[Hands On] Asus ZenFone 6

Couple of month back Asus has launched its Zenfone series in India and launched three smartphone under it, Zenfone 4/4.5, Zenfone 5 and Zenfone 6, we had already reviewed Zenfone 5. Zenfone 6 is the top-end device in this series which comes with 6 inch of display screen and has been priced Rs. 16,999. Zenfone 6 is one of the few devices with such high big screen available at this price tag.

This phone is powered by Intel Atom processor, lets see how’s the device and how it perform in our review :-

In-Box Contents :-

Asus Zenfone comes with almost identical box which we had seen in Zenfone 5, box has Zenfone 6 designed over it and few specifications written on sides and bottom. When you unbox it you will find following accessories in it :-

• ASUS Zenfone 6
• Micro USB cable
• 2-pin charger
• Headphones with mic
• Earbuds
• Warranty Card
• User manual

Build And Design :-

Asus Zenfone 6 comes with a huge 6 inch display screen which has HD screen resolution of 1280×720 pixels with 245ppi and has brightness of 400 nits which makes screen quite clear and sharp. Viewing angles are also good when you are indoor but under sun light they are average. Screen is protected by Corning Glass 3 which protect it from scratches. It do comes with gloves mode which means you can increase its touch sensitivity and use it with gloves like in winter’s. Screen is quite glossy which makes it prone to fingerprints.

It also has One hand option which allows you to use this phone with one hand. It has large bezel around the screen, this phone might not fit in your jeans pocket as it’s a quite huge phone, it has dimension of 166.9 x 84.3 mm.

Just above screen you will find sensors, LED notification light and a 2 MP front camera which can record HD videos. Below screen you will have three Android capacitive touch buttons, buttons don’t have backlight, below buttons you have metallic strip featuring concentric semi-circles.

At top of the phone you have 3.5mm Audio jack along with secondary mic for noise cancellation.

On left you have no buttons or port, at right you will find volume rocker along with power key.

At bottom you have primary mic along with Micro USB port for charging of data sync.

It has a removable back cover which extended to its side and power and volume rocker buttons are attached to it, back cover is tightly attached and its little tough to remove it. Back has smooth matte finish but its not slippery at all. At back you will sport a 13MP camera with LED flash and just below it you have Asus branding.

At the bottom part of back you have large speaker grill and just above it you have Intel and Zenfone branding.

When you remove back panel you will find a 3300 mAh non-removable battery along with SIM and microSD card slot.

Hardware And Specs :-

If we talk about under the hood stuffs then Asus Zenfone 6 is powered by dual core 1.6GHz Intel Atom Z2560 processor. It has 2 cores and 4 thread (Hyper Threading), which means it can act like quad-core CPU if too many apps are running, It comes with 2GB of RAM.In our test we didn’t faced any lag while surfing web, but yes there were occasional lags while playing some extensive games.

Multitasking was smooth and we were able to open and navigate through multiple apps without any issue. We had played full HD videos as well and all went smooth and simple, there were no lags at all.

At back it features a 13MP rear camera along with LED flash, it can record full HD videos, at front it has a 2MP camera which can record 720p videos as well.

For connectivity it has 3G HSPA+ support up to 42Mbps, WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS, WiFi Direct, and Miracast. It misses USB OTG support, but our sources says it will be introduced in next update.

Software And UI :-

Like other Zenfone’s, Asus Zenfone 6 too runs on Android 4.3 with ZenUI on top of it, Asus has promised for Android 4.4 KitKat update for it. ZenUI is quite simple and has white and blue color combination.

It has customizable quick setting menu which has options for Owner, Wi-Fi, Auto-Rotate, Vibrate, One-Hand Operation, GPS, Airplane Mode, Mobile Data, Smart Saving, Reading Mode, Wi-Fi Hotspot, Bluetooth, Auto Sync, Miracast, and Glove Mode, there are some default menus as well like Flashlight, RAM boost, Calculator and Quick memo.

On lock screen you will quick shortcut for your Dialer, Message app and camera. Just next to this you have notification menu which shows your calendar, whether and some notifications on lock screen.

It do comes with easy mode which is a nice features for new users or for old age ones, here you will find large icons.

Out of 2 GB of RAM 1.8GB of RAM is available to you on first boot, and out of 16GB 12.48 GB is available for your usage, you can also move apps to SD card.

Like other Zenfone it do comes with some pre-installed apps like What’s Next, an app for managing apps, Do It Later, app to manage your to do list, Share Link, Party Link, PC Link, and Remote Link,  Asus WebStorage, company’s cloud storage app  which gives 5 GB free storage for lifetime, and Omlet Chat, free instant messaging app.

Camera :-

Asus Zenfone 6 comes with 13 MP rear camera with LED flash and BSI sensor, five-element lenses and f/2.0 aperture, Asus is calling it as pixelmaster. It has customized camera app which has Auto, Time rewind, HDR, Panorama, Night, Low light, Selfie, Miniature, Depth of field, Smart remove, All smiles, Beautification and GIF animation modes.

We liked HDR and night mode in this camera, images captured in day-light has nice colors and vibrant, but images shot under low light misses some details and has noise. It has a very good camera but it could be better.

Here are some Images shoot by us check them out, click on images to see them in full view :-

Performance :-

Asus Zenfone 6 has a dual core 1.6GHz Intel Atom Z2560 processor with Hyper Threading along with 2GB of RAM, it has good benchmark scores :-

AnTuTu :- 22636

Quadrant Standard :- 9005

NeNa Mark 2 :- 60.3

Multi touch :- 10

Battery :-

It has a massive battery of 3300 mAh which lasted more than1 day in our heavy usage. Battery life can be extended by turning on Smart saving which has Ultra Saving Mode, Optimized and Customized mode.

Final Verdict :-

Asus Zenfone 6 is priced Rs. 16,999 which is very nice as per Indian market and its one of the best phablet in this price tag. Nowadays most smartphone runs on Android 4.4 KitKat but Zenfone 6 runs on Android 4.3 Jelly Bean but Asus has promised for KitKat update soon.

If you want a big phbalet which can perform well then do consider this phone.

What we liked :-

• Nice build
• Good screen
• Simple UI
• Nice camera

What We didn’t liked :-

• Screen is prone to fingerprint
• Sometime get heated up