Asus Zenfone 3 Laser Review

Asus Zenfone 3 Laser

Asus Zenfone 3 Laser is the newest member of Laser series and it was launched in India for Rs. 18999, this phone is now available for the lesser price (Rs. 15999) on Flipkart. This phone competes with Asus’s own Zenfone 3 Max but both phones serve different purposes. Asus Zenfone 3 Laser comes with laser autofocus for better camera experience. I used Zenfone 3 Laser as my primary device and here is my detailed review after using it for around 15 days.

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Asus Zenfone 3 Laser Review

Design

The design of the phone is nice and similar to Zenfone 3 Max, but it is slimmer and lighter. This phone’s curved sides make it very easy to hold and light weight makes it comfortable to hold and use the phone. It has the premium-crafted metallic design with sandblasted aluminum body enhanced by diamond-cut chamfered edges.

The volume rocker and power button are at the right edge. Buttons are easy to reach with good response. The left side edge has SIM card tray. At the top side, it has the secondary mic and headphone jack. The below side edge has the primary mic, micro USB, and speakers.

The back of the phone has camera bump of around 1 millimeter and placing of components is similar to Zenfone 3. It has the rear camera at top center with laser autofocus sensor and dual LED flash at either side. The fingerprint sensor is located just below the rear camera.

The design is one of the primary reasons one should consider this phone.

With Premium-crafted metallic unibody build, Zenfone 3 Laser is a device you will love to own.

Display

The Display of the phone is impressive. It has the 5.5-inch 1080p display with 2.5D curved Gorilla Glass. The display is not just good in indoor but it offers the good experience in broad daylight. With wide viewing angles and nice color reproduction, this phone offers one of the best display in this price segment.

Zenfone 3 Laser

You also have Bluelight filter to get good reading experience in night and daydream options to use the display for more productive use. Use clock in the daydream and get the active display with time always on screen.

Software

Asus Zenfone 3 Laser runs on Android 6.0.1 with Zenfone UI 3.0 on the top of it. The UI comes with bloatware that are the only thing you will hate. Over 26 different apps that can only be disabled.

If I talk about the user experience and performance, Zen UI is now one of my favorite that does not show any ill effects after long term usage. While many other phones start showing UI related lags, the same case is not with the Zenfone 3 Laser. After using Zenfone 3, Zenfone 3 Max and now with Zenfone 3 Laser, I am impressed with the performance.

You also have plenty of options to customize the UI, install themes, add more wallpapers and more.

Performance, Gaming and storage

Zenfone 3 Laser gets 64-bit processor – Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 430 with 4GB of RAM and Adreno 430 GPU. While there is not a single issue in performance, the use of this entry-level chipset does not justify the price. The same thing I said in the Zenfone 3 Max as well. This phone could be priced few bucks lesser to have better attention as we already have Snapdragon 617 and 820 for the same price.

The gaming performance on the phone is impressive and the optimization of the phone is great. even if the phone doesn’t look powerful with Snapdragon 430 chipset, it delivers amazing performance while gaming. I only saw rare frame drops in few high-end games, and overall experience was awesome.

The benchmark scores are much lower than the competitors and if you care of this, you will be disappointed. It could score more than 35k on Antutu and on Geekbench the score was 524 and 1426 on single core and multi core tests.

This phone comes with 32 GB internal storage with an option to expand storage up to 128 GB. You will also get 5GB free Asus Web storage for life and 100GB free space on Google Drive for 2 years.

Camera

The camera is the most important feature of a phone people consider. This phone comes with 13 megapixels rear camera with PixelMaster 3.0, large f/2.0 aperture lens and laser auto-focus for any distance. Laser autofocus works great and never disappoints. At the front, it has 8 megapixels front camera with f /2.0 aperture.

Both cameras are backed with a good software. The camera app is the same that Asus used on all Asus phones. You can plenty of camera modes to work with. Manual mode gives you manual control over the camera and allows you to capture photos in the better way.

The camera works awesome in broad daylight. It captures close to nature colors. In few evening shots, the camera disappointed me with washed colors that looked awkward. But this issue was rare and the camera impresses in most of the conditions.

The low light photography is good and if you compare the phone’s low-light photos with other similar priced phone, Zenfone 3 laser shows lesser noise in photos. The low-light mode works great. Dual-LED real tone flash helps when you have almost no light and this also doesn’t disappoint.

The front camera of the phone is also good to capture beautiful selfies. A beauty mode with too many options allows you yo customize various things to get a proper beautification. You can also take selfie panorama when you find it hard to fit people in a selfie.

The video recording capability is also fine. You can record up to full HD videos from both front and rear cameras. Electronic image stabilization (EIS) works fine. You can also record time lapse and slow motion videos.

Multimedia

This phone offers good multimedia experience. Its built-in speakers are loud and clear. If you have good earphones, you get good music experience. The display is nice and gives good video experience. With loud and clear speakers, watching movies and videos on the phone is a fun.

I have already talked about the good gaming experience. Overall the multimedia experience on the phone is good.

Fingerprint sensor

It has impressive fingerprint sensor that is fast and accurate. I never felt any issue with it and it never failed to recognize my fingerprint. Not just unlocking the phone, this fingerprint sensor can also be used to answer incoming calls, launch camera, and capture photos.

Zenfone 3 Laser

Connectivity and Battery

This is a dual SIM phone with Hybrid slots. It has 4G LTE, WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.1 and GPS connectivity options. Unlike Zenfone 3, this phone has micro USB for data syncing and charging. Network selection was fine and I didn’t face any issues with these connectivity options.

It is packed with 3000 mAh battery that is impressive. As the Asus disappointed with Snapdragon 430, this chipset has played a good role in improving the battery life. The battery of the phone easily lasts for a full day with all time on 4G network with data on or Wifi connected, light use of the camera, social media, and email checks.

The only disappointment is the lack of fast charging. So, the battery takes around 3 hours in fully charging with the charger provided.

Final words

Asus Zenfone 3 Laser is an impressive device that delivers powerful performance, nice cameras, and good battery life. No doubt that the phone is good, but the pricing disappoints as it puts the phone in a segment where we already have powerful devices. This phone could make a strong impact if the price would have been less than Rs. 15000.

I denied recommending Zenfone 3 Max just because of the pricing reason, and the same goes with this phone. But I want to confirm it again that the device is pretty impressive if you ignore the pricing thing.

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