Ever wanted a smartphone that can take pics like a champ but pay less than RM1,000 for it? Well, ASUS might have the answer for you right here. We’re lucky enough to score ourselves a brand new unit of the 5.5-inch ASUS ZenFone 2 Laser, and here’s our entire review of the whole device! If you’re just finding methods on how to purchase this device, head on over to the ASUS Store Online and pick your flavour.
We’ll be comparing the ASUS ZenFone 2 Laser with the original ZenFone 2 (review here), and also the ZenFone Selfie (review here), since they’re essentially based off the original ZenFone 2.
I have to say, even after unboxing like 4 devices from ASUS this year which has the exact same style, I still find it rather unique to have everything placed in landscape mode first – just like how a video or picture should be taken.
Speaking of video, here’s our unboxing of the ASUS ZenFone 2 Laser for you guys!
[nextpage title=”Design”]At the back of the phone, it sports the exact same design as the Selfie, but it has the exact same design as the original ZenFone 2 at the front. Why? Not much of a mystery I guess, since the Laser is an in-between model of the original ZenFone 2 and the Selfie in terms of camera alone. Selfie features double 13MP cameras with rear-facing laser autofocus, but the Laser only has a 13MP rear-facing camera with laser autofocus.
Everything else seems pretty much the same, even the improved, more clicky tactile buttons are found on the Laser. Opening up the back cover also reveals more identical layouts.
They both also sport a removable battery with dual SIM card slots, with a microSD card slot located right above the first SIM slot. Beautiful!
I realized a few differences between the Selfie and Laser, and that is the shape of cutouts for the two-tone flash and also the laser shooter.
Another difference being the height between all of the 3 ZenFones that I have here. Here’s a quick comparison.
[image-comparator left=”http://nasilemaktech.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/DSC_8882-copy.jpg” right=”http://nasilemaktech.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/DSC_8882-copy-2.jpg” width=”100%” classes=”hover”][/image-comparator]
Do take note that due to these differences (including the cutouts at the back for the camera) makes all of the accessories not compatible with each other. That means, the original ZenFone 2 Laser ZE550KL cannot use any accessories made for the the ZE551ML or the ZenFone Selfie. Sad news, I know.
Hey, at least the black colour of the ASUS ZenFone 2 Laser has this soft touch material. Nice to hold and definitely nice to touch!
[nextpage title=”Display”]It still features the exact same technology as the ZenFone Selfie, but the amount of pixels got reduced down to 1280×720, which isn’t much, but considered the minimum these days in terms of the amount of pixels for a phone. However if you do opt for something with a higher resolution, the 6-inch version of the Laser has just that – but that’s for another review.
Pixels don’t tell the entire story here, as the ASUS ZenFone 2 Laser still packs 267 pixels per inch – making that still relatively high up the charts in the pixels race. Yet it features the ASUS TruVivid technology with a thinner display, resulting in a higher transparency level – that means your eyes already got tricked to thinking it’s “retina” to begin with.
[nextpage title=”Camera”]This phone’s camera uses the same hardware found in all of the ZenFone 2 series of phones, but little did I know, ASUS actually did improve the Selfie’s and Laser’s camera.
Take this shot for example. This is the shot itself uploaded in its full crop glory. Yes, it’s my Dell U2913WM monitor, and yes it’s at a little shy of 96 pixels per inch, but I tried taking this shot using the original ZenFone 2 ZE551ML, but that failed miserably as the original ZenFone 2 just couldn’t focus as close as the Laser, even when they both have the exact same settings and lighting conditions.
In other shots taken by the rear-facing camera, they’re pretty identical to the ZenFone Selfie. As for the front-facing camera, it’s pretty identical to the original ZenFone 2.
Oh I should mention – the ASUS ZenFone 2 Laser comes with all the camera modes found in the other ZenFone 2 series of devices, except for PanoSphere. That’s okay though, as you can download Google’s very own Camera app to use their Photo Sphere feature – an equivalent of PanoSphere.
Hey – if all of the modes are found here, isn’t there something called Super Resolution mode that takes a considerable amount of time to process? Can the ZenFone 2 Laser handle all these processing power? To answer that…
[nextpage title=”Performance”]… it leads us to the performance segment. A quick rundown will raise the skepticism of many, as the ZenFone 2 Laser ZE550KL version sports a Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 processor with a mere 2GB RAM with Adreno 306 graphics. Yes, it does take a little longer to processor the Super Resolution photo, but it still gets the job done. Then again, the ZenFone 2 Laser is meant to replace the original ZenFone 4, 5, and 6 – the most budget-friendly smartphones of last generation.
The usual Epic Citadel benchmark showed that the Snapdragon 410 and that Adreno 306 graphics isn’t really up even for any great video experience to begin with.
Hey, 30.2 FPS on average is at the borderline, just barely passed the test, and everyone can see that during the benchmark, it did stutter quite frequently through the entire benchmark, although one can argue that there are not many games that demands as much as this synthetic benchmark that is called Epic Citadel to begin with.
Angry Birds 2, a game that satisfies my guilty pleasure, was running rather okay under the ASUS ZenFone 2 Laser – and I said that because it did skip frames quite frequently while doing some intense panning, but never did during gaming experience. It didn’t stutter, lag, hang, or crash – except when exiting the game sometimes. Not big of a deal since crashing the game while exiting still means that the game is exited anyway. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Stepping up to the other benchmarker comes Qualcomm’s very own Vellamo. No surprising that the Snapdragon 410 did a little poorer.
Not too shabby, especially for the Chrome browser performance. It did pretty well, performed really well, and managed to not tick me off while I used it to browse stuff on Facebook and Chrome back and forth. Keep in mind – the ASUS ZenFone 2 Laser ZE550KL only have 2GB of RAM. Big clap for ASUS software optimization right here!
[nextpage title=”Battery”]On the subject of plainly the battery life alone, I’m impressed that ASUS didn’t cheap out and still put on a massive 3,000 mAh battery into the Laser! That means extremely long battery life, right? Yupe – exactly. So far the phone lasted for an entire day with absolutely no issues at all! At the end of the day there are still quite a lot of battery left, ranging from 10% to about 25%.
Then comes the charger – it comes with a very basic 5.2V, 1A charger. No, the ASUS ZenFone 2 Laser doesn’t support any sort of quick charging technology or whatever, so you are going to need to leave the device plugged into the charger for a night.
Seriously, that 3,000 mAh is quite a beast for this smartphone.
[nextpage title=”Wrap up”]So here’s a small general conclusion for the ASUS ZenFone 2 Laser. It’s a little underpowered with the Snapdragon 410, but the camera and the price of only RM799 really proves that ASUS actually has some tricks up their sleeves that we still don’t know about.
This phone right here will be perfect for those first time smartphone users, or plainly for those who wants to upgrade their parent’s phone to sport a decent camera. Let’s face it – many users don’t even need any phones above 1.7k mark at all – and that holds true even for me.
Interested to pick one up eh? Check it out over at ASUS Store Online right here!
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