Thevideo shows off completely what the ASUS ZenFone 3 Laser is all about. The new smartphone comes equipped with the following: an ultra-thin edge, 2.5D Gorilla Glass screen, beautiful metal body AsusZenFone 3 Laser adalah langkah utama dalam merakit kualitas bila dibandingkan dengan ZenFone 2, sebagai parit sebelumnya yang terakhir semua-plastik pengembangan untuk satu aluminium. switch ini dalam bahan adalah salah satu yang sangat welcome, seperti aluminium yang digunakan di sini terasa sangat premium dan kuat di tangan. kembali halus dan sejuk untuk disentuh, dan sensor tanda unik yang hidup di bawah kamera benjolan kecil memperhitungkan akses cepat dan sederhana untuk membuka AsusZenfone 3 Review: HARDWARE and PERFORMANCE, BATTERY LIFE When it comes to hardware, the Zenfone 3 ships with the midrange-level Snapdragon 625 chip, 4GB of RAM and 64GB of expandable storage. Weight 6 ounces. Price. $199 (16GB) / $249 (32GB) As you can see, the ZenFone 2 Laser is powered by an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 with Adreno 405 graphics and 3GB of RAM. The ZenFone 2 Review ASUS ZenFone 2 Laser. NEWS TECH CARS GAMING ENTERTAINMENT SCIENCE HEALTH REVIEWS FEATURES. Review: ASUS ZenFone 2 Laser. By Brittany Roston / Nov. 3, 2015 2:04 pm EDT. AsusZenFone 3 Laser on iso askel rakennuslaadussa verrattuna ZenFone 2:een, koska edellinen jättää jälkimmäisen kokonaan muovisen rakenteen alumiinille. Tämä materiaalien vaihto on erittäin tervetullut, sillä tässä käytetty alumiini tuntuu erittäin korkealaatuiselta ja kiinteältä kädessä. Login/ Join TechSpy community now! Asus Zenfone 3. Average Score 8.5 8 Reviews TrSPzh. Asus ZenFone 3 LaserThe Zenfone 3 Laser offers a good value with its premium design, excellent battery life, and dual-SIM card support. However, it doesn't really stand out against competing options, some of which offer a better their latest refresh to the ZenFone lineup, ASUS is offering consumers several different options to choose from. We already reviewed the ZenFone 3 Deluxe and ZenFone 3, and have also covered the more recent and less traditional ZenFone 3 Zoom and ZenFone we’re taking a look at ASUS’ entry-level ZenFone 3 Laser. So does the ASUS ZenFone 3 Laser bring enough to the table to stand out from competing options? Let’s find out with our comprehensive ASUS ZenFone 3 Laser review!DesignWhat’s perhaps most interesting about the third generation of ZenFones is ASUS’ sudden departure from their past design language. When we thought about the ZenFone lineup previously, we thought of metallic plastic, ergonomic curves, and rear-facing volume buttons, features which were showcased excellently on the ZenFone 2 its predecessor, the ZenFone 3 Laser is constructed of an aluminum body with plastic top and bottom caps, presumably to help with wireless reception. We’ve seen designs quite similar to this countless times in the past, but it remains difficult to ignore the high-quality in-hand feel of the rear curve isn’t as dramatic nor ergonomic as it was in the past, we’re happy to see this bring the replacement of practically awkward slim side edges with larger curved side continuations of aluminum, which makes the phone easier to grip, especially with a single not just the materials and shaping that make this a nice design, however, as other components like the satisfyingly tactile side buttons and seemingly engraved antenna lines are also quite nice. Of course, there are some minor compromises too, like the three capacitive navigation keys, which are ugly and do not illuminate. The rear camera hump can also be annoying when using the phone on a flat surface. Still, this design is well on par with what we expect to see from an entry-level Zenfone's reader is in the form of a tall rectangular cutoutASUS has placed a fingerprint reader on the back of the Zenfone 3 Laser, just below the camera module. Unlike traditional circular fingerprint readers, however, the Zenfone’s reader is in the form of a tall rectangular cutout. In fact, the Zenfone 3 lineup seems to be the first to feature this unique design. With that said, we didn’t notice a difference in speed nor accuracy when using the phone; overall, the reader performs well enough for the price. DisplayFor the display, we’re looking at a respectable 1080P IPS panel coated in Corning Gorilla Glass 3. Color reproduction is great, viewing angles are decent, and the display is generally fairly good. It’s worth mentioning that you’ll be hard-pressed to find something significantly better at this price. With that said, we still have some