ASUS ZENFONEONE ZOOM S

Successor to last year’s ZenFone Zoom, the ZenFone Zoom S uses an aluminum alloy body with a sandblasted matte surface. The edges and corners are rounded, and it has polished antenna lines. The front features a 2.5D glass with contoured edges nished with a coat of Corning Gorilla Glass 5. With its 7.99mm thin profile and 170g weight, the phone feels light and sleek much like Huawei’s P10 Plus, and has a comfortable grip. However, the width of the ZenFone Zoom S requires you to utilize both thumbs to comfortably operate it.

On this device, you’ll nd a vibrant and bright 5.5-inch Full HD AMOLED display. It exhibited warmer colors, though had no issues rendering minute details, such as highlights and mild di erences in hues.

The current iteration of the ZenUI is more palatable with ASUS toning down the juvenile-looking gradients in stock apps. Other features include its USB Type-C port (at USB 2.0 speeds) that has reversed charging at 1.0A. The fingerprint sensor located at the rear worked rather swiftly, instantly registering our nger once it met the sensor. Do note that the ZenFone Zoom S has no NFC support though.

The phone’s headlining feature is its dual 12-megapixel rear camera setup. The main camera uses a Sony IMX362 sensor, while the accompanying zoom camera uses a Samsung 3M3 sensor with a ve-element lens xed at a 59mm focal length (35mm equivalent). The latter is used for the 2.3x optical zoom e ect compared to the primary camera lens. The phone’s software automatically decides when it should trigger the Zoom Camera, which we found more likely to happen when you set the camera’s Focus Mode to Continuous Auto Focus.

On its own, the ZenFone Zoom S holds itself together just ne as it marks the base level expectations from the phone’s design, feel, handling and general performance for a Snapdragon 625-powered device and good imaging out of the Main Camera. However erce competition (even from their own product line) takes away any glint that the ZenFone Zoom S has to o er.

Good primary rear camera.

Below average battery life.

The rst dual rear camera attempt for ASUS, and they chose optical zoom to woo the users.