Asus Zenfone 3 Zoom Comes with Stellar Cameras & 5000mAh Battery

Asus has just released the new Zenfone 3 Zoom phone internationally. The smartphone focuses on photography (as evident from its Zoom moniker) and offers mid-range specifications otherwise.

ZenFone 3 Zoom is priced at $329, and is available in Navy Black, Glacier Silver, Rose Gold colors.

Lets take a look at its design and features.

Design and Display

Being a small smartphone maker Asus doesn’t focus on design much, which shows in the ZenFone 3 Zoom. The front looks plain with 3 capacitive buttons at the bottom and the earpiece, sensors and the front camera at the top. At the back are the antenna lines adding some semblance of style. It looks strikingly similar to the iPhone 7 Plus and Huawei P10 Plus from the back, thanks to its dual camera setup.

ZenFone 3 Zoom features a 5.5 inch Full HD (1920 x 1080) AMOLED screen with a 401 PPI pixel density. Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protects the display of the phone. A fingerprint sensor covers the back, sitting just under the flash.

Speaker performance is expected to be good as the ZenFone 3 Zoom features 5-magnet speakers with NXP Smart Amp.

Internals and Storage

This phone is a mid-range device with an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor. For memory, the RAM clocks in at 4 GB coupled with 32/64/128 GB storage options. A microSD card slot is included if you’re looking to save money and go for the 32 GB variant.

The OS choice is, unfortunately, Android 6.0 Marshmallow which seems outdated for a phone coming out in May 2017. Asus’ ZenUI 3.0 skin is included which may or may not appeal to most people.

ZenFone 3 Zoom is a dual SIM phone by default but it has a caveat; only one SIM card can connect to 3G/4G LTE service at a time.

Camera(s)

Moving towards the cameras, the ZenFone Zoom series is famous for its shooters. 2015’s Zenfone Zoom had 3X optical zoom which was replaced with a dual 12 MP camera setup this time around. Asus claims that 2.3X optical zoom is included with SuperPixel™ Technology which captures “2.5 times light sensitivity compare with iPhone 7 Plus”.

One of the main cameras uses a f/1,7 aperture 25mm wide-angle lens while the other one employs a 59mm sensor with the 2.3X optical zoom. Other features include 4-axis, 4 stops Optical Image Stabilization, 3-axis Electronic Image Stabilization, simultaneous 4K video and 9MP image recording, a dual LED flash and a “World leading fastest Dual Pixel PDAF” with a 0.03s instant focus.

All in all it looks to be a strong contender when it comes to camera quality and performance.

The front camera is a regular 13 MP sensor with screen flash, slow-mo, and other tidbits.

Battery

Beating out almost all other smartphones, Asus ZenFone 3 has a massive 5,000 mAh battery unit. What’s surprising is how Asus packed that big of a battery in a phone that’s barely 8mm thick. You can get a guaranteed 2-day battery life based on average usage patterns.

It comes bundled with a regular 10W charger which is a bummer. You do get a USB OTG cable for charging other devices.

Asus ZenFone 3 Zoom Specifications

  • CPU: Octa-core 2.0 GHz Cortex-A53
  • Chipset: Qualcomm Snapdragon 625
  • OS: Android 6.0 Marshmallow
  • Supported Networks: 2G/3G/4G LTE, Dual SIM
  • Design:
    • Dimensions: 154.3 x 77 x 7.9 mm
    • Weight: 170 g
    • Fingerprint sensor
    • 5-magnet speakers with NXP Smart Amp
    • DTS sound enhancement
  • Display:
    • 5.5″ AMOLED Full HD (1920 x 1080) resolution, (~401 ppi)
  • Memory:
    • RAM: 4 GB
    • Internal: 16/32/64 GB
    • Card slot: microSD, up to 256 GB
  • Camera:
    • Primary: Dual 12 MP, (25mm, f/1.7, OIS (4-axis)& 59mm, f/2.8), laser/phase detection autofocus, 2.3x optical zoom factor, dual-LED (dual tone) flash
    • Secondary: 13 MP, f/2.0
  • Connectivity: Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band, WiFi Direct, hotspot, USB type-C, OTG, Bluetooth v4.2
  • Battery: Non-removable 5,000 mAh battery
  • Colors: Navy Black, Glacier Silver, Rose Gold
  • Price: Start at $329

A techie, gamer, and Senior Editor at ProPakistani.



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