notable biggest complaint has to do with maximum brightness, as it can be frustratingly difficult to use the phone outdoors. The auto brightness feature also tends towards lower settings, effectively requiring manual input for appropriate levels. ASUS has consistently failed to impress us in display brightness, and it’s a shame that the Zenfone 3 Laser continues that much more insignificant issue, but surely a point of contention, is the black border around the display. Evidently, this grinds gears for people at varying levels, so we’ll keep this as objective as possible the borders are reasonably small, unnoticeable day-to-day, but clearly don’t contribute to a stylish look. And with that, we’ll let you make your own a positive note, ASUS’ standard color customization options are included with the Zenfone 3 Laser. These options allow you to make adjustments to color temperature, enable a bluelight filter or “night mode,” or customize hue and saturation for a different look. These options are always nice to have, so we’re happy that ASUS has included it’s not going to wow anyone with its benchmark scores, the Zenfone 3 Laser still performs well day-to-day. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 is, of course, an entry-level processor, but that hasn’t prevented ASUS from offering a well optimized experience. For example, some system animations have been sped up to give the illusion of a snappier device. Unfortunately, the Zenfone 3 Laser is only available with 2 GB of RAM, which is a major bottleneck when attempting to multitask. Consider this situation you’re listening to some music on Spotify and would like to do a quick Google search. Unlike virtually every device with more memory, the Zenfone 3 Laser will likely stop your music once you load a would have liked for ASUS to step up its game hereThis can be quite frustrating, but it’s important to keep in mind that many competing options also skimp on memory. Still, we would have liked for ASUS to step up its game here, especially considering ASUS launched the very first smartphone with 4 GB of RAM just a couple of years things considered, the Zenfone 3 Laser is quite tolerable to use in the real world. It’s far from the best out there, but if you manage your expectations and recognize the compromise, this should be absolutely fine ASUS Zenfone 3 Laser is an unlocked dual-SIM smartphone, meaning that you can use it with up to two different GSM carriers simultaneously. We rarely see this feature here in the so this could be a major selling point for some prospective buyers. Since it’s being sold officially, you can expect it to work with 4G LTE on both AT&T and T-Mobile, with support for band can use the Zenfone with up to two different GSM carriers simultaneouslyIf you only plan on using one SIM card with the Zenfone 3 Laser, you can take advantage of the other slot’s microSD card expansion option, which supports cards up to 128 GB. For most users, however, the 32 GB of onboard storage should be to many other options in this price range, the Zenfone 3 Laser does not include NFC, so you won’t be able to use tap-and-pay apps like Android Pay. Considering that over half of our readers polled said they used mobile payments at least occasionally, this is a pretty big omission. Combined with a lack of support for it’s understandable how ASUS was able to keep the phone’s price throw away your existing wired headphones just yet, as the Zenfone 3 Laser includes a headphone jack. This is still wonderful to have, and although the output volume is slightly low, many users will appreciate not having to make a transition to alternative we were very disappointed with the Zenfone 3 Laser’s speaker. I have personally reviewed over fifty primarily entry-level smartphones, and I can say with complete certainty that this is one of the worst I have ever heard. It’s not only relatively quiet and distorted, but also flat and tinny. Audio quite frankly sounds awful with the Zenfone 3 Laser, so you’ll definitely want to keep your headphones LifeThe ASUS Zenfone 3 Laser is packing a 3000mAh battery, which translated to excellent battery life during our testing. Even when using the phone for more than twenty-four hours, we were still able to achieve over four and a half hours of screen on time. When we used the phone more heavily, we were still able to achieve twelve hours of use with six and a half hours of screen on time. Although the Snapdragon 430 can support Quick Charge ASUS has failed to implement it, meaning that you’ll be stuck with some relatively slow charging