Asus Zenfone 5Z 128GB

Glass is the new black... so it seems. After seeing quite a few metal-clad unibody smartphones, we are now encountering many phones using glass-sandwich builds. The ASUS ZenFone 5Z is no different as it comes with glass panels on the rear and front, held together with a metal frame. Add to it the fact that the handset's screen extends to the corners, leaving room for the notch up top and a slim bezel at the bottom, and phone catches your attention from the get-go.

A 12-megapixel f/1.8 + 8-megapixel f/1.8 dual camera setup adorns the rear of the ASUS ZenFone 5Z. The primary shooter comes with the usual features such as dual-pixel autofocus and 4-axis optical image stabilisation. What's interesting is how the brand has made use of these two cameras. Instead of providing optical zoom capability, the secondary snapper offers a wide angle of 120 degrees. Of course, you get the ability to capture bokeh shots as well. For selfies, the phone offers an 8MP front camera with a f/2.0 aperture. Additionally, there's a healthy dose of AI, which aims to improve both the photography experience as well as album management. AI Scene Detection helps the camera intelligently detect the scene being captured, matching it to one from over 16 categories to offer the best output, while AI Photo Learning adapts to your editing habits to enhance your clicked photos automatically.

As mentioned in the beginning, the ASUS ZenFone 5Z is the second smartphone in the subcontinent to come powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 845. The octa-core chipset offers custom Kryo 385 cores with a clock speed of 2.8GHz and comes with Adreno 630 graphics. There's no doubt that this chipset can easily handle any tasks thrown at it. And if you couple that with 6GB / 8GB RAM, you've got yourself a performance powerhouse. During my week-long stint with the 6GB RAM variant of smartphone, there was not one instance of lag. From simple navigation to scrolling through heavy documents, from switching between multiple apps to gaming – the 5Z zips through them all effortlessly. Playing PUBG and Asphalt 8: Airborne was a joyous affair on the phone. On the flip side however, the phone gets heated up in no time, especially when its performance is pushed to the limits.

The ASUS ZenFone 5Z boots ZenUI 5, which is layered on top of Android 8.1 Oreo. While I was quite glad when the brand opted for stock Android with the ZenFone Max Pro M1, I understand why its flagship comes with the proprietary custom skin. To make full use of the dedicated AI chipset in the Snapdragon 845, the Taiwanese company has enabled AI across different aspects. Some of these features might have been tagged with an 'Artificial Intelligence' label just for the sake of it, but there's no doubt that they enhance the overall experience of using the device.