TheAsus Zenfone 3 Laser is the Taiwanese brand's latest offering to their camera-focused Laser series. It is a budget-level, mid-range smartphone that brings a good amount of features, at least on paper. But does it fare well in practice? Read more to find out. A Sexier, Classier Build Unlike its predecessor, the Zenfone Theintroduction of 2.5D Corning Gorilla Glass display with an all aluminum body has added a premium feel to new devices. The moment you hold the Asus Zenfone 3 Laser, you realize this immediately. We reviewed the Zenfone 3 and Zenfone 3 Max a while ago, and the Zenfone 3 Laser follows the same design and build quality aspects. The only substantial difference I found with the Zenfone 3 Laser is that it is lighter than the others as it weighs only 150gms and measures 149x76x7.9mm. Specwise, the ASUS ZenFone 3 Laser sports a 5.5-inch 1080p display, that's an IPS panel, and it takes up about 73.6% of the front of the device. Usability3.5/5. Value 3/5. Asus launched the ZenFone Max back in January of this year with an aim to address the battery woes faced by most smartphones. The distinguishing feature of the ZenFone The6″ ZenFone 2 Laser (ZE601KL) has a 13 MP PixelMaster camera at the back, and a 5 MP wide-angle camera in the front. Both cameras use a 4:3 ratio for maximum resolution, with small crop sizes available in the settings menu. 3PNFtU. 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. Verdict We’re not giving the Zenfone 3 a score just yet, since Asus hasn’t confirmed the phone’s UK price and there were some potentially atypical issues with out test unit that we need to investigate What is the Zenfone 3? Since Motorola threw down the gauntlet with its original Moto G, smartphone makers have been embroiled in a price-slashing war. As a result, we’ve seen all manner of fantastic value-for-money handsets appear, such as the OnePlus 3, Nexus 6P and Moto Z Play. The Zenfone 3 is Asus’ stab at the market, and aims to offer top-end-ish hardware at a price point that won’t break the bank. Having had a play, I can confirm that the device certainly looks the part and generally delivers great performance on a par with the Huawei Nova and Alcatel Idol 4S. However, as is the case with almost all mid-range handsets right now, its software leaves a lot to be desired. Related Best Smartphones to Buy Zenfone 3 – Design and Display The phone looks like a slightly more boxy Samsung Galaxy S7. Featuring a glass back and metal sides, were it not for the Asus logo and absence of a physical home button you could easily mistake the Zenfone for a Samsung handset. Some will bemoan the lack of originality, but in my mind the Zenfone’s design looks far nicer than that of most mid-range handsets. Technically, on paper the Zenfone 3 is an impressive bit of kit. Despite being a mid-range handset, Asus hasn’t made too many compromises. Around the back you’ll find a fingerprint scanner, which can used to unlock the phone or approve specific actions – such as in-app payments. On the bottom you’ll find a USB Type-C charging port, as opposed to the older and slower Micro USB. The SIM tray also contains a microSD card slot, making it quick and easy to upgrade the handset’s built-in 64GB of space. A cheaper 32GB model is also available for those with lower storage requirements. Audio fans will be pleased to see that Asus hasn’t removed the jack – looking at you, Apple. The phone’s slightly curved edges, reasonable thickness and 155g weight also make it surprisingly comfortable to hold when compared to other glass-backed phones – the Galaxy S7, for example. I’m a little concerned about build quality, though. The glass rear – like on past Samsung and Sony phones – feels like it will pick up scratches fairly easily. It’s also a smudge magnet, which will be an annoyance for folk who like their phone to look glass front on the model I was testing hadn’t been glued down properly. The bottom-left corner would lift a fraction of a millimetre off the phone’s main body, regularly letting light from the screen’s LEDs leak out. Since I’ve only had a chance to use one Zenfone 3, I can’t confirm if this is an isolated incident. Otherwise, the screen is pretty good for an affordable phone. The 1080p resolution may not match higher-end handsets, but it’s more than sharp enough and you’ll struggle to spot individual pixels. The IPS panel has also been well calibrated, and unlike the OnePlus 3’s AMOLED screen, which was horribly oversaturated, the Zenfone’s display offers up a nice neutral tone. Whites are clean and colours look natural. Some will find the Zenfone 3’s native display setting a little too cool, but I like it. Those who want more pop can adjust the screen’s colour temperature in the Zenfone’s Settings menu, thanks to the addition of Asus’ ZenUI software. Zenfone 3 – Software, Performance and Battery The aforementioned colour temperature setting is pretty much the only feature I like about ZenUI. I’ve never been a fan of Android skins, since they generally delay how quickly phones can receive software updates and also add pointless bloatware. There’s no word if the Zenfone will be upgraded to Nougat, but the handset certainly is full of bloatware. ZenUI isn’t the worst offender I’ve seen in this regard – that honour is reserved for Huawei and its Emotion UI – but Asus’ skin still adds more duplicate apps and pointless features than I’d like. Opening up the app tray you’ll see everything from clone Asus cloud storage apps that offer little improvement on Google’s central Drive, to pointless duplicate gallery and photo services that don’t add anything to the OS’s core offering. I’m also not sold on the UI changes that Asus has made to Android. The Settings menu has been entirely reconfigured, to the point that even seasoned Android users will struggle to find certain options. The pull-down Quick Settings and Notifications bar has also been redesigned, replacing Marshmallow’s simple, to-the-point UI design with childlike spherical shortcuts. The