1000-dollar phones are exciting, there's no denying that, but it seems like fewer and fewer people are actually buying them. At the same time, the number of decent phones costing half as much is growing steadily, and the Asus ZenFone 6 is the latest addition to the list.
With the ZenFone 6, Asus aims to deliver a fast, reasonably priced smartphone with a beautiful screen, long battery life, and a good camera. And on paper, we seem to be looking at a recipe for success: the chip of choice is the powerful Snapdragon 855, the main camera has a whopping 48MP of resolution, and the 6.4-inch display stretches from edge to edge without a notch breaking its uniformity. Oh, and did I mention the huge, 5000mAh battery inside?
But that's enough theory. I've been using the ZenFone 6 for a couple of weeks now, so let me tell you all there is to know about it.
In the box:
- Asus ZenFone 6
- Wall charger (18W)
- USB Type-C cable
- SIM eject tool
- Wired earphones with 3.5mm jack
- Silicone tips of different sizes for the earphones
- User Guide
Design -:
So indeed, there is no notch on the ZenFone 6. There's no punch-hole camera cutout either. All you have at the front is a spacious screen with rounded corners and a very small chin at the bottom. It's a clean, minimalist, and undeniably cool look that Asus has achieved, and it's great being able to use the display in its entirety when watching the video or playing games, without any distractions spoiling the experience.
But where's the front-facing gear? Well, you actually take selfies using the main cameras. They're mounted on a motorized module that rotates 180 degrees at the tap of a button. The process takes about a second. On one hand, that's an awesome concept as the ZenFone 6's rear cameras hold plenty of potentials. And so far, I haven't had any issues using the flippy camera with third-party apps for video calls or Instagram selfies. However, I'm not entirely convinced in the long-term reliability of the camera module, even though it can withstand at least 100,000 open-close cycles, according to Asus (that's 28 flips per day for 5 years). After all, testing performed in a lab by a robot is a very different thing from an actual Mr. Butterfingers handling the ZenFone 6 daily.
Display -:
Needless to say, Asus had to cut some corners to meet the price point it was aiming for. As a result, the ZenFone 6 uses a 6.4-inch IPS LCD display, not a fancy OLED one. The good news is that the screen looks fine to the naked eye. The resolution of 1080 x 2340 produces sharp visuals, and the peak brightness of 573 nits is sufficient for comfortable outdoor use.
Colors could be better, though. They are fairly accurate by default, but a blueish tint is clearly evident. You can tweak this in the display settings menu thanks to a white balance slider. There you'll also find a Wide Color Gamut mode, which adds more saturation to the way colors look.
I should point out that the phone uses Google's Adaptive Brightness feature, which learns from your habits and preferences to set the screen's brightness just the way you like it. At least that's the theory. In practice, I still find the automatic brightness control unreliable, especially when I go out under the sun and it fails to boost the brightness sufficiently. Another issue I've been having is that ghost touches occur near the edges of the screen. This could be mildly annoying when I'm watching a video and the playback controls pop up seemingly on their own, or while gaming when an unintentional touch could cause your lvl. 23 Ranger to wander away from the battle.
Processor and memory -:
The Asus ZenFone 6 comes with the Snapdragon 855, just like most other Android high-ends. It is the fastest chip Qualcomm has to offer, and to no surprise, I've had no troubles playing heavy games. Our particular review unit comes with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, but versions with 6GB of RAM and 64 or 128GB of storage will be available as well. For those who need it, there's a dedicated microSD card slot in addition to the dual SIM slots. In other words, you may have two SIMs in there and enjoy expandable storage at the same time.
Camera -:
There are two cameras on the Asus ZenFone 6, both mounted on the phone's flippy module. One is a regular 48MP camera for every-day use, and it uses the same Sony IMX586 sensor we've seen on many other similarly priced phones. The high resolution isn't this sensor's only strength. Its large area allows it to absorb more light than smaller sensors, while at night, visual information from four pixels is combined together for greater clarity. One of its weaknesses is the lack of OIS.
By the way, the ZenFone 6 takes 12MP photos by default. You have the freedom to shoot at 48MP of the resolution, but while you do really get more detail, this slows down the camera significantly, disables the HDR+ feature, and produces very large files. In terms of detail, the 12MP photos that I've taken so far are comparable to those from the Galaxy S10, but only as long as there's not too much movement in the frame.
Audio quality -:
The Asus ZenFone 6 comes with stereo speakers. One of them is at the bottom firing downward, and the other doubles as the earpiece. While the stereo effect is there, the sound is very unbalanced due to the bottom-firing speaker being much louder. Sound quality is okay overall, but not as good as what you'd get out of an iPhone, for example. Bundled with the ZenFone 6 is a pair of okay-sounding wired stereo earphones that plug into its 3.5mm headphone jack.
Battery life -:
If you need a phone that can last you two days between charges, the Asus ZenFone 6 would be it. Packed with a 5000mAh battery, it produced a score of 13 hours and 10 minutes on our custom battery benchmark test, beating most flagship devices by a significant margin.
Conclusion -:
The Asus ZenFone 6 is a strange beast, and I mean that in a good way. It is a fast phone that offers great specs, clean software, and excellent battery life at a highly competitive price. It's not a phone I would recommend to my mom, but I'm sure that an Android enthusiast would be thrilled to get their hands on one of these.
But as any other phone, the ZenFone 6 isn't perfect, and its weakest link appears to be the camera experience. It's not like its photos are bad. It's just that the camera's HDR software tends to produce images with a flat, over-processed look, and it's a look not everyone might like. This is why I'd recommend picking up a Pixel 3a XL over the ZenFone 6 if image quality is your top priority. At least that's the case right now. I'm sure that the ZenFone 6's hit-or-miss camera performance can be improved at some point in the future with a software update.
At the end of the day, the ZenFone 6 is the most peculiar phone I've reviewed in a long while, and I find it hard to let go of it. It may not be the best phone on the market, but it is certainly one of the best $500 phones out there.
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