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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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.