Asus Zenfone 4
The star of the show is the dual-camera setup, but it needs a better supporting cast at this price
In contrast to the Sony Xperia XZ1 opposite, and Asus’ own ZenFone AR last month ( see issue 277, p64), the ZenFone 4 doesn’t rely on gimmicks. This refined phone has the OnePlus 5 in its sights – a theory reinforced by its price. At £450, it costs exactly the same as our midrange phone of choice.
Where it differs is its twin-camera setup. While the OnePlus 5 opted for a 2x telephoto lens as its secondary camera, the ZenFone 4’s is a wideangle affair. With an 8-megapixel resolution, and 120-degree angle of view, it complements the 12-megapixel f/1.8 main camera so you can squeeze more of your scene into the frame.
Indeed, Asus claims you can fit twice as much into view as you can on a standard phone’s camera. This is particularly useful for shooting landscapes and group shots in tight spaces, but note that only the main camera benefits from optical image stabilisation (OIS).
How effective is the ZenFone’s camera in practice? In some ways, excellent. Shots are crisp and detailed, especially with plenty of light, and even intricate brickwork and foliage was picked up nicely. Its automatic focus responds quickly too. Colour reproduction isn’t quite a match for the OnePlus 5, but this is still a great camera for photography enthusiasts on a budget. It’s also a fine video camera, capturing 4K with the aid of both optical and electronic image stabilisation.
Its issues relate to low light and HDR. Images look washed out with the latter switched on, with overly white foregrounds in particular. My advice: steer clear of HDR unless desperate. Shots taken in low light suffered from a noticeable amount of noise and signs of compression artefacts. I still like the camera, and its wide-angle abilities arguably make it more flexible than the OnePlus 5, but it’s not the triumph I was hoping for.
Elsewhere, it’s difficult to get excited about the ZenFone 4. Available in Moonlight White, Mint Green or Midnight Black, there’s nothing new here: picture what a smartphone looks like in 2017 and you’ll be on the right track. What would have been revelatory features a year ago – 7.5mm thinness, an aluminium unibody design, curved Gorilla Glass for added protection – no longer set the pulse racing.
The most impressive engineering feat, in fact, is that Asus has squeezed the dual-camera system into the main body of the phone. Nothing juts out from the back. Everything else is tucked neatly away too. Both the power key and volume rocker key sit on the right edge of the phone, while the combo nano-SIM tray and microSD slot (expandable up to 256GB) hide on the left edge.
Cast your eyes downward and you’ll spot a 3.5mm headphone jack, USB-C connector and a solitary
“Asus claims you can fit twice as much into view as you can on a standard phone’s camera – handy for landscapes and groups”
speaker grille on the bottom. The large home button just under the screen doubles as a fingerprint scanner, but there’s one feature that’s sorely missed: dust- and water-resistance. Mind you, the OnePlus 5 doesn’t have this either.
The front is dominated by the screen. Asus sensibly keeps things simple, opting for a 5.5in 1,920 x 1,080 IPS display. However, it isn’t a star performer. It started well enough in our tests, with a dazzling 614cd/m2 maximum brightness, but Colour balance and accuracy were less dazzling: over-saturation was visible across the palette.
This phone’s speed won’t wow anybody either. It’s powered by Qualcomm’s mid-range 2.2GHz Snapdragon 630 processor, with 4GB of RAM, and falls well behind the 835-powered OnePlus 5. For example, in Geekbench 4’s multi-core test, the ZenFone scored 4,155 to the OnePlus’ 6,698. It’s a similar story for graphics speed, with the Asus handset mustering 14fps in the on-screen Manhattan 3 test compared to 55fps for its rival.
Perhaps, you’re thinking, it’s battery life where the Asus strikes a decisive victory? Not so. The ZenFone 4 lasted 13hrs 26mins in our videorundown test, compared to 20hrs 40mins for the OnePlus.
This leaves the ZenFone 4 looking expensive: for it to make an impression on the OnePlus 5, it needs to shave a substantial amount from the £450 price. Things get even tougher when you bring in competition from further afield: for instance, you can pick up the impressive Xiaomi M6 ( see issue 276, p59) for around £100 less, if you don’t mind taking a risk on a “China phone”. The ZenFone 4 must fall to a similar price if it
wants to win buyers.