Gadgetory

hey how's it going guys this is Dave - Dee so last week I did a review of the 2015 Moto G which is Motorola's sub 200 smartphone for this year it's a fantastic phone I think they're going to solve tons of them but there are other options out there at that price range and the Asus zenfone 2 is one of them now I've had this phone for two months they've updated the software a couple times since some of the earlier reviews here are my thoughts this is a phone that's priced at just under $200 for the base model it comes in your standard smartphone colors and a red that I have here in the box it has the phone pamphlets and a two piece AC adapter simple stuff the front of the phone is covered in Gorilla Glass 3 it's relatively big phone it's still comfortable to hold in one hand but using it in one hand might be difficult if you have smaller hands like I do it has three capacitive buttons on the bottom here they don't light up which is actually a bit of an annoyance but it does have a reflective print so it's clearly visible during the day but when you're using the phone in low-light or in the dark it's tough to see the buttons the chin and underneath has a radial brushed finish kind of like their Zen book line and it looks okay but because of the capacitive buttons the chin of the phone looks bigger than it actually is so if we go around the sides the left side is smooth there's no buttons bottom has a microUSB charging port and a mic the right side also has no buttons and the top of the phone has another mic the power button and a headphone jack now this power button is in a pretty unconventional spot for the first couple weeks of using it I actually found it difficult to turn the phone on and off but over time we got used to it it is a smaller button and you need to press it pretty hard to turn it on or off the back of the device has a plastic cover that was made to look like a brushed finish that kind of looks similar to metal but not really it's nicer to hold than just smooth plastic because it has a little bit of texture to it but the Moto G is still easy to grip because that rubber now the unit I was given came in red it's actually a pretty nice-looking red if red is your thing but red is not my thing so I picked up a black cover and a deep brain scan for it for some better grip and yeah I think this seats me way more it is a bigger device than the LG g4 even though they have the same screen size of five and a half inches and a Moto G is obviously smaller with its 5-inch screen but at 170 grams the zenfone 2 is still really comfortable to hold and use the backplate comes off easily when you want to remove it and on the inside you'll see two SIM slots I tried the double SIM card thing I mean it works but I'm just not cool enough to actually use two SIM cards regularly but for people who do use this feature it does work nicely it also has a micro SD slot I tried a 64 gig card worked without a problem so if you need lots of storage this phone has you covered the speaker down here is pretty small but if you look at the back cover it kind of looks like the speaker or possibly speakers would run along the length of the back sadly it doesn't it's just one speaker on the left here and it gets reasonably loud but because it's on the back of the phone it projects away from you making it quieter so here's what they sound like the volume rocker is on the back the buttons are clicky and responsive but it's not as organ amah to use as the volume rocker on the g4 see the g4 has a distinct bump in the middle so you know what's up and down just by feel but the buttons on the zenfone 2 are narrow and it's pretty flushed the case so you can't easily tell if you're pressing up or down without looking at it the main camera is a 13 megapixel camera with a two-tone flash so software updates greatly improve this camera since launch it's solid in bright lighting it can be a little too sharp and maybe a little too colorful for some people I mean it really depends on your personal tastes I prefer my cameras to shoot a little more dull and natural but it is a very respectable camera when there's lots of light video records at 1080p at 30 frames per second I mean it's like a great-looking video but it's okay low light photos though aren't as good now on default settings for both cameras the zenfone 2 has better low-light photos the Moto G I found that kind of interesting but overall camera on the zenfone 2 is really solid for the price front-facing camera is 5 megapixels I'm not a huge front-facing camera kind of guy but seems to work ok screen is a 5 and a half inch IPS panel 1920 by 1080 so Full HD viewing angles are decent and the brightness is okay it's on par with the Moto G so it's still not great in daylight the resolution is nice and crispy though it's 400 PPI which is a big jump over the 294 ppi of the Moto G and in terms of color using software you can adjust the color temperature of the phone and even tweak hue and stuff I mean it never looks perfectly calibrated but in general the colors are pretty good on it it's obviously not the best five and a half inch screen I've use when you compare beside the LG g4 yeah it doesn't look as good but the g4 is over triple the price of the zenfone 2 so it's a great screen for $200 sadly it's still running Android lollipop 5.0 Asus is kind of slow pushing out these Android updates but performance is really good there's no real lag or stutter in any of the google apps and everything just feels snappy asphalt 8 is a demanding game and even though I'm running the lower spec version of this phone with just 2 gigabytes of RAM everything is really fluid and significantly snappier than the Moto G hearthstone also runs noticeably better on this phone animations are smoother and just the interface is a lot snappier overall the performance is good like surprisingly good at this price point and demanding games aren't a problem at all alright a quick blurb on battery life here when the phone is first launched it was actually difficult to get a full day's worth of heavy use off of one charge and screen on time was about 4 hours sometimes even less now they've updated two maybe even three times since launch and battery life was one of the things that they've heavily improved on so right now I can easily hit a day and a half of regular use or like a little bit more than a day of heavy use and screen on time is about four and a half sometimes even five hours if you're using it lightly so that's a really nice improvement now the battery life isn't as good as the 2015 Moto G but it's still really respectable for charging the battery the 2 gigabyte version that I have on came with a standard charger I had to get this quick charger from Asus now this quick charger comes with a four gigabyte version and terms are charge times you can get about 60% with about 45 minutes of charge time this is with the quick charger and to get it fully charged it's about two hours and with a standard charger it takes about three hours to do a full charge Asus puts a pretty heavy skin on their interface especially when you compare to the really light skin that Motorola puts on the Moto G there's a lot of pre-installed bloatware you can uninstall the majority of them but there's still this lingering issues like flavor when you're done with it but there are some things I like so things like the tap to wake drawing patterns to launch apps of your choice like the camera app the screen color adjustment blue light filters all the different camera modes and filters and the downloadable theme packs which totally reskin the interface there are a ton of themes to choose from so if customization is your thing you probably like this ok recap of the zenfone 2 it has a 5 and a half inch screen that's big and sharp but it's not that bright a 5 megapixel front facing camera that takes 5 megapixel pictures 3 capacitive buttons that unfortunately don't light up all covered in Gorilla Glass 3 on the back we have swappable covers that come in a bunch of different colors and a pretty good 13 megapixel camera and there's also that deceptive speaker grille inside we have a single speaker that's reasonably loud but it's facing the wrong way 16 to 64 gigs of expandable storage 3000 milliamp hour battery that will comfortably get you through day all of this powered by either a 1.8 gigahertz or a 2.3 gigahertz quad-core processor with 2 or 4 gigs of RAM ok bottom line the zenfone 2 is a really awesome option if you're looking for a smartphone that has a really big screen and a powerful processor in that $200 price range now everything else about the phone is pretty good the camera is pretty good but the thing that really differentiates itself from the Moto G in terms of overall value is that bigger screen and that powerful processor but if those two things aren't like the most important features you're looking for on a phone I would sway you away from the zenfone 2 and more towards the Moto G that's the end of this review hope you guys liked it if you did thumbs if you loved it some subs and I'll be back next week with my regular stuff notebook reviews it's been nice and I'll see you guys next time