New Asus ZenFone Max Review: A phone or a power bank?

Asus introduced an upgraded version of the ZenFone Max, via its #LiveUnplugged web stream in India. What’s interesting about the company’s new release is that it improvises on the processor and storage from the previous model, but it sports the same affordable price, starting Rs 9,999. It is also offered in two new vibrant colors, namely orange and blue along with the standard black and white color variants. The company also used this event as an opportunity to announce Bollywood star Sonakshi Sinha as its first-ever brand ambassador in the country, but that's another story.

The Zenfone Max (2GB RAM) is available for Rs 9,999 and can be pre-ordered on Flipkart while Zenfone Max with 3GB RAM is available for Rs 12,999 and can be purchased from Amazon, Snapdeal and Flipkart. The 3GB RAM variant will also be available at ASUS Exclusive stores and all other retail stores across India, at a later date.

Let’s find out on how well the device performs compared to its competitors.

Build and Design

In terms of build and design, Asus offers a pretty much similar line-up of its Zenfone series. It’s all plastic with a hint of a faux metal frame around the side. The back cover offers a faux leather finish too, sadly. Even though the device is mostly made up of plastic, it still tends to be on the heftier side at 202 grams. Asus added the volume and power buttons to the right, keeping the left, completely clean and empty. Navigation buttons are placed at the bottom along with the typical shiny plastic strip just below it. Chunky bezels are a disappointment. Considering the humongous 5000mAh battery, there is no doubt here that this one big heavy smartphone! There are other smartphones in the market such as the Gionee Marathon M4 which include a similar battery capacity but is still, comparatively slim and light.

Display

The Asus Zenfone Max sports a 5.5-inch IPS HD display with a lower than Full HD 720x1280 pixel resolution. To begin with, the screen does impress with its dynamic and vivid colors but the brightness seems compromised. You might have to scrunch your eyes to stare at the screen in the glare of direct sunlight. However, Asus has included a screen color mode where you can manually change the color temperature. Viewing angles on the Zenfone Max are decent. For your everyday social media apps and other activities, the display might not frustrate you. But the same cannot be said if you are having a go at graphics-intensive games.

Performance

Under the hood, the Zenfone Max comes equipped with a 1.5 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 octa-core processor, offered along with 2GB RAM. The phone does tend to take a moment longer to respond in certain tasks. But otherwise, multitasking is smooth, all apps work without any lag and we did not encounter an experience wherein the phone hung or froze. However, while playing games, the phone did get a tad bit slow and heated up slightly. We did find the audio output to be disappointingly low, both on the loud speaker and headphones, as well as with the in-ear voice call speaker.

The Asus Zenfone Max runs the latest Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow. Even so, you might not be able to take advantage of the new OS as the smartphone has been heavily customized with the company’s ZenUI on top. As soon as we connected the device to Wi-Fi, almost 15-20 preloaded apps started updating. To make matters worse, these apps cannot be deleted either. The new smartphone now includes an internal storage of 32GB which can be further expanded up to 64GB via microSD card. The device also features a one-hand usage mode and a power saving mode along with Asus Sync and ZenCircle.

Camera

The ZenFone Max sports a 13MP rear camera with phase-detect autofocus and dual LED flash along with a 5MP front-facing camera. Features included on the rear camera are Wide View, PixelMaster, Zero Shutter Lag, Night mode, Photo Effects, Panorama mode, Miniature, Time Rewind, Smart Remove, Time Lapse, HDR mode and GIF animation. Both cameras are impressive in terms of speed of focusing on a particular subject and camera UI operation. In terms of quality, even though the device packs in a commendable pixel size, the images could be better: photos shot outdoors in natural light turned out better than those clicked indoors with artificial lighting. They appeared to be rather noisy and adopted a granular-like effect. Selfies clicked on the phone were satisfactory too, and the Beautification mode does enhance the pictures to a certain extent.

Battery

This might be the main USP of the device, the 5000mAh battery. The smartphone easily lasts more than 24 hours, which included using numerous social media apps, games and streaming YouTube videos. If at all, it can last up to two days with lighter usage. Turns out, the device is partly a power bank too, which means the smartphone itself can be used to charge other USB devices. The drawback for the ZenFoneMax would be that it comes equipped with a standard 1A/5V charger, which takes up the charging time to almost 6 – 7 hours for a full charge. A quick charge system would have been highly appreciated. The package also includes an OTG cable.

Conclusion

Being touted as an affordable smartphone, the best feature about the smartphone is its humongous battery: use it all you want and it is highly unlikely most users will be disappointed. Apart from this, the display is good for everyday usage, nothing spectacular. The camera is above average, and the device does have a hefty body thanks to its beefy battery. Android Marshmallow brings all the bells and whistles we've grown accustomed to in this OS, while ZenUI throws in a ton of apps--something you may like if that's your thing.

What we liked: An amazing battery life with the latest Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow experience

What we didn’t: Average camera and average display

This article was written by karrishma Modhy and was first published  here.