speeds. The charging port is also a reminder that microUSB is still a thing, despite the newer USB Type-C standard largely taking over the Android smartphone market. We do understand that some users do not want to make the transition, so we’ll let you decide whether this is an advantage or Zenfone 3 Laser’s 13 MP f/ camera captures images that are about average in terms of quality. Excellent cameras are pretty much unheard of at this price, so we can forgive many of the shortcomings can forgive many of the shortcomings hereASUS Zenfone 3 Laser camera samplesAs expected, you can get some fairly nice images when shooting in good lighting. For most of the time, dynamic range is decent and saturation levels are good. There are some glaring issues, however. Colors, for example, often appear muted see the image of the bananas above, which results in images lacking in vibrancy and contrast. There’s also some excessive oversharpening and considerable barrel claims that the laser autofocus offers focus in 30 milliseconds. While that estimate seemed to be pretty optimistic in our testing, the Zenfone 3 Laser does indeed focus quickly. However, the difference isn’t very noticeable in comparison to other smartphones, so you should avoid getting hung up on this particular things really go downhill when shooting in low-light. The oversharpening issue is exacerbated while noise still appears largely unchecked. Colors are even worse, too. The built-in owl mode can certainly help here, but at the expense of resolution. It goes without saying that you really do get what you pay for here, so if you want higher quality low-light images you’ll want to consider increasing your Zenfone 3 Laser’s camera app remains unchanged from previous models, but, as the saying goes, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” ASUS’ camera app offers a plethora of useful camera modes to choose from, while still providing an easy-to-use shooting experience. The phone’s manual mode is also one of the most comprehensive that we’ve of the box, the Zenfone 3 Laser runs ASUS’ ZenUI skin over Android Marshmallow. It’s evident that ASUS puts a lot of effort into its software, which can’t always be said about phones sold at this price point. All things considered, you’re getting one of the better software experiences out to other user interfaces, ZenUI looks outdatedWith that said, we feel that ZenUI is due for a design overhaul. We understand that this is very subjective, but, compared to other user interfaces, ZenUI looks outdated. The design team seems to have had a weird obsession with gaussian blurs, which have quite frankly gone out of style in favor of lower Zenfone 3 Laser screenshotsAdd in a unique but aging color scheme, harsh icons, and a general inability to instill feelings of empathy, and you end up with an arguably stale design. These criticisms are admittedly a bit nitpicky, considering how well everything works. However, we hope that ASUS will surprise us with a new design in the near may also find the number of ASUS branded apps to be overwhelming, but we’re mostly okay with this since each app works so well. Besides, ASUS has improved on this in the past, so it’s likely that they’ll continue to do so in the ASUS’ track record, we estimate that the probability of the Zenfone 3 Laser receiving an Android Nougat update within the next few months to be highly likely. During our time with the phone, ASUS has also been very good at pushing out minor improvements as well as bug fixes fairly frequently. Plus, they seem to be keeping up with security patches. GalleryPriceThe ASUS Zenfone 3 Laser is on sale now for $200 in the United States. Since it is unlocked, you can purchase it from a retailer like Amazon, Best Buy, Newegg, or B&H Photo instead of going through your carrier. ConclusionThe ASUS Zenfone 3 Laser is a good phone; for $200, you get a premium design, excellent battery life, and dual-SIM card support. With that said, there are also some significant drawbacks the camera performance is just average, performance is bottlenecked by 2 GB of RAM, and the software design appears the Zenfone 3 Laser feels more like a downgrade compared to its predecessor. Some aspects like software and display quality remain unchanged, but many others have been downgraded. For example, the display is now coated in Gorilla Glass 3 instead of Gorilla Glass 4, the amount of RAM has been decreased from 3 to 2 GB, the speaker sounds worse, and the camera is not as sharp. Considering that both phones were released at the same price, we’re