Last edited by mail2ronit on 2017/10/2 09:38
The Zenfone AR is not another regular smartphone. It has Flapship grade hardware & the software comes from both ASUS & Google. So, with this kind of tech appeal & a price tag of 49999 INR, is the Zenfone AR the right phone that your money can buy ? Well in this article, let's find out !
Coming to the review now, I'll try to touch on all the points that you'll probably consider as important & at the same time I'll try to keep things short so, you'll hopefully not get bored as well. Ok, so let's break it down.
Design & Build Quality
The Zenfone AR has three componants on the outside. These are Glass, Metal & Leather. ASUS has been bringing good designs kinda from the 1st Generation of Zenfones & I personally like the fact that they try to bring their own designs instead of replicating from others. That trend continues with the Zenfone AR. It's actually a unique design & I kinda liked it.
So, the Frame is built upon Aluminium Alloy that wraps with the Corning Gorilla Glass 4 on the Front & the Leather back. Now, as many of you had questions about the Durability of the Lether back, I think it'll stay fine as my Zenfone Zoom also has a leather back & it help up pretty well even after more than a year.
The in-hand feel is also pretty good. It's a 5.7 inch device & I never felt that it's a big device. It feels like a regular 5.5 inch device instead. I think the thin side bezels did a good job here. The top & bottom bezels are a litlle bit thick though. I wish they were a bit thinner as in that way ASUS could have easily fit a larger screen or shrink the size of the device a little bit more.
Anyway, overall I liked the design. Specially for the the Camera area implementation on the back. ASUS was able to fit the complete Tango module into that short area & that kinda impressed me. The Metal Frame is also quite sturdy & the device doesn't fell slippery either. So, overall I'm quite happy with the Design & Build Quality of the device.
The Display
The Zenfone AR is packing a Super Amoled display with the resolution of 2560 x 1440. This is definitely a Flagship Grade Display as you would expect from a Flagship Grade Smartphone. ASUS claims over 100% NTSC Color Gamut that understandable with the Super Amoled Display.
In daylight the screen is fairly visible. I don't have a Nits rating for this Display but, it's probably 500 nits as I felt. The only issue is when you want to take photos in a sunny day. The Sunlight along with the Refective screen makes it kinda hard to understand if you're capturing photos with right focus & exposure.
In terms of Display Quality, I really liked the quality a lot. Being a Super Amoled Display, this thing has a fantastic color accuracy. If you have read my Smartphone Displays Explained article you already know how, an Amoled Display produce far more accurate colors compared to IPS. So, the Blacks go completely Black & there is no Gray tone at all. Here is an example of how accurate the Black levels are,
In case you haven't read my explained article on Smartphone Displays, I'm leaving the link below,
So, this is actually the first Super Amoled Display with 2K resolution that ASUS has used in any Zenfone till now and I think I must get into another section here. Virtual Reality or VR is one of the goals that, this Display was originally made for. Supporting the Google Daydream Platform, having a great Display was really important for this device & I think that it does that quite well. The VR Experience on this Display is quite similar to what we get on the other Daydream Supported Devices out there with a Quad HD Display. Again I feel that a 100 nits more brightness would have been better but, the overall experience is Great anyway.
Performance
The Zenfone AR is packing top notch Hardware elements inside. So a super fast processor, plenty of RAM, a pretty capable GPU & more than enough Internal Storage. No doubt that these will deliver monster performance but, I know many of you guys are crazy on Benchmarks so, here are some Benchmarking scores for the same,
Coming to real world performance, the Zenfone AR is pretty capable of almost everything that you can expect from a high end smartphone. Yes, the Snapdragon 835 is out now & it is even more powerful but, ASUS claims that the Snapdragon 821 SOCs that we can find in all the Zenfone AR units, are customly optimized for Google Tango.
Anyway talking day to day performance the experience is pretty fluid. There is 8 Gigabytes of RAM packed inside . So, switching times between apps are fast, multitasking is also pretty good on this device. Using the Split Screen mode comes really handy here,
When it comes to gaming the Zenfone AR has more than enough power to handle all the high-end titles you can probably through at it including Asphalt 8, Asphalt Xtreme, Godfire, Marvel Future Fight etc. It also supports AR Gaming with Tango which we will talk more about in the AR & VR section. talking about Benchmarks, this is what they look like,
So, definitely this device can perform better if the game supports Vulkan API. One of the most popular games supporting the Vulkan API is the "Need For Speed - No Limits" & if you are iterested in more Vulkan Supported Games, Wikipedia has a list of them which you can check out by clicking here. Frame rates in Vulkan can stay like this,
Consider the first image to be the best case scenario. When things are optimal the frame rates can hit 194 FPS & when when there are way too much things going on, it can drop to around 50 FPS (52.4 FPS in this case). So, I guess you can understand why I prefered Vulkan over OpenGL in this case.
In OpenGL how ever your best case scenarios may reach upto 70 FPS & when there is a lot of stuff going on, it can drop to around 40 FPS. However, in both of these scenarios the Frame Rates will vary from game to game but, these benchmarks show kinda like the best results posible.
The storage is also really fast being a UFS 2.0 Memory Drive & if you're looking for test results then sorry, I cannot find the screenshot of that. But as I remember, it was scoring around 295 MBPS Read & 150 or 170 MBPS (Something like this, can't remember 100% acuurately) Write Speeds across the board.
Augmented & Virtual Reality Capabilties
Now I do not intend to make a separate article on this perticular topic. But, I think this section will clear all your doubts anyway. So, let's keep rolling then. So, the main purpose of Zenfone AR is Augmented Reality as you can tell by it's name. It comes packed with Native Support for Google Tango out of the Box.
