Gadgetory

a Souza's original zenfone 2 was one of our favorite mid-range smartphones of 2015 thanks to the unprecedented value it brought to the table with yet another variant Asus is maintaining its focus on affordability while still offering very respectable specifications this is Bailey Stein with Android authority and this is my full review of the Asus zenfone 2 laser the zenfone 2 laser looks a lot like the original it has the same 5.5 inch screen size same organ amelie pleasing curve and overall could be easily mistaken for the original that's not to say that the phone's design is without a few minor differences of course in addition to the unsurprising addition of a laser autofocus you can now swap out the battery there's also access to dual micro SIM card slots as well as a micro SD card expansion slot although the zenfone 2 laser is certainly still in phablet territory it's dramatic curved and flat edges make it both easy and comfortable to hold with a single hand despite this Asus estab Center power button placement is still well annoying to say the least thankfully double tap to wake and sleep are still here as part of Zen motion among other gestures the power button is undeniably difficult to reach nonetheless but it does feel more tactile than it did on the original oddly enough this comes at the expense of feeling cheaper which is also extended to the volume buttons on the top of the device you'll find a 5 megapixel front facing camera on the right as well as a notification LED to the left there's also three non-illuminated standard capacitive keys on the bottom just above the Asus signature metallic chin the zenfone specials are a bit large compared to other devices but that's not that big of a deal once you actually start using it overall the zenfone 2 laser is one of the best built and designed devices in its price category Asus has no trouble pulling off a premiumness often reserved for more expensive devices even with the lasers all plastic construction well some may frown upon Asus use of a recycled design we feel that the design here is more than adequate the zenfone 2 lasers 5.5 inch 1080p IPS display looks about the same as it did on the original it has excellent viewing angles great color reproduction and overall just looks really good we do wish that the panel was a bit brighter however as sunlight readability is sadly just as poor as it was on the original auto brightness also tends to be a bit conservative even with the adaptive brightness slider set on maximum the splendid color settings that asus has added are definitely a nice touch despite the displays already great color calibration it's also nice to see a blue light filter toggle available straight from the notification shade which makes the display easier to read in darker environments finally Asus hook the opportunity to upgrade the displays glass from Corning Gorilla Glass 3 to for a seemingly small but very welcome change especially for the price powered by the Snapdragon 615 the zenfone 2 laser makes a somewhat surprising switch from x86 to arm as expected the benchmark scores are a bit lower on the zenfone 2 laser but day to day performance is about the same most apps launch fairly quickly and there's minimal length route while the laser does have a marginally less powerful processor it does receive a bump up to 3 gigabytes of RAM from the original base models 2 gigabytes that's great to see especially when we still have some $200 phones shipping with just one gigabyte of RAM coupled with the audrina 405 gaming performance was pretty good on the zenfone 2 laser I was able to play games like asphalt 8 airborne with little noticeable lag even on high with support for 802 11 m Wi-Fi GPS and Bluetooth 4.0 the zenfone 2 laser offers all the connectivity options you'd expect it is missing NFC however which is a bit unfortunate considering that the original zenfone 2 had it what the original didn't have though was band 12 support for t-mobile 4G LTE users this time around asus is launching their unlocked dual SIM device with full HSPA+ and full 4G LTE support within the US the zenfone 2 laser is available with either 16 or 32 gigabytes of internal storage but you can always expand that with a microSD card up to an additional 128 gigabytes Asus seems to have used the same rear speaker found on the original for the zenfone 2 laser while some quality is about average the maximum volume is still too low for some environments battery life was also close to the same on the zenfone 2 laser with the same 3000 milliamp hour battery capacity I was able to get an average of about 3 and a half hours of screen on time with 18 hours of usage when I did use it more heavily however I was able to get just over 4 hours of screen on time with 14 hours of use while there doesn't seem to be much of an improvement over the originals mediocre battery life asus does now give you the opportunity to swap out the battery if needed the 13 megapixel rear camera on the zenfone 2 laser is now accompanied by a laser auto focus the laser autofocus does seem to help the phone focus on specific objects and some images were noticeably sharper on the laser in comparison to the original with the exception of better sharpness and detail however images appear to be about the same there's still a lack of dynamic range but unlike with the original HDR now often makes things worse the camera is certainly capable of producing great images but it is held back quite a bit due to this issue low light performance on the zenfone 2 laser was also similar to the original and that we were able to get some decent looking images even in darker environments well there is still a lot of digital noise added with a sis's image processing it's one of the best low-light cameras that we've encountered for the price Asus has low light mode also helps quite a bit at the expense of resolution but we should note that additional digital noise seems to be inevitable Zen you eyes camera app offers a good amount of manual control in addition to over 8 dozen individual shooting modes they're fun to play around with and the professional mode is excellent for those wanting a bit more control the zenfone 2 laser is running a CSS Zen UI over Android 5.0 lollipop the software experience remains primarily unchanged from the original but that's not necessarily a bad thing well we can't cover every aspect of the software we will say that Asus has done an exceptional job and adding value through the software experience virtually everything is well thought-out and Asus has been very good about filling in the gaps in stock lollipop it definitely follows a design language of its own but the overall experience is one of the best you'll find from the customizable quick access apps on the lock screen to the many customizable gestures available with Zen motion Zen UI offers a good amount of room for customization there's also many features like RAM cleanup play to support several power saving modes with automatic or scheduled switching an auto start manager an audio equalizer a built-in backup and restore app that actually includes app data FM radio a surprisingly good mobile video editing app a quick memo app a sound recorder app a themes manager with support for custom fonts and icons within the default launcher thank you very much mazie mode a kids mode a one-handed mode a glove boat and finally frequent Asus app updates through the Google Play Store speaking of apps we can talk about as anyway without talking about bloatware well asus has reduced the amount of pre-installed apps by a fair amount there's still a lot of unnecessary and redundant additions apps like clean master doctor safety zen circle and zen talk are included out of the box with the latter two being unable to be uninstalled with that said Asus has made some of their apps most notably their link Series installable through the Google Play Store rather than pre installing them out of the box there's also a good amount of apps which have been moved into the settings menu reducing the amount of scrolling required and app launchers although it does ship with Android 5.0 lollipop we're nearly certain that this device will receive Android 6.0 marshmallow sometime during the first half of 2016 Asus has one of the best track records for keeping their products updated for example the zenfone 5 which launched in early 2014 shipped with Android 4.2 jellybean was updated to Android 4.4 KitKat and then to Android 5.0 lollipop that kind of software support is difficult to find in even some flagship Android smartphones nowadays it may just be the key selling point for some Android enthusiasts starting at $1.99 the zenfone 2 laser is priced competitively if sixteen gigabytes isn't enough there's also a 32 gigabyte model available for 249 just to be clear the model that we're reviewing here is the ze551ml z-- of the zenfone 2 laser available depending on the region so we suggest that you carefully review specification lists before making any purchases although the zenfone 2 lasers display could be brighter battery life could be better and speaker could be louder ASA still offers a very competitive option in the sea of cheap Android smartphones the great display exceptional software experience and support and bonuses like Gorilla Glass 4 and 3 gigabytes of RAM are enough to make this one of our favorite smartphones for under $200 thank you for watching this video and please make sure to give it a thumbs up below if you enjoyed it also please be sure to subscribe to the channel if you'd like to see more content finally make sure to visit the Android a thority website for additional coverage is we are your source for all things Android