disappointed that ASUS didn’t pack in more with this compared to competing options from other manufacturers, the Zenfone 3 Laser doesn’t really stand out. You may be better off purchasing the HONOR 6X or even the Nextbit Robin. If you’re willing to wait a bit, the Moto G5 lineup also might be worth you for reading our written review of the ASUS Zenfone 3 Laser. We’d love to hear your thoughts regarding this device; would you buy it over competing options? Do let us know in the comment section below! Editors' Note This review has been updated to reflect changes to the ZenFone 3 Zoom's software since we reviewed it in May 2017. We've raised its score from to 4 stars. Better battery life is a spec most manufacturers ignore in the quest for thinner, lighter phones, but Asus is listening. The unlocked ZenFone 3 Zoom $329 packs a massive 5,000mAh cell into an attractive metal body, for some of the best battery life we've tested. You also get solid performance, dual cameras with optical zoom, and a host of unique features and customization options. It's an attractive option for the price, particularly if you're focused on battery life, but Motorola's Moto G5 Plus remains our Editors' Choice award for its simpler software experience and compatibility with all major US carriers. Design, Display, and Features The Zoom is proof that phones with big batteries needn't be bricks. Measuring by by inches HWD and ounces, the Zoom is slightly smaller than the iPhone 7 Plus by by inches, ounces and just a bit bigger than the Moto G5 Plus by by inches, ounces. That's a pretty impressive feat, considering the Zoom's battery is nearly twice as big as the ones in either of those devices. Similar Products The phone has a sleek metal body available in black pictured here, gold, and silver. The right side has a volume rocker and power button. The bottom features a headphone jack, a USB-C charging port, and a speaker. The left side has a SIM/microSD card slot and worked fine with a 256GB card. You can also use two SIM cards instead, but only one will connect to a 4G network. On the back you'll find the dual-camera setup with a laser autofocus sensor and dual-LED flash. A square fingerprint sensor below can be enabled for functions like tapping twice to quick launch the camera app, acting as the shutter key, and answering phone calls. Asus ZenFone 3 Zoom Review The Zoom has a 1,920-by-1,080 AMOLED display clad in Gorilla Glass 5. The resolution works out to a crisp 401 pixels per inch, matching the G5 Plus. The panel is rich and saturated out of the box, though you also have the ability to tweak color temperatures to your preference. The AMOLED panel not only provides inky blacks, but saves power by lighting pixels only as needed. Viewing angles are great, and using the phone outdoors is no problem, as it reaches up to 500 nits of brightness at maximum. Network Performance, Connectivity, and Audio The Zoom is available unlocked and supports GSM 850, 1800, 1900MHz, WCDMA 1/2/4/5/8, and LTE bands 1/2/3/4/5/7/8/17/28. That means you can only use it on GSM carriers like AT&T and T-Mobile, and you'll likely get better connectivity on the former, since the phone is missing band 12, which provides better coverage and improved indoor reception on T-Mobile. That said, the phone performed fine throughout our testing in midtown Manhattan, showing a top download speed of on T-Mobile's network. Other connectivity protocols include Wi-Fi on the band and Bluetooth There's no NFC, which isn't unusual for this price range. Call quality is solid. Transmissions are clearly audible and have little to no garbling, though voices can sound a bit robotic. Noise cancellation is good at blotting out background noise, and with the loud earpiece volume, you shouldn't have trouble carrying on a conversation in a noisy environment. VoLTE is supported, Wi-Fi calling isn't. See How We Test Cell Phones Audio quality is also solid. Similar to the ZTE Axon 7, the Zoom supports high-resolution 24-bit audio playback through the headphone jack. Using a feature called Audio Wizard you can adjust music using the built-in equalizer and use DTS HeadphoneX virtual surround sound for movies, music, and games. Listening with a pair of high-fidelity Auros earphones, I was able to notice a significant improvement in clarity and sound quality compared with phones that don't have the same enhancements. Bass-heavy metal came through particularly well, with more clearly defined lyrics, less distortion, and a warmer sound. Virtual surround sound is subpar at best, however, actually