The ASUS ZenFone 2 Review
by Brandon Chester on May 26, 2015 8:00 AM ESTASUS ZenUI
Despite Google's continued improvements to the design and aesthetics of Android with each major version, manufacturers still find it necessary to make their own modifications to the interface as well as the standard suite of applications that the user will expect to have on the device. Some vendors, such as Motorola, are content to leave most of the Android interface intact, and only bundle a few of their own applications. Others like HTC and Samsung do a fairly comprehensive redesign of Android, including all of the system applications and elements of the interface.
ASUS tends to fall in the latter camp, with ZenUI being similar to Touchwiz and Sense in how it provides its own suite of applications, its own launcher, and its own design for areas like the notification drawer and the settings application. While some users are immediately put off by phones that don't run "stock" Google Android, the modifications that a manufacturer makes to the system are not necessarily negative.
The first thing I noticed after getting through the setup menu is the weather widget and the app shortcuts on the lock screen. I think having the weather available at a glance is a nice addition to the stock Android lock screen. The app shortcuts aren't implemented quite as well. When you touch them, the screen goes dark except for a bright area that you can drag around with your finger. You're just supposed to drag in any direction, which isn't made clear by the over complicated darkness and lighting effects that ASUS has thrown on. Google's lock screen definitely does a better job with the visual cues for activating the app shortcuts.
Once you unlock the phone, you're greeted with the launcher. There's nothing very special about the launcher itself, but ASUS offers a large number of options for customization which you can access by swiping up or long pressing on any of the launcher pages. I actually found that the defaults set by ASUS were to my liking for the most part, but I'm sure that many users will appreciate the ability to select different themes and customize certain aspects of their current theme like the animations and the application icons.
I think the design changes that ASUS has made to the OS can actually look pretty good. I like the changes they've made to the clock in the notification drawer, and having the brightness slider usable without swiping a second time to access the quick toggles is very useful. They've also added the ability to put application shortcuts and to customize the quick toggle menu. I've left it in its default state just so you can see what ASUS has opted to put there by default.
ASUS's design style is definitely not Material Design, but it doesn't look heavily dated or interfere with the user experience in a negative manner. Users who insist on having everything follow Google's guidelines will probably want to stick with Nexus devices, but I think most users won't be bothered by ASUS's changes. I personally think ZenUI is a much better interface than Touchwiz on the S6, although users who dislike Touchwiz may not feel like that's much of a compliment.
The big problem with the software experience on the ZenFone 2 is the obscene amount of preinstalled software. Some of it comes from ASUS, and some of it is quite frankly nothing more than shovelware. I'm thankful that ASUS has shoved the worst offending apps into a folder called Apps4U, and made them all uninstallable. Having Dr. Safety preinstalled on your phone is really like the Android equivalent of getting a Norton 360 trial on your PC.
On top of the shovelware, there's just a giant number of applications that I can't begin to explain. What is Omlet Chat, and why do I want it on my phone? Why is there a Mirror app that quite literally just turns on the front facing camera? Why is there a System Update app that just opens that section of the Settings app? Other strange decisions like the flashlight being a separate app is also annoying because it means that the standard flashlight quick toggle in the notification draw now takes you to an app.
ASUS can provide updates to all their apps via Google Play. Since that's the case, I don't know why they're stuck on the phone if you don't want them. While you can use the disable function to hide them, they still take up space on your phone. There isn't a huge impact in available storage (54GB) compared to most smartphones, but it is irritating at any rate.
In addition to the bloatware problems, I'm really beginning to get frustrated by the number of OEM applications that quite literally duplicate the functionality of the applications Google already provides. When it's a situation where the OEM applications genuinely makes improvements over Google's offerings, as in the case of camera applications and some web browsers, then I'm completely okay with it. But in many cases, such as the third party gallery apps I see on so many smartphones, the OEM app does absolutely nothing that Google's application doesn't do, and doesn't do anything better than Google's app does.
This is not an issue that is unique to ASUS, but they're guilty of it to a greater degree than some other manufacturers like Motorola. They have their own music app, their own mail app, their own photos app, their own browser, and all of them take up space that could be made available to the user.
The overall software experience on the ZenFone 2 ends up being a mixed bag. The software itself is not bad at all, but there's so many preinstalled applications from ASUS and other vendors, and almost none of them are useful. If you're one of the people who likes to root their phone you'll have a great time once you delete them from your device. If you aren't into that you'll have to settle for disabling them, which unfortunately won't free up any of the space they take.
Android Apps On An x86 Device
I've seen some concern from readers about potential issues with running applications due to the fact that the ZenFone 2 uses an Intel Atom CPU which uses the x86 instruction set rather than the ARM instruction set. It definitely seems like a reasonable concern, and so I felt it was important to address why it's not really an issue.
The important concept to understand here is the idea of an Instruction Set Architecture, or an ISA. This is different from the microarchitecture of the CPU itself. The microarchitecture is how the processor implements logic and the ISA, while the ISA itself relates to the programming of that CPU. It defines the processor's registers, native data types, and the set of opcodes or "instructions" that can be executed by the CPU. Different processors implement different instruction sets, and two processors can use the same instruction set but have completely different microarchitecture designs.
