Asus Zenfone Lite L1 is the entry-level phone launched along with Zenfone Max M1. I have already posted the review of Zenfone max M1. You should not miss that. Along with that phone, I was also using Zenfone Lite L1 that is the lighter variant in terms of specs.
The phone has a different appeal. It is made out of plastic but with a metallic finish. So, it looks good. It is considerably smaller with 4.45-inch Display. Front camera with front flash, Earpiece, and proximity sensor are at above the display. The volume rocker and power button are on the right side. Reaching to these is easy and buttons offer tactile feel. The left side has a SIM slot that comes with two nano SIM slots and a microSD card slot. The top side has 3.5 mm headphone jack. It has micro USB port and speaker at the base side.
The single rear camera setup is located on the top left corner of the back panel. Centre portion has Asus branding. The curves at edges of back offer good grip. The phone is not slippery and weighs just 140 grams.
The phone has 5.45-inch HD+ Display with 18:9 aspect ratio. The display offers good viewing angles, nice colors and good brightness. It works fine on both indoors and outdoor conditions.
The phone runs on Zen UI based on Android 8.1 Oreo. Good to see just a few bloatware that are actually essential apps. Zen UI performs well. It has a theme center for downloading more themes and wallpapers. It has Game Genie, Kids Mode, Easy mode and other features that ZenUI brings. As the phone has less ram, the company has not given the twin apps feature in this phone.
The phone is powered by 1.4GHz octa-core Snapdragon 430 processor with Adreno 505 GPU. It also has 2 GB RAM. This setup is fine considering the price and the phone perform well. It handles day to day task well and social media apps run fine without any lag. App load and app switching are not much fast, but fine.
As the phone just has 2 GB RAM, you can only enjoy low-end games. And low-end games run fine. There are plenty of low-end games that you can enjoy this phone. I even played Asphalt 9 that was running with few lags, but it was fine enough to enjoy races. Didn’t Try PUBG.
Here are the benchmark scores.
The phone comes with 16GB of storage with a dedicated card slot to expand storage up to 256GB. You also get 100 GB free Google Drive storage for a year. So, storage is not an issue here. Save as much data as you can.
The phone has a 13 megapixels rear camera with LED flash. It also has 5 megapixels front camera with soft LED flash at the front. The phone runs on Zen UI, so it can Asus camera app with Pixelmaster technology.
This is a budget phone, so I was not expecting anything extraordinary. Still, I was surprised by its camera performance. Daylight performance is good and most of the shots are good enough to lock your memories. Low light performance is not good. It fails to capture details and photos have a good amount of noise.
The front camera performs well and selfies shots are good enough to share on social media. It also has portrait mode but edge detection isn’t great. So, background blur looks artificial. Low light selfies are also fine as it has front selfie flash.
Both rear and front camera can record 1080p videos. There is no video stabilization. So, it records shaky videos. Video quality is average with low details. But you cannot expect anything better from a budget phone.
It lacks a fingerprint sensor but features Face Unlock. Face Unlock is accurate but bit slow.
The phone has a single speaker unit at the base side that is loud. So, you can enjoy videos even without earphones or a Bluetooth speaker. The ZenUI comes with AudioWizard app that lets you tweak the audio output by using predefined modes or use Equalizer.
The phone comes with dual SIM slots and both SIM slots support 4G VoLTE. But it lacks dual standby, so you can connect to one Sim to 4G at a time. Other connectivity options include Bluetooth 4, WiFi, GPS, and micro USB.
The phone packs 3000 mAh battery and can deliver a full day backup easily. The power master app is also there to further optimize battery usage and enhance the battery backup. The phone comes with 5W charger, so battery takes over 2 and a half over to fully charge from 0 to 100%.
Final Words
Asus Zenfone Lite L1 impresses with its display, camera, sound, and battery. Performance is also fine. So, this can be a good choice for those who want an entry-level phone. It has tough competition with Xiaomi Redmi 6A that is quite popular among buyers. Zenfone Lite with Snapdragon 430, good display and loud sound fights well against the rivals.