worsening audio quality by narrowing the sound field. The bottom-firing mono speaker has an NXP Smart Amp. Aside from getting quite loud, I couldn't detect a difference between it and other downward-facing speakers. It's no match for the thunderous front-facing speakers on the Axon 7. Processor and Battery The Zoom is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor clocked at It's a capable midrange chipset, scoring 62,504 on the AnTuTu benchmark, which measures overall system performance. That's similar to the G5 Plus 63,845, which has the same processor, and higher than the Kirin 655-powered Honor 6X 56,602. The Axon 7 141,989 has a much more powerful Snapdragon 820 processor, but it's also more expensive. In terms of real-world performance, the ZenFone 3 Zoom is smooth. Its 3GB of RAM is enough that multitasking isn't a problem, and I never encountered any lag or stuttering. The phone also had no trouble handling high-end games like GTA San Andreas. Asus has packed the Zoom to the brim with software enhancements to improve performance. The most notable is Power & Boost, accessible through the notification shade. It's a memory manager that cleans up background apps when the screen is off, and can stop apps from automatically starting when you turn the phone on. The Zoom also has phenomenal battery life. It clocked 10 hours, 30 minutes in our rundown test, in which we stream full-screen video over LTE at maximum brightness. That outclasses all its competitors including the G5 Plus 7 hours, 35 minutes, the Axon 7 6 hours, and the Honor 6X 5 hours, 35 minutes. The only phone that comes close is the OnePlus 3T, at 10 hours. With average use, you can easily go two to three days without having to recharge. If there's one downside to the massive battery, it's that even with fast charging it'll still take a few hours to charge the Zoom. Camera Dual-camera phones are becoming increasingly more common, offering features like wide-angle shots in the case of the LG G6, bokeh on the Honor 6X, and telephoto zoom on the iPhone 7 Plus. With the Zoom you get a pair of rear-facing f/ 12-megapixel shooters capable of optical zoom, slightly higher than the 2x zoom on the 7 Plus. It also has a laser autofocus sensor, a dual-LED flash, and Dual Pixel Phase Detection Autofocus. In good light the phone takes crisp, detailed shots. Autofocus locks on quickly and noise is fairly minimal. Color reproduction is accurate, though perhaps a little dull if you prefer more saturated colors. In the camera app you'll find a number of modes and settings, including bokeh which blurs backgrounds to make objects stand out in the foreground, but the most notable is the optical zoom, which allows you to get in close on an object without the loss of detail that comes with digital zoom. It works well, as you can see in the images below, though overall quality isn't up to par with the iPhone 7 Plus—some of the pictures I shot on a cloudy day were a bit muddy. Despite claims from Asus that the phone has times the light sensitivity of the iPhone 7 Plus, it wasn't apparent in testing. The rear sensors took soft, noisy shots indoors, with overall subpar quality compared with flagships like the Google Pixel XL. That said, you can tweak ISO and shutter speed for better performance and a recent update has added an option for you to save pictures in RAW mode. The Zoom is capable of recording 4k video at 30fps, and 1080p at 60fps. There's no optical image stabilization, but the electronic image stabilization works fairly well and video quality is good. However, in a few instances, the camera app refused to record in 4k, generating an error message. The problem didn't crop up when attempting to record 1080p30. The 13-megapixel front-facing camera is excellent. Pictures are crisp, autoexposure has no issue adjusting to different lighting conditions, and backgrounds look clear. There's a built-in Skin Brightening slider enabled by default that can make your facial features look soft, but it's easy to turn off if you don't want to look like an airbrushed supermodel. Software The ZenFone 3 Zoom shipped running Android Marshmallow, but has since been updated to Android Nougat. While I was initially lukewarm in my feelings about the software experience, this update significantly redesigns the UI and wipes out all the bloatware that previously bogged the phone down. Everything feels a lot more responsive, though it's still far from stock Android. There's an altered lock screen, notification shade, and settings menu, though you no longer get an overwhelming