Gadgetory

the Asus zenfone 3 deluxe has been available in the United States for a couple months now but we just got our hands on one so it's new to us we're looking at the 5.7 inch version of the phone and few specs Junkies you can pause now to see what this device is packing with that out of the way ultimately what we're looking at is another entry in the 2016 list of killer deals this spec sheet and build competing well against other phones priced under $600 in the hand we'd be lying if we didn't feel this design was a bit generic the main claim to fame invisible antenna lines not painted over like an LG simply non-existent tiny chamfered edges and a graceful curve to the rear it's an attractive handset but in a market saturated by metal phones the zenfone really isn't a standout these shiny forehead and chin bezels are flashy but it's a bit maddening how well they show off smudges and the navigation controls feel very low against this bottom edge reaching down to the home button feels unbalanced like we could easily slide or drop this phone 1080p resolution on a 5.7 inch AMOLED display is about par for the course here it's a perfectly reasonable screen resolution and users shouldn't have any issues getting through their daily tasks we are impressed by this screen brightness though in auto mode the zenfone cranks brighter than any other phone we've recently reviewed very well done for daylight viewing one of the few unique design elements asu's opted for a thinner strip of fingerprint sensor performance is snappy enough but users will need to get a feel for finger alignment we've missed scanned more often than on recent circular sensors we've reviewed moving to the software the custom skin known as Zen UI is in full force coloring nearly every aspect of the UI in a candy colored shell and oddly I don't hate it for those who don't mind something a bit different all of the general Android pieces are where you would expect and the phone manages to deliver a playful spin on the modern smartphone UI though it will likely frustrate many in our audience first Asus could do with some polish on organizing menus and settings there's a lot of hunting for options take audio very basic options and settings but if you want to dig into finer controls in the EQ you have to head out for a separate app there's also a lot of nagging notification shade nagging app installation nagging mobile data nagging add to that a pension for performance tweaks and RAM management which in this day and age feels out of place Android really shouldn't need this kind of hand-holding especially not with six gigabytes of RAM this chipset is well known territory and the phone utilizes it well driving the 1080p screen resolution navigating the UI and multitasking is as smooth as we would expect it to be a soos includes some custom gaming software to help users screen capture you can also fire up the selfie camera at a live broadcast while playing there's a shortcut to the speed boost here which just seems to dump whatever's in your RAM maybe this helps better allocate resources to your game it doesn't seem to make much difference in our real-world use regardless expect solid gaming playback with only the expected stutters in a title like marvel future fight Wi-Fi reception was better than average falling just behind other metal backed phones like the V 20 likewise cellular reception felt just slightly behind the mate 9 in my home on 18 t LTE but asus is making excellent use of 18 t download speeds posting one of the faster speed tests I've seen in my neck of the woods the audio game is a bit of a mixed bag manufacturers have largely tapped out what we can do with mono bottom firing speakers and the zenfone is about as good as we should expect in that regard an outdoor mode allows you to push louder at the expense of quality should you need more presents for ringtones and alerts we likely wouldn't sit and listen to music in a room with this mode activated talking about headphone playback requires a little bit of weeding Asus claims support for high res audio when playing back 24-bit files the audio app will show you this high res symbol and the phone will play 24 and 32 bit tracks yet looking back at our benchmarking reports output seems to be truncated to 16-bit audio we couldn't find a way in the various issues apps and settings to truly represent the full range of 24-bit sound quality is near the bottom of our list as well these numbers are hovering around the LG g5 in the huawei mate 9 this is good playback but the zenfone is far from file grade and the UMP on board is somewhat anemic this wouldn't be a great fit to drive nicer headphones and a wrap-up audio Asus does include a respectable pair of earbuds offset drivers help the fit though we are a bit concerned by the cable shielding which feels a bit flimsy these buds are a bit lean on the base side but did a fantastic job representing mids and highs the only issue with this the phone already boosts mid-range audio when listening you end up with a double dose of mid frequency sound which depending on what you listen to might sound great or could sound terrible happily this is a surprisingly solid camera again a su software organization could do with some sprucing but the zenfone delivers a well stocked list of option settings and manual controls photos come out a touch on the juicy side for saturation and the only frustration reran into was somewhat twitchy exposure when we focused in the same spot here and managed to land totally different brightness values video is similarly exposed we get a nice crisp colorful UHD output optical image stabilization is on tap though movement is a bit on the shaky side most noticeable when trying to hold still at macro distances when walking it seems like the camera is over correcting for movement on some footfalls leading to some of this twitch or jank and the shooter comes well stocked for fun features a depth of field blur setting allowing users to dial in blur after the shot is taken a capable HDR mode which works well at reining in highlights though it can blow out warmer colors thanks to that extra saturation applied and a low light mode which reduces output resolution to better control noise though it doesn't seem to work much better than the phone's normal auto processing and a pretty complete manual mode will be a welcome addition for folks who like to dial in specific settings and capturing their photos in all we get software which makes good use of some solid hardware though like many aspects of this phone we do wish menus were a bit better organized users face quite a bit of memorization on first use remembering where every mode and option lives lastly running our battery bench 30 minutes of HD video over Wi-Fi at 190 Lux the phone drained 6% which is absolutely in the right ballpark for this battery capacity and daily use numbers matched where the phone easily made it to dinnertime with a little room to spare under moderate use the recharge game is also solid thirty minutes on the supply charger resulted in a 40 percent recharge well done there so let's wrap this up where does that leave us with the zenfone 3 deluxe we know we have a soos fans in our audience and we can see why this is a respectable offering continuing the conversation of packing flagship specs into mid-range pricing if 2016 is remembered for anything positive it'll be the year we really upset smartphone pricing and this phone represents an idea extremely well because of all this competition however the 400 to 500 dollar price tier has become precious territory the zenfone is battling against some extremely tough options and it's difficult to find any specific areas where it truly rises above put me on the spot and ask me what this phone's killer app is and I'll struggle to give you a concise answer everything is just good - very good and that's about where we should leave this review off I suppose as always thanks so much for watching be sure to subscribe to this channel for more reviews like these and help us out with some sharing on your favorite social networks for PocketNow i'm juan carlos bag now some gadget guy on twitter and instagram and i will catch you all on the next review