Suryanarayana Murthy
Hey folks! Today we have the Asus Zenfone 3 Laser with us. This one belongs to the Asus Zenfone 3 Range launched at ASUS Zenvolution. If you’ve followed this phone, the very first thing that should strike your mind is “What’s with the laser on the Asus Zenfone 3 Laser?”, right?
“You may be wondering why the red suit, because bad guys can’t see me bleed 😛 ” – DeadPool (2016)
Well, the photo of the handset on the box depicts a red laser coming out of the back panel of the mobile. Realistically, I know that isn’t possible, but I figured I should at least be able to see a visible light out of it, right?
Negative! You cannot see the laser at all. Heck, the main selling point of the phone is the camera; and the tagline, about the focusing of the camera. Anyway, now that we have got that out of the way, let’s kick start the Review of Asus Zenfone 3 with a brief spec shootout.
Table of Contents
Asus ZenFone 3 Laser (ZC551KL) Specifications
Display: 5.5inch 1920 x 1080 FHD display 2.5D Corning Gorilla Glass 3
Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 1.4 GHz Octa-core 64-bit processor
GPU: Adreno 505
Memory : 4GB RAM | 32GB ROM | 128GB Expandable
Camera: 8MP Front Camera and 13 MP Rear Camera with EIS/Dual Flash
Connectivity: Bluetooth® 4.2, WiFi, 4G with VoLTE
SIM cards and SD slot: Micro SIM (3G/4G) and Nano SIM (3G) / Micro SD – Hybrid Slot
Software: Android™ M with ZenUI 3.0
Battery: 3000mAh
Variants: Sand Gold/Glacier Silver
Price: Rs.16,999/-
Asus Zenfone 3 Laser ( ZC551KL) Review
Now that the specs are out of the way, let’s start our actual review! First, let us talk about the review unit we have received,
Review Unit
I kinda got an old Glacier Silver variant review unit. It was packed on Septemeber 2016.
- Zenfone 3 Laser Mobile Handset – Silver
- A Hybrid SIM Tray PIN
- Headphones with buds
- Charger
- USB Cable
Design and Looks
Zenfone 3 Laser comes with 5.5″ inch display and 149 x 76 x 7.9 mm (WxDxH). This one’s design looks as same as Zenfone 3 Max ‘s design except that there is a bump for Camera and the front cam position. Features Corning Glass 2, a rectangular fingerprint sensor is situated just beside the camera, accompanied with laser and LED flash. The phone, though 5.5-inch, is light in weight and easy to hold. It looks premium and rich thanks to the smooth aluminum finish. Unlike the Zenfone 3 Max, Zenfone 3 Laser didn’t seem much slippery.
The navigation buttons are not backlit which is always a pain in the dark, no matter how accustomed you are to smartphones. The fingerprint sensor is bad, compared to other phones in the Zenfone 3 Range – it is little slow.Overall though, I must say it looks good.
Design and Looks: Visually, the phone is pretty beautiful. The smooth finish makes it very comfortable to hold, and the camera bump stops it from being slippery.
Camera
The main selling point of the phone is the camera and the so-called laser. It has 13 MP Rear Camera with Electric Image Stability (EIS) with no OIS. The focusing of the camera towards a subject is real quick, I mean it. Focusing on multiple subjects is fast and good, but it leaves out of the subject sometimes. Coming to the Laser you’ve been wondering about,
Laser: Ultra-fast 0.03s laser auto-focus. The laser, though hardly visible, really helps in focusing the camera – speed-wise, at least.
Video Recording is decent. And, talking about the 8MP Front Camera, photos turn out to be quite unnatural with its Beautifying Mode. However, we can disable it. Considering other metrics like resolution, clarity, etc. camera of the Zenfone 3 Laser is nice.
Camera: Somewhere between Good and Decent. Real fast focusing, thanks to the laser; but the focus leaves the subject sometimes which calls for some blurry pics on the go.
Specifications and Software
Talking about core specs apart from the Camera, 64- bit Snapdragon 430 at 1.4 GHz and Adreno 405; 4GB of RAM and 32 GB Internal Memory backed up with a 3000 mAh battery. Sports beautiful FHD 1920X1080 Resolution supports VoLTE, works fine and seamless. It has a hybrid SIM tray ( 2 SIMS or A SIM and a Memory Card). 4G can be active only on SIM 1 slot. Zenfone 3 Laser, like any other Asus phone, provides you a free drive storage of 100GB for two years. Like all others kids in the Zenfone 3 family, the Asus Zenfone 3 Laser doesn’t boast any bigger specifications.
Talking about the software, it runs Android Marshmallow with ZenUI 3.0 on the top. ZenUI is good and offers lots of customization starting from app icons but comes with loads of bloatware such as Themes, Photo Collage, Mini Movie, ZenCircle, ZenSync, Weather, Do It Later, Game Genie, ZenFone Care, etc., most of which, aren’t used on a daily basis. Talking about the ZenUI, I say it is close to perfection apart from bloatware. It offers all sorts of customization starting from Motion Gestures to Icon Packs.
Battery
As said earlier, Zenfone 3 Laser comes with 3000 mAh battery which is pretty mediocre. With our battery tests, it gave 6 hours Screen-On-Time with normal usage and 4 hours of Screen-On-Time after heavy to mediocre gameplay. I say it is just decent and same as any other standard phones.
Battery: Mediocre – just manages to last a whole day.
Performance
Talking about performance, it is good. As it comes with 4 gigs of RAM (3.7 GB Usable), it easily manages to run heavy apps and games. The Snapdragon 430 and 4 GB RAM seem to be a working combo. However, in our tests, we encountered frame drop while playing mediocre graphic games which is disappointing! There isn’t any shortage of RAM, but the graphic processing is bad.
The Fingerprint sensor is little slow compared with other versions of Zenfone 3 but does the job. The phone slightly heats up during gaming but I say its fine. The microphone clarity during calls isn’t good, based on the bad feedback I have received during calls. The speakers are good and the headphones that come with the box gives decent noise cancellation and excellent sound clarity.
Another important point to note, it takes a total of 3 hours to charge the phone as it doesn’t support fast charging!
Performance: Gets the job done, but doesn’t make you go ‘Awesome!’. The frame rate drops during normal(read: low-end) games itself.
Bugs encountered:
Can’t stop sounds in Camera unless the phone is kept in Total Silence Mode.
Bugs can be fixed by updates by the vendor. Not a serious issue, still a issue though.
Final Words
In all our reviews so far, we have talked about Pros and Cons about the device, but we skipped it this time as we honestly find little striking about the phone except the camera, which again has its own issues (little, but yeah, issues). In sum, the Zenfone 3 Laser is good but hardly boast-worthy. At its current price tag, the Zenfone 3 Laser must improve its base specs and performance for it to be competitive.
With phones like Redmi 3S Prime etc. having almost same specifications are being available at considerably lower prices, I don’t suppose I’d to buy Zenfone 3 Laser. If you are still looking to purchase a Premium camera phone, I recommend the Asus Zenfone 3(I suggest to read our review on Zenfone 3 and you can compare its camera with the laser). It excels in all departments, unlike the Laser.
Currently, Asus Zenfone 3 Laser is on promotion as a part of Flipkart Sale. It is now just at Rs.11,999/- . I say it is a steal deal at this price. There are issues with Flipkart banners, I recommend you to check Flipkart and keep an eye on the prices.
That wraps up our post. Next, we have a Zenfone 3S Max package waiting to be unboxed. Stay tuned as its review will be live on GeekySplash soon. Until then, Love you all!
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