So, what is this Tango anyway ? Well, it's an Augmented Reality platform developed by Google that combines the Hardware & the Software to work as one single system that is capable of providing AR solutions for various purposes. Currently the usability of AR is damn limited but, it's slowly expeanding. However, with the Zenfone AR it's possible to use the device for both Working & Entertainment.
Let me give you an example of AR Gaming here. Below there is a Video where I have played an AR Game called "Slingshot Island" with the Zenfone AR.
[Avoid the people in the video. It's a public place so, I cannot do anything about it.]
So, yeah there are some cool Tango compatible AR Games avilable & you can definitely play them on the Zenfone AR. But, there are other uses of AR as well. Professionals in fields like Architecture & ID can already take advantages of some Tango enabled apps that can help them to plan the inside of Homes & other Buildings. Also, if someone wants to render an area in 3D so, they can 3D Print it later, it sall also be no problem.
But, Tango is not not the only thing that makes the Zenfone AR special. There is also support for Google Daydream that is a Vitual Reality platform focused towards Smartphone VR. This technology requires the Google Daydream View headset to work.
Now, VR is pretty good on the 1440P panel. There are many Daydream compatible apps available from Google and 3rd Party apps & games are also there. So, playing VR Games, watching 360 Degree Videos etc. are quite enjoyable experience on the Zenfone AR. The brightness is ok I'll say but, adding 100-200 nits or even more to it would have made the VR experience a lot better. Though, some games are still not optimized that well so those may result in some significant motion blur. I'll recommend to avoid these kind of games as they can put some real stress to your eyes.
Now, here's one of the biggest concerns about the Future Of AR in Android in the discussion right now & it's ARCore that is Google's new approach to bring AR capabilities to a wide range of Smartphones that don't have the required hardware for Tango. Well, does that kills the potential of Tango ? Basically No, it can't replace Tango as it'll never be as accurate as Tango because, the lack of actual hardware but, it may get more popular as it's wide availability. But, it's still not clear which Android Version will be the minimum requirement for ARCore. So, we need to wait a bit to confirm that.
The Camera(s)
This a a little bit different here. There are Four Cameras in total on this device where Three of them are located in the back & One is located on the Front. In the back there is a 23 Megapixel Main Shooter along with a Motion Tracking Camera below it & a Depth Sensing Camera on the right side. The 23MP main shooter is using the Sony IMX 318 & has an aperture of f-2.0.
In the Front we have a 8 Megapixel sensor for shooting selfies. The Aperture is of f-2.0 as well. The sensor information is still not listed anywhere but, it's probably from Omnivision (No confirmaton though).
Talking of sample Here are some,
For more samples & an in-depth discussion on the Camera, you need to head over to my Camera Review. I'm leaving it's link below,
Bottomline is, it's a good camera overall. I just wish the Dynamic Range was a little bit better & the stabilzation in Video Recording was more accurate & shake free.
Audio
I found the Audio Output of the Zenfone AR to be really good. It has a Single-firing 5 Magnet Mono speaker at the bottom of the device.
I found it be loud enough & the clarity is also very good. Here is a screenshot that was taken while recording the Audio from the Zenfone AR.
So, around 74 decibles average loudness while playing music. That's actually pretty similar to the Zenfone 3 Ultra that had two speakers instead of one. So, ASUS has done a real good job in the Audio segment. Via. Headphones there are Hi-Fi Audio & 7.1 Virtual Surround Sound output options built in. There is Audio Input via. the Internal Microphone is also pretty good.
Battery Life
The Zenfone AR comes with a 3300 mAh Battery that may not seem a lot when ASUS has packed Google Tango & Daydream that is actually quite Battery Hungry. But, probably the 14nm Process Technology is holding up pretty well & the battery life is actually quite good. Here's a consumption chart,
I didn't expected to get good Battery Life as there was a 5.7 in 1440P Display but, looks like the Super AMOLED panel &14 nm Process Technology is doing a good job here. You can easily get more than a day with moderate & about 15-17 hours with heavy usage.
My Final Words On The Device
After my evaluation period, here I am with a conclution to the story. Let me first clear that what I like & what I don't like about the device,
Things I Like
1. The Screen Quality Is Pretty Good
2. The Performance Is Top Notch
3. The Battery Life Is Unexpectedly Good
4. The Audio Output Is Also Pretty Good
5. Good AR & VR Experience
Things I Don't Like
1. The OIS In Video Doesn't Seems To Work Very Well
2. The Dynamic Range Seems To Be A Bit Weak In Auto Mode
3. The Metal Part On The Back Gets Hot While Gaming & Using The Camera For Long Time
So, I think the Zenfone AR is a great device for people who need that AR power for their Professional & Entertainment Purposes. Also as a regular productivity device, the Zenfone AR is a pretty good pick up for it's 2K Super Amoled Display & Good Audio Output. As a photography device it's decent & feels like a Flagship Camera but in videography, I don't think it's a good option. So, if you find the Zenfone AR fitting your needs, I have no problem to recommend it.
So, is this new approach called the Zenfone AR from ASUS & Google, the "Future Of Smartphone Technology" ? Well, it's the starting point. In future we'll see a lot of powerful devices with more perfect & efficient processing capabilities for AR, VR & AI stuff but, this is definitely where it all starts to grow.
So, that's it for this review, if you have any questions, you can drop them below & I'll be happy to answer them. Thanks for reading & I'll catch you in my next article, right here on ZenTalk.
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