We have reviewed almost all Zenfone so far and each time Asus has improved from their experience. As per user requirement they have brought in the major changes in the device. Here we are going to review Asus newly introduced Series Zenfone 3 ZE552KL model. There are many models available in Zenfone 3 series. So let’s get started with it.
Unboxing:
Let’s start with Unboxing. Zenfone 3 comes in nicely design shining Dark Grey compact box. After opening the box you will find Zenfone 3 ZE552KL. After taking out the device you will find user manual with SIM tray ejector Pin. Device comes with USB type C Chord and wall charging adapter along with Zen-ears (inear earphones). Check the image below.
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| SIM Tray Ejector And User Manual |
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| Earphones USB Type C Cable And Wall Adapter Charger |
Our First Thought On the Device And Device Description:
Once you take out the device it really seems very slim and very premium. Design is eye catchy feels good in hand with their curvy edges and glass material. Device is very light weight. Zenfone 3 device have their concentric circle pattern design (AKA Zen Design) underneath 2.5D cornering gorilla glass on back side of phone make the device look glossy. But at the same time it becomes bit difficult to handle the device since it becomes sleeper to hold it or put it on any surface. So I will strongly recommend to buy new cover along with the device. I think Asus should have used something more grippy material rather than glass.
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| Zenfone 3 (ZE552KL) Front |
Starting from the TOP device have 3.5mm audio jack. In front device have mic in the middle moving on left it have ambient and light sensor followed by front camera. Moving right side from mic we have notification LET indicator.
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Moving on to the sides we have device unlock and volume rockers with zen design on them. On the other side we have hybrid SIM tray.
Moving to the bottom of the device in front we have three buttons, rather than Asus should have provided on screen buttons on the device. But again this is the matter of choice for the users. But buttons on device with 5.5 inches screen make it difficult to reach-out either end/corner of device. There is always a risk of device drop in order to do that. At the base, device have USB type C charging port in middle and speakers on the left side.
On back side of the device starting from top we have rear camera at the middle. On right side of the camera we have laser sensor and flash on the right side. Below the camera we have FPS (Fingerprint sensor). At the bottom of the device Asus log is stamped on the device.
Specs And Features:
Zenfone 3 ZE552KL comes with good specs packed with it. Device comes with 5.5 inches Super IPS+ capacitive Full HD screen (1080 x 1920 pixels) having 401 ppi pixel density along with 2.5D cornering gorilla glass protection. The feature that I liked the most is brightness control on this device. In night time keep your brightness lowest level, it will provide good low light brightness which suit your eyes. But if you increase the brightness a bit it will improve greatly even work perfectly in Sunlight. This feature also work perfectly fine on Auto mode. The device is responsive and smooth to operate. Zenfone 3ZE552KL have Octa-core SnapDragon 625 processor (Adreno 506) clocked at 2GHz along with 4GB RAM makes your experience flawless. I am surprised with almost no heating for normal extensive gaming but it do get little heat-up while playing high graphical games. Still as gamers I am very much satisfied with performance of this device. For improving gaming performance Asus has introduced feature called Game Engine. This will assist your smartphone for tweaking the game to perform smoothly.
Zenfone 3 ZE552KL have Hybrid SIM slot that allow you to use either 2 SIM card or use one SIM and other as Micro SD card slot. But this device provide 64 GB of inbuilt storage memory (out of which 53.66 GB available for user). I find this much space handy and more than enough for majority of user. On the camera front device have 16 MP rear camera and 8 MP front camera with various shooting mode like Auto, Super resolution Mode, All Smile, Panorama mode, Miniature, Manual, Low light, In-depth and so on. With pixel-master technology integrated with Sony lenses and fast laser focus assistance along with 3 tone powerful flash the clicks good pictures in the dark places. 16 MP rear camera is also capable of recording 4K high quality videos and Full HD slow video recording. Asus has improve much since the launched of Zenfone 3, since they have design their entire Zenfone 3 series focused on camera and looks of smartphone.
Along with all cool feature Asus has integrated lately FPS (fingerprint sensor) working flawlessly. Just a little concern with FPS is when you put on back cover it becomes difficult to reach out your figure till your sensor. But Asus made good job, despite of this FPS worked 9 out of 10 times after putting on back cove on my device. Apart from this device comes with USB type C charging which allow fast charging along with fast file transfer too. It charge your large 3000 mAh battery within one and half hour to 2 hours. Device battery last for almost entire day.
Here are the camera sample in various modes:
Note : Click on Images to view them in Original Size.
Auto Mode
Night Mode
Manual Mode
Super Resolution Mode
Lowe Light Mode
HDR Mode
Heavy Usage: 8-9 hours
Moderate Usage: Entire Day
Low Usage: More than One day
Moderate Usage: Entire Day
Low Usage: More than One day
Since we have tested heavily we are happy to use this device and its battery life.
ZenUI and Customization:
After setting up your device one thing you can do is disable blotwares that you will not use. Apps like Puffin Browser, Trip Advisor, Google Hangout, Asus apps you are not tens to use. Apart from this Asus has introduce their new ZneUI 3.0 with Zenfone 3 series. You can do many customizations on your device UI using ZenUI 3.0 like remove app drawer (screen like iPhone) set wall paper, set shortcut Icons on unlock screen, double tap wakeup, special action for starting particular app and much more.
You can even set special action for Fingerprint sensor like
· Unlock your device.
· Assign another fingerprint for special app.
· Double tap on FPS will open camera.
· While operating camera pressing FPS will click the picture.
· Long press on minimize button to take screen shot.
· Press minimize button and show recently open background app which allow you to clear memory. So no need to installed third party software for optimize phone and extend the battery life.
Mobile Manager is another app that Asus has improved their permission management that allow the user to control the apps that use the various resources like app storage, mobile Internet, camera, contacts and so on. It also provides power saver option, boosting the memory and set your data usage. Notification control is very handy feature that I personally liked it. It allows user to control their notification that they want to see. Suppose I don’t want to see notification form particular app that appear on notification bar or lock screen or just don’t want to see it at all you can manage it from there.
App lock is another cool feature that Asus Zenfone provide as part of Zenfone 3 using either PIN or FPS or Pattern Lock. You can also use their them store to download free and premium themes and customize your UI using various features like you can set wallpaper of one theme, icons of another theme and so on. Asus also support third party themes which you can use for customization.
Asus also provide various modes like Easy mode which basically Old Person Mode, complete with extra-large font and a maximum of 9 non-movable home screen apps.
Kids mode that provide selected app to be used like gaming clock and camera flashlight and apps that you allow your kids to use. This mode will prevent other apps to be displayed. So whenever you want to give your device to kids just activate kids mode.
Conclusion/ Verdict:
Pros:
Zenfone 3 (ZE552KL) is excellent smartphone provide excellent battery backup with outstanding camera performance, by providing various options and 4K video recording capabilities. On the gaming front Snapdragon 625 perform very well with Game engine feature that has been included in Zenfone 3 by Asus. On the other hand, even though using internet connectivity for whole day device provide battery backup for entire day. FPS work very well and fast enough to unlock the device and apps and another functions setup by user. Music tweaks works well with earphones provided with the device. Asus provided Audio Wizard to customized the Music experience. ZenUI also response flawlessly and very responsive.
Cons:
Use of the glass on both side of device make it sleepery from hand other surfaces. Device is bit overpriced for this configuration.
SO here is out complete review for this device. If you have any questions or query do post in comment below we will get back to you as soon as possible. Thank you for reading.