array of toggles and menus when you pull down the notification shade. Other changes include Google Now and Google Assistant being integrated in the ZenUI launcher, sparing you from having to download extra apps. Other apps like Mobile Manager and Auto-Start Manager have been toned down so you don't get spammed with invasive notifications. A home screen manager appears when you swipe up from the app drawer. It allows you to edit every aspect of the phone's appearance including icon size, alignment, scroll effects, and font size. You can also download new themes, third-party icon packs, and change animation speed. Other useful settings include a call recorder baked into the Dialer app, Gloves mode to increase screen sensitivity, Outdoor mode to increase earpiece volume, Kids mode to restrict access to certain apps, more apps compatible with Split-screen mode, and Easy mode to launch a simplified UI. It's a nice degree of customization to have built right into the default launcher. You're left with out of 32GB of available storage, and you can add a microSD card if you need more. Conclusions The $329 ZenFone 3 Zoom sits between the $299 Moto G5 Plus and the $399 ZTE Axon 7 in terms of price. With its gargantuan battery, dual-camera setup with telephoto zoom, and host of unique features, it manages to stand out, which is more than you can say about many phones in the price range. And with its recent update to Android Nougat, the software experience is far better than it was at the beginning. That said, the G5 Plus remains our Editors' Choice on the more affordable end It features similar hardware and compatibility with every major US carrier. For $100 more, ZTE's Axon 7 is nearly a year old, but it too received a Nougat update with Daydream support, putting it nearly on par with current flagship phones for nearly half the price. Like What You're Reading? Sign up for Fully Mobilized newsletter to get our top mobile tech stories delivered right to your inbox. This newsletter may contain advertising, deals, or affiliate links. Subscribing to a newsletter indicates your consent to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe from the newsletters at any time. Asus announced the ZenFone 3 series during Computex 2016. The company launched three devices, and the Zenfone 3 Laser was announced after Computex. We have already reviewed Asus ZenFone 3 Max and Asus ZenFone 3 Ultra, and in this review, I will be talking about the Asus ZenFone 3 Laser. As expected from the announcements, ZenFone 3, ZenFone 3 Max and Zenfone 3 Ultra, all cater to a particular subset of the audience and work well for what they offer. You can check out the detailed breakup of the three smartphones in the reviews done for the devices. Asus Zenfone 3 Laser is pegged to be the camera-centric smartphone with Laser autofocus mechanism and the stresses on delivering good image quality. Build and Design / 10 Asus ZenFone 3 Laser comes with an inspiring design, and the philosophy follows the general guidelines set by the ZenFone 3 series, going with an all metal body. You get the physical navigation buttons on the bottom which can't be reassigned and are not backlit. There is no textured back or fancy design element to make it stand out in the sea of smartphones in the same or even lower price bracket. According to the website, the smartphone weighs 150g with dimensions of 149 x 76 x mm. The overall feel of the device is sturdy with no squeaky or loose parts, thereby giving it a durable feel. You will find the volume rocker and the power button on the top right side of the smartphone with the SIM tray located on the top of the left side of the smartphone. One thing to note is that the Sand Gold variant gives the smartphone a dull look which is not the case in the Asus ZenFone 3, ZenFone 3 Max, ZenFone 3 Ultra or even the ZenFone 3 Deluxe. The fingerprint sensor comes on the back of the smartphone, and it does not come in the circular form factor as most smartphones have these days. Instead, the fingerprint sensor comes in a narrow rectangle with rounded corners. This form factor of the fingerprint sensor makes it difficult for the users despite the increase in the surface area, as the increased yet restricted surface area reduces the accurate detection of the fingerprint. You will find the speaker grill along with the microUSB port on the bottom edge of the smartphone with the headphone jack on the top. Features 7 / 10 Asus ZenFone 3 Laser packs an Octa-core Qualcomm MSM8937 Snapdragon 430 processor clocked at with Adreno 505 GPU. I got