Look and feel
The ZenFone 5 is a basic candybar phone with a basic yet modern style. It’s just as well built as Asus’ other popular products such as the hybrid tablet PadFone.
The first thing you will notice about the ZenFone5 is its boxy shape, which in a way gives it a high-end feel. In some ways, it reminded us of the original HTC One - minus the metal casing and dual front speakers.
The handset feels solid and sturdy. It’s 148.2mm tall and 72.8mm wide. Thanks to these generous proportions, the thickness of 10.34mm doesn’t feel too bad.
The ZenFone 5 is available in five colours in India: Charcoal Black, Pearl White, Cherry Red, Sky Blue, and Solar Yellow. We got our hands on the Charcoal Black one and it looked very nice indeed.
As we wrote in our first impressions of the Asus ZenFone 5, the phone’s ergonomic design and good looks are its best features.
The smartphone was easy to hold and use with a single hand, at least for us. It was easy to reach most of the screen with just the thumb; people with smaller hands might face some issues.
The ZenFone 5’s front is dominated by its 5-inch display with the section below it sporting a concentric circle finish which matches the design of Asus’ ZenBook laptops. The 2-megapixel front-facing camera, a notification LED and the sensor array are located above the screen.
The metallic-looking volume and power buttons are all in a line on the device’s right edge and we had no problem hitting them. The audio jack is placed on top, and the Micro-USB port is on the bottom.
The rear is noticeably curved and features a soft-touch material allowing the phone to sit comfortably in hand. This might look good, but it actually means the camera lens is flush with the rear surface, which means it could get scratched when the phone is left in a bag or on a table. A simple plastic cover would fix this.
The 8-megapixel camera and LED flash are centred on the rear panel with subtle Zenfone and Intel Inside branding below. The panel pops off to reveal the two SIM slots, non-removable battery, and a microSD card slot.
Features, specifications and software
Confirming the ZenFone 5’s place within the budget segment is a dual-core 1.6GHz Intel Atom Z2560 processor with what Intel calls Hyper-Threading technology, which allows each core to execute two instructions at a time.
Asus also demonstrated another version of the Zenfone 5 at this year’s Computex show dubbed ZenFone 5 LTE, with a 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor for integrated LTE support. This version might be ready for launch by the end of the year, so for now only the non-LTE 3G version is available.
The ZenFone 5 comes with 2GB of RAM and will be sold with either 8GB or 16GB of internal storage plus support for up to 64GB microSD cards. Connectivity includes Wi-Fi b/g/n, GPS, and Bluetooth.
This is a dual-SIM device( GSM+ GSM) and supports two Micro-SIMs, both with 3G connectivity though only one 3G connection can be active at a time. There is a 2, 110mAh battery which is pretty good for a handset in this segment.
The Zenfone 5 features a 5-inch IPS HD( 720x1280-pixel) screen with Corning Gorilla Glass 3 for protection. The screen’s 294ppi pixel density makes text sharp and clear, but is a letdown when compared to the likes moto g