It's my 3rd Zenfone that I had on my review table (many thanks to Asus Philippines) and the first one to try with a Qualcomm SoC. How does it after a few weeks for me? Here's what I got.
First off the box itself.
Power/unlock button, 3.5 mm. audio jack and noise cancelling mic at the top. pin hole mic and micro USB port at the bottom.
Form factor and physical looks:
Phone and messaging:
Mobile net and WiFi connectivity:
Benchmarks:
Gaming:
Camera:
First off the box itself.
The front has 5.5 inch IPS HD display with 5 MP front camera, standard Android buttons and Asus logo. The back has 13 MP rear camera with laser auto focus, Asus logo, dual LED flash plus the volume rocker and single speaker.
Power/unlock button, 3.5 mm. audio jack and noise cancelling mic at the top. pin hole mic and micro USB port at the bottom.
You already knew at my first impressions of this device that it has removable battery but this is will be another one on the pros list. The SIM 2 slot and micro SD slot are hot swappable. Yes, there's a way to remove the micro SD even if don't remove the battery. Good thing, the SIM 2 slot also supports LTE (both Globe and Smart, of course)
Form factor and physical looks:
Coz of it's curved back, there's less pressure for me in gripping and holding this device with this 5.5 inch phone. One thing that I had to be careful off is the power/unlock button when I'm using it on one hand. Good thing, the double tap to wake to wake/sleep works almost perfectly.
Phone and messaging:
Works really fine for me for calls thanks to it's noise cancelling mic and the internals inside. In messaging app,you can choose between the dark and light theme. I chose the dark one to save some battery. Sending and receiving messages are a-ok.
Mobile net and WiFi connectivity:
When I saw the 2G/3G/4G mode on mobile net (there's no 4G option like in the first Zenfone 2 that I had), that really made me decide to test it on areas with strong LTE connection. I advise you to be at balance mode if you want to have your LTE signal steady. If you have very strong 3G connection at your area, maximize the ultra power saving mode. WiFi reception is a-ok in the number of places that I checked including malls and offices. On LTE, I only felt a little warmness on this device which is great.
For it's Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 64-bit quad-core processor plus 2 GB RAM and 16 GB ROM, I got over 24,000 verified score on Antutu. I'm happy that the ZF2 Laser has 7 out of 9 available sensors. The internal memory was sourced from Samsung
Gaming:
I had Real Racing 3 on this one on performance mode and I didn't have any significant lags on this device.
Camera:
I knew that Asus Zenfone Selfie is better than the Laser but it works fine for me and you have to think about it's price tag. One thing that I don't like is the slow camera shutter speed. Even at auto mode when I'm outside at night time, the sensor seems to give some additional exposure which it is favorable for me. The rear camera has f/2.5 aperture.
Auto mode
Lomo mode
Black and white mode
Zen UI:
This is the smoothest Zen UI that I experienced so far based on switching apps, app compatibility (versus other Zenfones with Intel SoC) and all-around usage. One thing that I don't like is the daily app updates of pre-loaded and exclusive Asus apps which sometimes, I already had some 3rd party apps as replacement. Some of them don't have an option to disable it.
Audio and video:
I expected that I'll gonna have a great audio experience via my earbuds with Qualcomm SoC and it really does. The single speaker was the clearest that I had so far in the 3 Zenfones that I reviewed. I had a wonderful experience on viewing iFlix, Youtube and some offline videos on it's 5.5 inch HD display. Of course, there's Asus Splendid if you want to customize your preferred colors.
Battery:
For me, the battery life of this one was the shining star of the ZF2 Laser. On my standard video battery rundown test, it already became the new leader at my list at 14 hours and 51 minutes in ultra power saving mode. The most that I got for seldom mobile net, calls and texts goes for 2 days. On a normal usage with 3G connecitivity and ultra power saving mode, I can have it at between 30-36 hours. On LTE, I can max it out for a full working day. Buti na lang as the charging time goes at around 3 1/2 hours from 1 to 100 percent.
Pros: Excellent battery life, removable battery, better Zen UI, good camera, good audio and video, great on calls, texts, LTE and WiFi
Cons: A bit slow charging time, slow camera shutter speed, there's still no LTE only on mobile net connection,
At it's price of Php 8,695, I'll never go wrong as this is my most favorite Zenfone that I had so far. I'll gonna give it 4.25 out of 5 for my rating