the 4GB RAM with 64GB internal storage variant for review. But the phone also comes in 2GB RAM and 32GB internal storage option. If you are running out of storage space, then you can add a microSD card up to 256GB in the second SIM slot. Laser has a IPS LCD with an effective resolution of 1080x1920 at 401ppi pixel density covered with Gorilla Glass 3 for additional protection. Asus has added a 13MP camera module along with laser autofocus with f/ aperture dual-tone LED flash on the back. This camera module is capable of shooting video at 1080p resolution at 30fps. Also, the phone sports an 8MP camera module with f/ aperture on the front. ZenFone 3 Laser is equipped with Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac, Wi-Fi Direct, hotspot, Bluetooth GPS with A-GPS, GLONASS and BDS, microUSB port with fast-charging support sort of depending on the max current supplied by the adapter and USB On-The-Go support. The smartphone also provides headphone jack on the top side of the smartphone, IR port and FM radio support along with hybrid dual SIM slots one nano SIM + one micro SIM or one nano SIM + one microSD. The company has added fingerprint sensor on the rear side of the smartphone right below the camera module along with an accelerometer, gyroscope, proximity and compass sensors. You get a 3000mAh Lithium-Ion non-removable battery in the device which performs decently. Display / 10 Asus ZenFone 3 Laser has a respectable FullHD IPS LCD display. The display seems to hold on its own during daily usage. The screen is reflective, and you will face discomfort while working in direct sunlight and will need to re-adjust your viewing angles. One thing to note is that the screen brightness seems to be strangely low. The LCD IPS display provides decent viewing angles despite seeming a bit dim when viewed from sides. But overall, I had a good time while reading, web browsing, gaming or watching videos on the display. The colours, contrast and vibrancy of the display was fairly decent at all times. There is no special mode for outdoors, and I wish that Asus had added something for the direct-in-sun workflow which could make working easier. Software 7 / 10 Asus ZenFone 3 Laser runs Android Marshmallow out of the box along with the custom ZenUI on the top of the OS. There are elements like the three quick-launch options on the lock-screen and the folder-style on the home screen that could have been better. Thankfully ZenUI does give you the option to turn the quick-launch options off which helps it give more AOSP like experience. Asus has packed 'Mobile Manager' as part of its ZenUI which gives you information on data usage, power saving modes, notifications and privacy and security. This works amazingly in principle, giving you quick access to everything important that you need to take control of. But also, they have added 'Cleanup' and 'Boost' options on the 'Mobile Manager' which doesn't make sense to me. Primarily because anyone who is familiar with Android architecture and the changes done since Android Kitkat the OS has evolved sufficiently to make sure that user experience remains unaffected in the long run. The 'Boost' mode, in particular, does not provide any benefit and may indeed worsen the battery life and break cross-app operations. The company has even added a shortcut for the same labelled 'Power & Boost' which claims to 'Boost' your smartphone. Asus has added other apps like ZenTalk, Themes, Puffin, MyASUS Service Centre, ZenFone Care also in-house apps like Gallery, Contacts, File Manager, MiniMovie, PhotoCollage, Weather, Do It Later, Clock, Calculator, Flashlight, Share Link and WebStorage. One thing that I continue to love about the ZenUI is the option to turn off the screenshot notification in the settings menu. Performance 6 / 10 Asus ZenFone 3 Laser's performance was quite average, without any significant device freezing, lag or stuttering for the majority of the review. The experience turned rocky immediately after I ran any high-level benchmark apps where the entire system came to a crawl. I had to manually kill some benchmark apps to return to usable system conditions. I also regularly suffered from micro stutters while using the phone where the UI seemed sluggish while scrolling through long list of Google Play Store apps. It's not clear if Asus purposely included the slow animations to make sure that users don't detect the stuttering and slowness from the animations. Apart from the occasional micro-stutters, Snapdragon 430 coupled with 4GB RAM performed decently during all the