates frequency is ok i guess. It was updated several time since i bought 3-4 months ago. Also android 5.0 update is about to be released. (for Zenfone 5)

Looking at the anandtech preview, CPU performance looks way better than i expected. Mostly the critic is that cpu cores don't turn off completely like Snapdragons ,instead they just throttle the frequency. Does anyone know why?

Weak part seems to be the camera, but for the price , i think its acceptable.

 

[kaerflog]

My small gripe about the phone. The double chin.

 

[Obsy]

Getting my 2GB delivered in a few hours! Amazing what a couple hundred dollars gets you in a phone nowadays. I hope ASUS can improve the supposedly mediocre battery life through software, though; else I'll be looking at the Alcatel Idol 3.

 

[lothar]

Didn't know about this until the short review on AT today. I wish there was a 5" version, but I still might consider upgrading my beloved SGS2.

Looks like ATT works for all but one band, so assuming my Cricket will work just fine?

What the hell? You still carry that thing around?
I remember way back that we both bought the SGS2 from Amazon around the same time so many years ago. You used some credit card that gave you $150 cashback for spending $xxx on a single purchase within the first few months.

Time for you to upgrade.
Since then, I've gone to the Nexus 4 >>>> Nexus 5.
No more Samsung for me unless it's a GPe device. I only consider Google Nexus and Motorola devices from hereon forward.

This phone seems to provide excellent value for it's price.
My only problem with this phone is the reputation of ASUS. The only good Android product that they've ever made was the Nexus 7 2013. Everything else they've ever released has been complete trash including(but not limited to) Transformer tablet, Transformer Prime tablet, Nexus 7 2012, and various PadFone incarnations.

 

[RossMAN]

I'm gonna pass on this and will snag an Idol 3 if it goes on sale/coupon/rebate/discount/something.

 

[ThatsABigOne]

I'm gonna pass on this and will snag an Idol 3 if it goes on sale/coupon/rebate/discount/something.

What are your reasons?

I cancelled my Idol 3 200$ pre order as ZenFone 2 seemed a better deal. For 50 more bucks, you get twice the RAM, and quadruple the storage. That alone is a winner for me.

 

[MtSeldon]

I would definitely take this over Alcatel. Almost every spec is better.