Asus Zenfone 2 Laser ZE550KL: Value For Money Device with Good Camera

Asus Zenfone 2 laser

Asus Zenfone 2 laser was launched back in August and offers nice specs and good performance. Laser autofocus is the main thing company offered in this phone with price tag of just Rs. 9999. Company is already gearing up with its new Asus Zenfone Max and it will be launched in coming days. Zenfone 2 laser phone is competing with Coolpad note 3 and Lenovo K3 Note. A bit late but we decided to give this phone a chance and thought to share our experience with you.

Asus Zenfone 2 Laser ZE550KL Review

Design

Design of the phone is similar to its flagship device Asus Zenfone 2. It is solid and large. Power rocker keys are at the back below the rear camera. Rear camera is in between dual LED flash and laser autofocus sensor. Placing of the speaker is at the below side of back but curved protects blockage of speaker when you put it on surface from its back. Front camera and the notification LED are positioned above the display.

It has power button at the top side and micro USB port at the bottom side. If your palm is small, you may find it bit irritating to reach to power button. But after using it for few days, you will be habitual.

Weight of the device is 170 grams and dimensions measure 152.5 x 77.2 x 10.8 mm.

Back cover is removable and battery of the phone is also removable. Inside that, you will see two SIM card slots and a microSD card slot.

Asus Zenfone 2 Laser

Build and design is solid and curved back offers better grip. So, handling of the phone is good. Only the position of power button is bit weird.

Display

Zenfone 2 Laser features a 5.5 inch display with 1280 x 720 pixels resolution. Display is also protected with Gorilla Glass 4. I think this is the only phone in this price segment which offers latest gorilla glass 4 protection. Display looks good and offers good viewing angles. Color output seems to be fine and you can also use it in outdoor without any issue. As the display is reflective, you may find it bit hard working in direct sun light condition.

DSC_0226

I tested display in gaming and videos both and was satisfied with its performance. Response of touch is also good and it also works with wet hand.

Interface and apps

This phone runs on Asus Zen UI at the top of Android 5.0.2 Lollipop. We can also expect Marshmallow update soon. This UI comes with an app drawer which consist of folders categorizing apps. Initially, it is hard to find apps because you will have to remember folders and is position. You can also create your own folders and arrange apps.

screen

Various Asus specific apps and bloatware also come with this phone. You get clean master, Trip Advisor, Free Games, Dr. Safety, Amazon Kindle, Gaana, ZenTalk, Zen Circle and few more. Thanks to good storage option. It already consumed lots of storage.

Best thing is that you get options to customize the look by installing more themes.

theme

Touch gestures are also there to perform tasks quickly y using gestures. I also liked its one-hand mode. If you find it hard to work with one hand, you can use its one-hand mode and use the smaller section of the display.

gesture

Performance and hardware

It is powered by a 1.2 GHz Quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 with 2 GB of RAM for improved multi-tasking. Adreno 306 is also there for handling graphics. No one can question the performance of the phone. Even if you are using more than 15 apps simultaneously, it was working lag-free.

Asus Zenfone 2 Laser

Playing games on this device was also a fun. Graphics, sound and performance, everything was awesome. I tested various high-end games and got no issue.

The Antutu benchmark scored was around 25000. It is pretty nice but it is worth to mention that its direct competitor Lenovo K3 Note got around double score on the same benchmark. Numbers are just numbers, you will still be satisfied with its performance.

Screenshot_2016-01-18-14-54-59

The 16GB variant of the phone offers 10.8GB of actual usable storage. You also have an option to expand the storage with microSD to boost it up-to 64GB. USB OTG is also supported if you think storage is not enough and you want more storage.

Camera

Zenfone 2 laser is very strong in this department. It is packed with 13 megapixels rear camera with dual-LED flash and laser autofocus. At front, it has 5 megapixels autofocus front camera. Camera features include Auto Flash,Laser Auto focus, Continuos Shooting, Exposure compensation, Face detection, Geo tagging, High Dynamic Range mode (HDR), ISO control, Touch to focus and White balance presets.

Camera

It is packed with same camera app which was in the Zenfone 2. You get lots of camera modes, including manual mode too. So, you can try these modes to enjoy different kind of photography experience. But Camera UI was not up to the mark. Sometimes I felt lag issue.

I am adding few camera samples below. See photos taken in different light conditions and by using different modes.

outdoor photo quality was impressive but it was not that much of good in low-light. But I have seen even high-end phones struggling in low light. Considering its price, its camera quality is good enough and better than its closest competitors.Zenfone 2 Laser

Connectivity and Battery

It features Dual SIM slot with 4G support. Other connectivity features are Bluetooth 4.0, standard Wi-Fi, GPS, MicroSD card, and Micro USB port.

It is packed with 3000 mAh battery which performs good. You can get around 30 hours of moderate usage. Available battery savings mode can help you in extending its battery life more. It takes more than 3 hours in fully charge. It was a bit disappointment.

Share this article
Shareable URL
Prev Post

Skin4gadgets Mobile Skin Review

Next Post

Lenovo K4 Note Review : Good but not Killer

Leave a Reply
Read next
Subscribe to our newsletter
Get notified of the best deals on our WordPress themes.