Since machine code targeting one ISA won't run on another, it would seem to make sense that Android phones that use Intel CPUs would be incompatible with Android applications. However, this is not true for the majority of Android applications which are written in Java. Java is unlike languages such as C++ which are compiled to machine code that is compatible with a given ISA. Instead, Java code is compiled to a special Java bytecode, which is then translated by a Java Virtual Machine into machine code. This is what enables the promise of "Write once, run anywhere" which is Java's main appeal.
Because the ART Runtime that Android now uses has support for ARM, MIPS, and x86, there's really no reason to be concerned about application support. Any application written in Java will be compiled to native code by ART and will work completely fine on your phone. This covers the vast majority of Android applications.
The only time an issue arises is when you start talking about applications made using the Android NDK, which are written in compiled languages like C++ and thus not easily portable. Thankfully, NDK-built applications that are not available in x86 are an increasingly rare sight these days, as the NDK has supported x86 for a number of years now. Consequently developers essentially have to choose not to support x86 at this point, as the NDK will otherwise hold your hand and encourage you to build for multiple architectures. And even then, although there's the potential for NDK applications to exist and not work on your Intel based phone (particularly old applications), Intel can still do binary translation from ARM to x86 which will allow the app to function, although it will have performance penalties.
I personally had no issues with application compatibility or performance on the ZenFone 2, and the same was true of Dell's Venue 8 7840 which I reviewed earlier this year. I can't even name any apps made using the NDK that aren't benchmarks. The only situation where there could be app problems would be extreme edge cases with very obscure apps that were programmed using the NDK for whatever reason. For the vast majority of Android applications, there's absolutely nothing that users should be worried about.
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aungmyokhing - Friday, September 4, 2015 - link
Zenfone2 have Touch Screen Error. I bought last 3 months. Now appear that Error. Now I can't use my phone. Very stupid condition!aungmyokhing - Friday, September 4, 2015 - link
My phone have no damage. No cracked. That error was appear automatically.aungmyokhing - Friday, September 4, 2015 - link
I used Zenfone 2 ZE551ML. My phone serial number is F4AZFG02X506.aungmyokhing - Friday, September 4, 2015 - link
Zenfone 2 have the so many errors. That shouldn't for use.Lyte - Saturday, April 9, 2016 - link
I recently bought the Zenfone 2 4GB RAM 64 GB model, and I could say the battery life sucks. One time it lasted for only about 4 hours on minimal use, and Ive already uninstalled and/or disabled the apps which aren't very useful and are just battery drainers. Any suggestions on how I can improve it's batterly life? Also I came from a Galaxy J7, and I could say the display is subpar to that of the super AMOLED 1280x720 display of the J7.Mike0902 - Wednesday, June 8, 2016 - link
I bought the same model as you and have to agree that the battery life is a known problem with this phone. I could probably make it through the day just so long as I don't play power hungry games at anytime. When I bought this phone it seems people were blaming the OS saying it was a known problem with Android 5 and there would be an update to 5.1 which should improve the battery life. As yet after 8 long months no update has been received even though Asus have sent out other updates during that time. From what I can gather now is that Asus are planning to skip 5.1 and go straight to Android 6.0. I shall only believe it when I see it especially with the broken promises of 5.1. I did a test to see exactly what was eating the battery and first off did a test by turning everything off using 'flight mode', increasing the brightness to maximum and keeping the screen on continuously to see how long it lasted before the battery gave out. It stayed on for an incredible 8 hours before the battery cried enough. It clearly isn't the screen that is responsible and I now run my phone on 75% brightness whereas before I was dimming it in the belief if would make the battery last longer. I have Sonic Dash installed on my phone which is a known power hungry game but I can play that for as long as my Nokia 1520 which is surprising as I was expecting the battery to plummet as soon as I started playing. Even saved videos play at full brightness without a massive battery drain so just what is causing the battery life to be so crap when in normal use? I have 2 SIM cards installed with SIM 1 using 4G and that is known to be power hungry but the biggest fall of all is when you start to use the internet through Google Chrome. The battery literally goes into freefall and will drop at a rate of approximately 1% every minute so a full charge would give you less than 2 hours of web surfing which is abysmal compared with other phones, therefore it seems the biggest eater of power is that Intel 2.3GHz processor. I can have an hours calling time using 4G and only use 10% of the battery but anything that uses the internet, which is just about every app installed, has to be refused permission to auto start and run in the background eating up the power. You can deny virtually all the apps from starting using the Auto Start Manager and I have also found it helps to run Clean Master at regular intervals to close down apps that have been used and get rid of junk files that build up. It's not strictly the answer but it does help and it does make the battery last longer and just about sees me through a day. With regard to the promised upgrade to Android 6.0, I wouldn't hold your breath on that one, I shall only believe it when I see it.Mike0902 - Wednesday, June 8, 2016 - link
Just as an after thought, if you only want to use your phone for calling and texting through the day go into the settings and turn off mobile data. No app can drain power then.