The ASUS ZenFone 2 Review
by Brandon Chester on May 26, 2015 8:00 AM ESTNAND Performance
While it's not disclosed by manufacturers, the speed of NAND on a smartphone is a very important aspect of overall smartphone performance. It has an impact on how long cameras can do burst capture, and how well the phone performs when apps are running both in the foreground and the background. To evaluate the NAND performance of the ZenFone 2 I've run it through both of our internal storage benchmarks. Because our iOS benchmark only supports a single IO thread, we'll be using our older storage benchmark alongside the newer Androbench 4.0 test for the foreseeable future.
In our original single threaded storage benchmark the ZenFone 2 is decidedly average in its performance. In every case it's either slightly above or below the median result on our charts. It's important to keep in mind that this test puts devices like the Galaxy S6 with its UFS storage at a disadvantage, as its NAND can make use of several IO threads due to the use of a command queue.
In our newer AndroBench 4.0 storage test we see that the ZenFone 2 ends up falling farther behind the other devices that we've run through the test. In the sequential read test it's not the slowest device, but that's only due to the Nexus 6 being extremely far behind every other device as a result of Google's full disk encryption. In the sequential write and random read tests it's comes behind the HTC One (M9), although to a very small degree in the latter test. Random writes are where it really stumbles, with a speed that's less than half of the next slowest device.
I'm not sure whether I can attribute it to the enormous amount of RAM that the 4GB version of the ZenFone 2 can use as a cache, but I never noticed any issues with performance as a result of IO operations being run either by the app I was using or by another application in the background. Even when updating applications, performance remained consistent.
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loimlo - Saturday, May 30, 2015 - link
My mom has been using 1st gen, Zenfone 5 for 10 months. ASUS SW update literally broke app compatibility several times during this period. At some time, my mom couldn't disconnect a phone call due to a nasty SW bug! I'd to lock the screen and unlock it again to disconnect. It's not the end of world, but still an alarming for potential 2nd gen, Zenfone 2 buyers. Fantastic HW value, but subpar SW update quality.ketacdx - Thursday, May 28, 2015 - link
I've been using the TW model since long before the NA launch and there have been a lot of software Updates and ZenUI updates but its not like a beta testing thing. They are fixing issues most manufacturers don't bother with. Little things that they are truly optimizing that a normal person would never notice. Aside from my worry about the quality of the gorilla glass when dropped (think nexus 4 outcomes), the QC elsewhere on this things feels prime. I have no concerns.Dawgmatix - Wednesday, May 27, 2015 - link
Are there any phones with arm processors that use the same display? What does their battery life look like? How can we be sure its not the cpu or gpu that is eating up the battery?Brandon Chester - Wednesday, May 27, 2015 - link
Because the SoC power usage is small relative to display power usage on any device during the browser test, and the ZenFone 2 performs worst of all in that test. In tests where the SoC has a greater impact and the display has a lesser one it actually achieves a battery life closer to that of other devices.YOUCANNOTDENY - Wednesday, May 27, 2015 - link
Hello,I had a few observations/questions. I currently own the $199 version of the Zenfone 2, and have not noticed any dynamic contrast or CABC during my time with the device. This may be because I cannot recognize it, but I'm pretty sure something similar is used in my Dell XPS 13 Ultrabook with Intel's HD Graphics drivers (I promptly disabled the dynamic contrast shifts in Graphics Settings). I have, however, turned off "Smart Saving" in Power Management on the Zenfone 2, so that may be what is causing the difference. I am also on the latest 2.17.40.12 software version, which may have introduced changes.
One other thing, I noticed that in the "Splendid" app, owners can change the color temperature of the screen. I immediately noticed the overly cold white point of the screen when I first powered on the device, so I looked to the Splendid app to change the color temperature. I am currently on "Reading Mode" with default settings on the slider, which makes the screen more bearable to my eyes, but I am still unsure of the absolute color accuracy. If at all convenient, would it be possible to rerun screen accuracy measurements in the various color temperature modes offered in the included "Splendid" application? Perhaps, we may be able to find a setting that makes the most of the included panel and does it justice.
Thank you!
Brandon Chester - Wednesday, May 27, 2015 - link
The CABC is there on both models. I made sure that ASUS's power saving features were disabled before I did my testing.While I could try and adjust vaguely labelled sliders in the Splendid app to fix the display's white point, the gamma and greyscale are not possible to fix because of the CABC. Because of this, there's no point in trying to fix the display.
Quad5Ny - Wednesday, May 27, 2015 - link
@Brandon Chester ASUS stock theme looks like a copy of Solstice by John Bussell (@myeverydayghost) who based his theme on Apple's iOS 7. -- http://modmyi.com/info/solstice.php, http://cydia.saurik.com/package/com.modmyi.solstic...UtilityMax - Wednesday, May 27, 2015 - link
The device is not without flaws, but the $200 model seems like a good value. However, the $200 model is a bit dubious proposition considering how close it is to the OnePlus One.Sammaul - Thursday, May 28, 2015 - link
Have the $300 model, and have used a OnePlus...frankly in real world usage it's kind of a wash. OnePlus has better battery life, camera, and speakers. The Zenfone is absolutely quicker and smoother, even with none of the bloat uninstalled. That 2 channel ram in it does wonders compared to other phones I have used.MoJo JoJo - Wednesday, May 27, 2015 - link
I have been using ZenFone 5 for almost 7-8 months. There's only one thing that I don't like about ASUS is that software and software updates.Software:
ASUS ZenUI is buggy as hell. They provide some update to improve one area and ruins the other. They just cannot provide a single, practically stable, update/ROM. It irritates me a lot. Even now most of the ZenFone 2 users are facing so many issues of Shitty Battery" "Force Stop" "Worse Camera" "Heating under normal use (45 deg.C)
Software Update:
Like I said I have been using ZenFone 5 for 7 months, it seems like ASUS is very slow in updating their devices. First, ASUS launched the 1st gen. ZenFone series in July 2014 (in my country) with Jelly Bean 4.3 instead of KitKat 4.4
After almost 2 months of waiting (Aug-September) they released the KitKat update. That update messed up everything, literally everything. It took another 1-2 updates for ASUS to remove the bugs.
In November 2014 they announced that whole ZenFone series will get the Lollipop update in April 2014. It's almost the starting of June but no ZenFone (intel Version) has got lollipop yet! They are just delaying the update to sort out the bugs. But no use. In May Google has rejected their update during verification. So, still waiting for update, which will be 5.0 not even 5.0.2 (Though they have promissed to give 5.1 update, but it will take ages to come).
Moral of the Story:
No doubt, ASUS is great in providing high end specifications. But it ends there itself. The whole experience gets ruined by the software.