ASUS Zenfone series phones are spread across the spectrum of smarphone scores. Few of the initial devices were breakthrough in their respective segment (Zenfone5, Zenfone2, Zenfone 4.5 etc) , some of the devices didn't worked out for the brand (ASUS Zenfone Selfie, ASUS Zenfone 4 Selfie pro).
In 3 years, ASUS has worked a lot in terms of the device's design language, features, bloat wares etc. ASUS Zenfone Zoom was result of these efforts that brought 3X zoom in a phone. The device was a bit bulky and lacked in few aspects. ASUS Zenfone Zoom S overcomes most of these hiccups but is it still good enough to compete with other flagships? Let's find out.
Build and Design:
ASUS Zenfone Zoom S is comes with a metallic unibody as is the norm now a days for mid-range and premium smartphones. The device sports a 5.5 inch display and is rounded from the edges which makes it quite ergonomic to hold the edges, however it feels slippery from the back as is the case with most of the metallic back phones.
Volume rockers and power button are placed on right edge of the phone which works as expected and placed well within reach when phone is held in one hand.
On top there is nothing but a noise cancellation mic, while on the bottom the device sports speaker grill, USB Type C slot, and 3.5 mm audio jack. On the left edge there is a hybrid SIM tray.
Turning the phone towards back , Finger print sensor is placed on the back as most of other phones from the company, sensor was fast and accurate during our usage. Dual cameras sit on the top left of the phone supported by dual LED flash lights. Towards the bottom ASUS branding can be seen engraved center aligned to the horizontal width.
 |
| Bottom Edge |
 |
| Rear View |
Camera:
As the name suggests ASUS Zenfone Zoom S camera comes with optical zoom capability (2.3X), there are many implementations of dual camera setup which includes RGB+Monochrome, Depth+Auto, ASUS has implemented secondary camera for zoom which adds 2.3x zoom. Both rear cameras are 12MP cameras. The primary camera comes with SONY IMX362 sensor with f/1.7 aperture. The camera also comes with 4-axis OIS, dual pixel autofocus.
Camera no doubt is the highlight of the phone, Auto mode works well for most of the situations, the images captured are crisp and clear. Phone works well in low light, optical zoom upto 2.3x works fine which can be further zoomed upto 12x digitally however zooming in digitally doesn't work really well. Secondary camera enables you to take portrait shots as well. Below are few of the shots taken by the phone.
 |
| Auto Mode |
 |
| Night Mode |
 |
| Auto Mode |
 |
| HDR Mode |
 |
| Artificial Light (Auto Mode) |
 |
| Artificial Light (Auto Mode) |
Display and UI:
5.5 inch AMOLED display is good and bright, which can be viewed from different angles and in sunlight as well. There is a blue light filter as well which can be activated when you are reading at night.
On the UI part, ASUS has done a good job in removing the infamous bloat-wares from the device and there are fewer applications pre-installed on the phone. The phone is running on ASUS Zen UI based on Android 7.0 Nougat. There are still few apps which can irritate the users as there is no option to un-install them however these can be disabled.
Performance:
The phone runs on Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 chipset which is proven in many flagship devices, the processor is supported by 4 GB of RAM. We didn't faced any issues while using the phone in terms of performance. The phone is quite responsive when multitasking or putting it through resource intensive tasks. In our usage the device didn't get heated while playing light games for more than 15 minutes however in resource intensive games as NFS, Injustice 2 etc the temperature rises a bit. Good thing is it doesn't become unbearable while playing.
Bottom line:
The ASUS Zenfone Zoom S is priced at 25,999/- as of now on Flipkart. The camera of the device is quite impressive along with performance and battery backup. However when looked at its massive 5000 mAH battery, it seems like its a feat to put a battery of that size into a slim device. Overall the device is one of the best Zenfones from the company.
Having said that if you are looking for a decent device with focus on Camera, recently launched Honor View 10 looks more promising with price of 4K more than ASUS Zenfone Zoom S.
