The ASUS ZenFone 2 Review
by Brandon Chester on May 26, 2015 8:00 AM ESTVideo Performance
The other side of a phone's camera quality is how it performs when taking video. I've actually noticed an increased number of people taking videos now that the warm weather of summer has returned to Canada. Taking videos is also arguably a more intensive test of camera quality than taking still photos. A device's image signal processor needs to do post-processing in a much shorter time interval, and on devices where OIS is supported there's no way to use it to enable long exposure times as the frame rate of the video needs to be fixed high enough to keep the illusion of motion intact.
The ZenFone 2 has 3 different video settings, although the first one is 480p and not really worth discussing. The other two are the 720p30 and 1080p30 modes. While one may be tempted to just use the highest resolution mode, the caveat with 1080p30 recording is that there's no form of electronic video stabilization. ASUS also has a setting for choosing between quality and performance when recording. I assume that the performance setting is reducing frame drops at the expense of bitrate, but I didn't notice any difference in smoothness between the two modes so I recorded all the test footage using the quality setting.
The first video test is a video taken from a relatively stationary position. This gives an idea of what video quality is like without the effects of hand shake and so the device's ISP is really what will determine whether a device does well or not. I've taking recordings in both the 720p30 mode with digital stablization, and the 1080p30 mode without the EIS.
In this test the 1080p mode is the clear winner. The impact of EIS when recording at 720p is minimal, and the 720p footage is so blurry that it almost looks like upscaled 480p footage. The ZenFone 2 encodes 720p footage at 8Mbps using the H.264 Baseline profile. 1080p footage is encoded at 15Mbps and also uses H.264 Baseline. Unfortunately, even the 1080p footage isn't very impressive. There's just a general lack of sharpness throughout the entire frame.
The next test makes things more interesting by adding a significant amount of camera movement. This is where the use of EIS in the 720p mode will come into play, while the 1080p mode will most certainly have a higher degree of shakiness.
In this test it's clear that the 720p is much more stable than the 1080p footage overall. However, there are numerous instances where the the camera moves too far from its original position and the video drops frames as it settles on a new position. There's also a significant amount of high frequency shaking which makes the entire video look like it's wobbling back and forth very quickly. Both of these issues are very similar to what you see with video that is stablized using OIS, which is strange because the ZenFone 2's camera doesn't have OIS.
Unfortunately, the 720p video is again very blurry. The 1080p video is better, but is also not near as good as the output from other smartphones. It doesn't appear that there's any degree of EIS being used to stabilize the 1080p footage either. Both modes suffer from some noticeable processing issues, including halos where branches of trees are in front of the sky.
At this point it's becoming fairly evident to me that the ISP is being used in the ZenFone 2 is very far behind the competition. It would be nice if ISPs in mobile were less opaque so we had a better idea of what goes on at that stage in the pipeline. Whatever the cause may be, the ZenFone 2's video output is fairly uninspiring. If you do need to take a video with it I would still use the 1080p mode despite the shakiness, as the 720p mode is just far too blurry.
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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.