Laser-fast focusing from Asus
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For a mere Bt7,000, it's amazing what the ZenFone 2 Laser can do - and do well
A FAST-FOCUSING camera gives the ZenFone 2 Laser from Asus an immediate edge over the competition, as well as its cool last name. The LTE 4G smartphone is also affordable and offers a pair of 4G SIM slots to boost competitiveness.
The Laser’s main camera has 13-megapixel resolution with an f/2.0-aperture lens. Laser-assisted focusing technology means the auto focus snaps in crisply in a mere three one-hundredths of a second, and it’s almost as speedy when the lighting is dim.
As if that weren’t enough, the camera has a Real Tone dual-colour flash to make the lighting in your pictures seem more natural.
There are several ZenFone 2 Laser models to choose among. I got to test the ZE550KL, which has a large IPS display – 5.5 inches with 1,280x720 pixels – covered by Corning Gorilla Glass 4, offering twice the protection as Gorilla Glass 3 in case you drop the gadget. It has 2.5 times the “retained strength” and is 85 per cent less likely to break during daily use.
The ZE550KL packs a 64-bit Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 quad-core processor running at 1.2GHz and an Adreno 306 graphics processor. You have two gigabytes of working memory (RAM) and 16GB of internal storage that can be further expanded. Plus, you can sign up for Asus’ lifetime offer of 5GB of free cloud storage.
That 2GB of RAM turns out to be plenty for running most apps. The phone performs quite well, with a responsive touch screen and menus.
Asus Thailand says both Sim slots are good for LTE 4G connections, but I could use my TrueMove H card only in the first one.
That aside, the 4G connection was fast, as were app downloads and posting snapshots to Facebook and backing them up to Microsoft’s OneDrive cloud storage.
The Ookla speedtest app clocked the ZenFone 2 Laser download speed at 48.35Mbps and uploads at 22.05.
In terms of design, the ZenFone 2 Laser boasts an ergonomic arc and intuitive controls at the rear. The volume keys are behind the rear camera lens, with the volume-down key pulling double duty as the convenient shutter for selfie shots. The phone is 10.8mm thick in the middle vertically, thinning out to 3.9mm at both edges.
The Android 5.0.2 operating system has a rather neat ZenUI user interface enhanced by ZenMotion. You can, for example, draw the letter “C” on the screen when the phone’s turned off and the camera will start up. Knock the screen against any surface twice to “wake up” the display and knock it twice again to turn off the screen.
The cameras are good quality. The main one offers 18 shooting modes, including auto and manual. In my test, auto mode got sharp and clean shots in most lighting situations.
Among the really interesting modes are Super Resolution, which boosts the image pixels to 52 million, and Effects, for jazzing up your shots with, for example, greyscale, cartoon, drawing and hue.
The front camera has an 85-degree wide lens and five-megapixel resolution with several shooting modes of its own, including Beautification and Selfie Panorama.
In another nice feature, the Laser has a real GPS chipset picking up feeds from three satellites, so you can navigate without an Internet link – as long as you have some sort of navigation app and an offline map.
The phone will play FLAC
24bit/192kHz full High-Resolution Audio music files. I tried this out with Sony’s h.ear on headphones and got top-quality playback with clean details and powerful bass.
The Asus ZenFone 2 Laser ZE550KL retails for Bt6,990.
Key Specs
- Operating system: Android 5.0.2 with ZenUI
- Networks: LTE 4G – 2100/ 1900/ 1800/ 850/ 2600/ 900/ 800MH; 3G HSPA+ – 850/ 900/ 1900/ 2100MHz; GSM – 850/ 900/ 1800/ 1900MHz
- CPU: 64-bit Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 quad-core 1.2GHz processor
- Memory: 2GB
- Storage: 16GB, expandable with microSD card up to 128GB
- Display: 5.5-inch IPS display with 1280x720 pixels, protected by Gorilla Glass 4
- Cameras: 13MP rear, 5MP front
- Connectivity: Wi-Fi 802.11/b/g/n, USB, Bluetooth 4.0, Dual SIM
- Sensors: G-Sensor/E-Compass/ Gyroscope/ Proximity/ Light Sensor/ Hall Sensor
- Battery: 3000mAh Li-Polymer
- Dimensions: 152.5x77.2x3.9-10.8mm
- Weight: 170g with battery
