Celebrity-worthy ‘wefies’ from Asus

You have a phone and you love taking pictures of yourself and your gang. You need the ZenFone 4 Selfie from Asus.
It’s not only got dual selfie cameras, it’s also got a selfie app. With this combination, you’re guaranteed to get great 20-megapixel shots of The One and Only as well as enviable wide-angle “wefie” shots of you among your many admirers.
You’ll be famous even if you’re not famous.
The dual-camera system combines a standard view for 20-megapixel shots and an 8MP wide-angle camera with a 120-degree field of view.
On the front camera’s screen, you see a human-type icon at the bottom, above the shutter. If it’s a single character, the focus belongs to you and you alone (20MP at 31mm-equivalent focal length). 
Tap it to turn the single character into a mob of three characters and you’re ready to share the limelight (12mm-equivalent focal length in a 35mm film camera). 
The optics are quite good considering that you’re now seeing 200-percent more posing space, which is ample room for a large wedge of friends plus neighbouring scenery. 
The Softlight LED flash delivers plenty of fill light, almost like pro studio conditions, so everyone’s skin will look soft and shiny. You’ll be so popular!
Portrait mode blurs the background so that the central subject stands out more. Again, the result seems almost professional.
Beauty mode performs pro-quality image retouching and enhancement. It will soften the complexion, lighten the skin, remove blemishes, enlarge the eyes and define the cheeks. All of this is done automatically in this mode, but manual fine-tuning is also possible.
The SelfieMaster app adds more fun to the process. If you haven’t been “enhanced” enough already, this is where you go full-tilt glamorous. 
There are 10 levels of beautification to choose from. Wrinkles, acne and the like don’t stand a chance, and it can be used in video and live streaming as well. Smart photo editing will also let you create collages and slideshows to share with friends.
The 16MP rear camera has phase detection autofocus and, thanks to the 26mm-equivalent focal length, shots of scenery can be quite dramatic.
Pro mode enables full control of shooting parameters, including white balance, exposure, focus and ISO. You can set the shutter speed anywhere from 1/16,000 of a second to 32 seconds, with the long exposures opening up terrific possibilities for images of light trails and the night sky, normally the stuff of DSLR cameras.
The ZenFone 4 Selfie is a beauty with its metallic finish of concentric circles that shimmer as the device is turned. Up front is an elegantly curved 2.5D glass display. The phone comes in Sunlight Gold, Rose Pink, Deepsea Black and Mint Green.
There are two nanoSIM card slots and a microSD slot that will take memory cards of up to 2TB. So even when both SIM slots are in use, you can still boost the storage capacity.
The phone’s power comes from a Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 octacore processor running at 1.4GHz. An Adreno 505 GPU handles graphic tasks. You’ve got 4GB of working memory (RAM) and 64GB of internal storage.
The CPU isn’t as fast as the best that Qualcomm makes, but the phone performs fine and isn’t slow by any means.
A fingerprint sensor integrated in the home button lets you unlock the phone in a mere three-tenths of a second and will recognise the fingerprint anywhere within 360 degrees. You can scan up to five fingers.
Fast Internet connection is possible, as I found testing the phone with TrueMove H’s 4G LTE network. Backing up photos to the cloud and downloading apps are done very quickly. The Ookla Speedtest app measured download speed at 60.1Mbps and uploads at 30.27Mbps.
The ZenFone 4 Selfie can play 24bit/192kHz High-Resolution Audio files. I put on my Sony MDR1ABT HiRes Audio headphones and was fully impressed with the music quality.
The Asus ZenFone 4 Selfie has a suggested retail price of Bt8,990.

KEY SPECS

- Network: LTE Cat 4, HSPA+, GSM
- Operating system: Android 7.1
- CPU: Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 1.4GHz octacore
- Memory: 4GB
- Storage: 64GB, expandable with microSD up to 2TB
- Display: 5.5inch IPS with 720x1,280 pixels
- Rear camera: 16MP with 26mm-equivalent focal length lens
- Main front camera: 20MP with f/2.0, 31mm lens
- Second front camera: 8MP with 120-degree wide-angle 12mm-equivalent focal length 6p lens
- Wireless connectivity: 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, WiFi direct
- Navigation: GPS, AGPS, GLO, BDS
- SIM cards: Dual nano
- Sensors: Fingerprint, accelerator, ecompass, gyroscope, proximity, ambient light
- Battery: 3,000mAh
- Dimensions: 155.66x76.2x7.85mm
- Weight: 144 grams