tasks, music, gaming, web browsing and photo editing. But at these price points, you need to have a well-optimised software user experience. Asus needs to fix these issues in future updates. The smartphone scored 3481 in the PCMark 'Work performance benchmark along with scoring 642 in Single-Core and 2026 in Multi-Core benchmarks in Geekbench 4. Laser did decently and did not heat up considerably during extended gaming sessions and held admirably to heavy games like DeadTrigger 2, Modern Combat 5 and Gear Club. It scored 9398, 5569 and 9590 in IceStorm, IceStorm Extreme and IceStorm Unlimited benchmarks. The smartphone scores 22779 in Quadrant and 44525 in AnTuTu benchmark that I ran during my testing. The call quality of the ZenFone 3 Laser is decent with good clarity and volume of the sound. The audio quality of the speaker grill on the bottom side of the smartphone is decent with no surprises. However, the volume should have been more as in large halls or noisy rooms, the audio quality goes for a toss. Camera 6 / 10 ZenFone 3 Laser is supposed to be a camera-centric smartphone which should take decent if not great photos. But I am sad to report that the photos taken by the ZenFone 3 Laser are not great. The 13MP camera on the rear and the 8MP camera on the front are equally bad with most of the images full of noise in anything less than ideal lighting situations. Some turn to be a blurry mess in the auto mode. The camera like all the ZenUI running smartphones provides sufficient options regarding shooting modes ranging from Auto, ZenFlash, Manual, HDR Pro, Beautification, Super Resolution, Children, Low Light, QR Codes, Close-up among others. Asus needs to step up their camera game, and the camera needs to take better photos in anything less than perfect lighting conditions. One cannot name the smartphone 'Laser' to signify the Laser Autofocus system of the camera and then deliver such ordinary photos throughout. Battery 8 / 10 ZenFone 3 Laser performed great in the battery life department. During my extensive testing, the smartphone performed admirably well coping to my heavy usage. It lasted a little over 11 hours during my typical day which consists of always being connected to the internet through Wi-Fi, Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp throughout the day in addition to 1 hour of music, 35-40 minutes of gaming and installing and testing new apps. However, two major things are missing in the offering are the USB Type-C port and fast charging. It is almost criminal for people to wait for more than two hours to wait for their smartphone being charged from 0 percent to 100 percent in 2016. I could not figure out what it was that was causing the PC Mark for Android battery life test benchmark to crash constantly. I tried running the test four times, but all the times PCMark would crash as the test reached 50 percent. Similarly to other ZenFones, the Mobile Manager has a "Power Saver" which gives us Performance, Normal, Power saving, Super saving and Customised power saving modes to improve the battery life. The smartphone also offers to reserve battery for calls, and you can set the conservation mode to kick in once the battery drops to a certain percentage. Even though the performance drops once the Power saving mode is activated, the fact remains that I would much rather use my smartphone in a reduced performance state rather than have a dead smartphone. Verdict and Price in India Asus ZenFone 3 Laser is a decent smartphone in the whole ZenFone 3 series. But despite the decent attempt at going with tried and tested way, there is no way that I would suggest this smartphone to anyone for the Rs 18,999. I would never pay this much money for a smartphone that has issues such as micro stutters and lags in operation, average camera and does not have essentials such as USB Type-C and fast charging in 2016. It is better that you look elsewhere like the Xiaomi Mi Max or you can get Xiaomi Mi5 with the exchange of your current smartphone. Looking at other smartphone offerings even Moto G4 Plus or Lenovo Zuk Z2 Plus is better than what Asus is offering here both in terms of performance as well as the value for money. Even if you are Asus loyalist, I would recommend you to save up and look for something else like Asus ZenFone 3 Ultra or ZenFone 3 Max or ZenFone 3. Find latest and upcoming tech gadgets online on Tech2 Gadgets. Get technology news, gadgets reviews & ratings. Popular gadgets including laptop, tablet and mobile specifications, features, prices, comparison.

asus zenfone 3 laser review