design change isn’t terrible, but it just feels unnecessary and is indicative of pretty much every aspect of ZenUI. To be fair, this isn’t an issue that affects Asus alone. Bloatware and pointless UI changes are a common issue on 99% of mid-range handsets I see, including the OnePlus 3, Huawei Nova and Alcatel Idol 4S. I can’t help but wish that companies would listen to consumers and realise that most people would be more than happy with unskinned Android on their phones. Over my week-plus of using the phone I haven’t experienced that many surprise bugs or unexpected glitches, which are another common problem on phones with heavy Android skins. The octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 and 4GB of RAM performed better on the Zenfone than the Huawei Nova, which has the same specs. For much of the time, the phone glided between menus and opened apps chug-free. Games did run on the device, but the Zenfone 3 took longer to load intensive titles such as Riptide and Asphalt than top-end phones with 820 CPUs. The only performance issue I did notice is that during prolonged video streaming and gaming sessions the Zenfone 3 would sometimes heat up. The temperature wasn’t Galaxy Note 7 explosive, but it was enough to cause concern. The Zenfone’s synthetic benchmark scores did reveal some performance shortcomings, however. The handset’s 62,371 score on the generalist AnTuTu test is lower than most mid-range handsets, such as the similarly specced Idol 4S, which score 76,756. The same issue occurred on the gaming focused 3DMark IceStorm Unlimited test, where the Zenfone 3 scored 14,037. The Idol 4S scored a more robust 17,554. Related Best Android Smartphones Zenfone 3 – Battery Battery life is one area where the Zenfone 3 excelled during my tests. The non-removable Li-Ion 3,000mAh battery easily lasted one and a half – if not two – days in regular use off a single charge. Regular use entailed listening to music on the way to and from work, playing some games over lunch, making and taking a few calls, regularly checking social media and email, and watching an episode of Stranger Things on Netflix before bed. The Zenfone 3 also dealt with demanding tasks, such as video streaming and 3D gaming, pretty well. Streaming video over Wi-Fi with the screen at 75% brightness, the Zenfone 3 lost between 8-11% of its charge per hour. Competing handsets generally lose between 10-15% of their charge tasked with the same test. Playing 3D games such as Riptide GP2, the Zenfone 3 lost between 13-16% of its battery per hour – again, this is impressive. In the past, the majority of mid-range phones I’ve tested have lost as much as 20-25% of their battery per hour when gaming. Buy Now Asus Zenfone 3 at $286 Zenfone 3 – Camera Camera tech is an area with which most mid-range phones struggle. The majority come with undersized sensors and don’t have the hardware to capture anything but holiday selfies and photos for sharing on social media. The Zenfone 3 doesn’t change this trend, but as phone cameras go, it isn’t terrible. The 16-megapixel rear camera on paper beats the specifications of most mid-range handsets. The f/ aperture is pretty much par for the course, but the Sony IMX298 camera sensor is a step up from the components used on most sub-£400 handsets. For a mid-range phone, the Zenfone 3’s camera isn’t badIt doesn’t oversharpen……but performance doesn’t match that of cameras on more expensive handsets, such as the Galaxy S7The sensor is identical to the one in the OnePlus 3 and means that the phone is capable of capturing reasonably good photos in decent light. Shooting around London during one of the city’s rare sunny days, I was able to capture good cityscapes with decent contrast and suitable detail. Colours don’t look exaggerated and, unlike quite a number of handsets, the phone doesn’t oversharpen images. The autofocus is also okay, but not great. Much of the time it will focus on your intended shot within only milliseconds but, like all the phone cameras I test, it struggles with moving objects. The inclusion of optical image stabilisation OIS is a rare sight in the mid-range market, and on paper this should elevate the Zenfone 3 above the competition when it comes to low-light performance. However, during my tests I noticed only a negligible improvement and still wouldn’t recommend the phone for night-time photography, or low-light clubs shots without the LED flash. Even with OIS, noise crept into photos taken in even moderately dim conditions. As a result, captured photos weren’t good enough for sharing, even on Facebook. The 8-megapixel front camera has the same f/ aperture and can record video at 1080p, which makes it more than good enough for basic video calling. You’d do well to avoid the beauty mode, though. Related Best Smartphones 2016 First Impressions As mid-range phones go, there’s plenty to like about the Zenfone 3. The handset I tested offered great battery life, reasonable performance, and featured a capable for the money camera and nicely balanced display. ZenUI is a fairly awful Android implementation, but it’s just one of many that are clogging up the world of mid-range handsets. If the Zenfone 3 is competitively priced in the UK, as it is in many other markets, the phone could be a solid choice for buyers on a budget. However, it will only deliver on its opening promise if my initial concerns about build quality aren’t found to be a problem across the board. How we test phones We test every mobile phone we review thoroughly. We use industry standard tests to compare features properly and we use the phone as our main device over the review period. We’ll always tell you what we find and we never, ever, accept money to review a product. Find out more about how we test in our ethics policy. Used as our main phone for the review period Reviewed using respected industry benchmarks and real world testing Always has a SIM card installed Tested with phone calls, games and popular apps Trusted Score

asus zenfone 3 laser review