Priced at P14k pesos, the Asus Zenfone 2 is one of the best value smartphone on a budget that is currently available right now. From our review, we found that the Zenfone 2 has features that could easily match other flagship phones. It’s a powerful smartphone and reliable 13MP camera phone.
Despite the impressive specs and pricing, it has few features that you might consider why shouldn’t buy it, or perhaps, pause and step back a little before purchasing it.
Table of Contents
Display – sunlight legibility, wide angle, brightness
For 5.5-incher smartphone with FHD IPS display, Asus Zenfone 2 offers sharp picture quality. However, when compared to other budget phones like Lenovo K80, K3 Note, Xperia C4, or Lumia 640XL, the display of Zenfone 2 lags behind in terms of sunlight and viewing angle legibility.
We found that the Zenfone 2 has wide air-gap between its Gorilla Glass 3 protection and LCD panel, thus, bright lighting spoils the readability of the display especially in outdoors.
Unremovable battery / not user-replaceable
Asus only managed to bring a swappable back-cover to Zenfone 2 and forgot to include a user replaceable battery. I know this is kinda small issue, but considering how thick and large the phone is, Asus should had brought the flexibility of changing the battery easily.
Screen easily cracks
One of my friend bought a Zenfone 2 and after few days of using he accidentally dropped it. It’s the first he dropped the Zenfone 2 from a hip level height, and unfortunately, the screen cracked easily. Though his Zenfone 2’s screen is useable, it’s still a very painful situation to look at your broken screen.
What’s worse with the fragile screen of Zenfone 2, it seems that the issue is not isolated to my friend’s case. We searched the web and found a dozen of related incidents. If there is to blame, I think it’s on the design of Zenfone 2. Asus should rethink its Zenfone 3 design if ever they will include similar glass panel placement.
Rear buttons
Both LG G3 and LG G4 offer rear keys or buttons located just below the camera. LG has carefully designed these buttons to be easily accessed, however, this is not the case on Zenfone 2. We found that the rear buttons are flat and narrow. The position is also cumbersome as it sits just few millimeters under the camera lens. Most of the time you would end up touching the camera lens first than the rear buttons.
Too much bloatwares that you can’t removed
What makes the Zenfone 2 annoying for a longtime Android user is the amount of bloatwares installed on Zenfone 2. We really hate the those cleaning, boosting apps which you cannot install. They are really annoying and pops-up anytime on my notification menu.
Asus should avoid throwing shitty bloatware apps and provide a near-stock Android Lollipop experience. So far, LG and Sony provide best skinned, custom Android Lollipop experience.
To buy or not to buy
Still, the Zenfone 2 is a great smartphone choice in the market right now with just few caveats. It is up to you if these top 5 cons or reasons on why not to buy the Asus Zenfone 2 are major drawbacks.
The alternative yet affordable (cheap in price but not in specs and features) smartphones to Zenfone 2 right now includes the OnePlus One, Lenovo K80, Lenovo K3 Note, Microsoft Lumia 640XL, Sony Xperia C4, Motorola G 3rd gen, Xperia M4 Aqua, and Xiaomi Mi4.
| Asus Zenfone 2 ZE551ML specs |
| 5.5-inch IPS LCD, 1080p HD, 401ppi |
| 10.9mm thin, 170g weight |
| Gorilla Glass 3 |
| Intel 3560/3580 quad chip |
| 2/4GB RAM |
| 16/32/64GB ROM, microSD card slot |
| 13MP camera, dual tone LED flash, HDR, 1080p video |
| 5MP selfie camera |
| 4G LTE dual SIM, WiFi , Bt 4.0, FM Radio, GPS, NFC |
| Android 5.0 Lollipop, upgradeable to 5.1 |
| 3000mAh battery |
| Black, Gold, Grey, White |
| P9,000 to P14,000 for 2/4GB RAM as of September 7, 2015 |
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Na. You would get used to pressing the right buttons as your brain would just get repetitions. Being as the people buying ASUS are not the masses right now, you can cross bloatware off the list with an easy cyanogenmod replacement. The battery can be replaced, its just a little harder to get to. Ill give you sunlight but thats it. This phone is a steal for the price…and when zenphone 3 gets released…it will still be a steal at an even better price. Can’t wait. This and the Onplus 2, Huawai M5 Honor. Great phones
My asus zenfone 2 is still alive for a year now. I drop it sometimes, i even sleep with it and im 80 kg just imagine what happens, and my phone is still good as new, i just put a jelly case and high quality screen protector.
My only problem is the cable charger its my 8th cable now.