ĐÁNH GIÁ ASUS ZENFONE 4 MAX ZC520KL

Asus just announced its Zenfone 4 family of devices a couple of months ago, creating a convoluted và confusing portfolio. To kichồng things off, we have sầu the Zenfone 4 Max on the lower kết thúc of the group. For $199, you get budget-cấp độ specs, except for the massive 5,000mAh battery. Besides it just being large và providing a lot of life, the Zenfone 4 Max"s battery can also charge other devices. Cool, right?

That"s about where the positives kết thúc. I have sầu no problem with low-tier hardware because I"ve seen it put khổng lồ good use, but when you slap a very heavy "skin" on top of Android, you"re bound to lớn run into some issues. That"s exactly what happened with the Zenfone 4 Max: Asus" ZenUI mars the experience and usability of the phone. The "premium" build unique of the device is suspect at best and I have to lớn question some of the decisions that Hãng Asus made with the Zenfone 4 Max.

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Specs

The Good

The Not So Good

Design và display

Hãng Asus has certainly improved its điện thoại thông minh design in the last year or so. The Zenfone 4 Max is the Taiwanese company"s attempt khổng lồ bring "premium-ness," both in kiến thiết & build unique, lớn a budget phone. The over result is shy of success, thanks khổng lồ a few stumbles và strange areas.

Let"s start with the thiết kế. From the front, the Zenfone 4 Max looks lượt thích pretty much every Hãng Asus phone we"ve seen in the last while: thichồng bezels, capacitive sầu navigation keys, and a trang chính button that doubles as the fingerprint sensor. With such a massive sầu focus on photography, Hãng Asus decided to put in a single-LED selfie flash in the right corner of the top bezel. The 8MP front camera isn"t too far from it. While we"re here, let"s talk about one extremely strange design choice. Asus is a huge tín đồ of capacitive navigation keys. Even though I don"t like them, the back và recents buttons on the Zenfone 4 Max don"t light up. Yeah, that"s right, the reflective sầu coating is supposed to lớn act like a backlight here. Spoiler: it absolutely fails at that. Of all the hardware decisions on this phone, this one is probably the dumbest.

Flipping the phone over, the unassuming bachồng of the device bears some resemblance lớn the OnePlus 5 with the dual-camera module hugging the top left corner and the Hãng Asus biểu tượng logo right where your index finger comes to rest. In short, the ZenFone 4 Max is rather boring in its appearance, which isn"t necessarily a bad thing. The phone is mostly metal, save for the plastic bands that cover the top and bottom edges of the device. The whole phone itself does not feel well-constructed, however; instead, it creaks và cracks with even the slighchạy thử flex, such as when I put it in my jeans pocket & sat down. The front glass looked lượt thích it was starting to separate from the main body of the phone, something I"ve experienced with other Asus devices as they age. In short, the construction is a very sore point for the Zenfone 4 Max, disappointingly so.

Thanks lớn the huge 5,000mAh battery, this is one chunky phone. It"s thiông xã & heavy, which wears on your wrist after using it for extended periods of time. The glass on the front stops at each side of the phone with a sharp drop-off, meaning your fingers just fly off if you swipe hard enough. It"s a jarring thing at first, especially after using phones where the glass either meets the frame smoothly or curves off down the edge.

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In all, the Zenfone 4 Max is just boring. There"s nothing exciting about its design or anything. For a phone in this price range, I cannot fault it for failing lớn impress — that"s just the nature of the beast.

At 5.5" diagonally, the IPS LCD display is... tolerable. It sits at a less-than-igiảm giá 720p resolution (not surprising), meaning that pixels are stretched pretty thin. The entire UI looks like the magnification is phối lớn the fullest extent possible which, when combined with this version of ZenUI, makes the entire user interface feel cartoonish. While I, being a person with thichồng fingers, appreciate large touch targets, this goes a bit too far.

In general, however, the display isn"t too bad. Like most of the Zenfone 4 Max, it"s plain and functional. Colors are okay, but they"re rather washed out và paler than they should be. On my Reviews unit, ZenUI prohibits me from using Asus" color adjustments, including the "Super Vivid" và blue light filter modes, for some reason that I cannot fathom. Brightness was also in the "just fine" territory, but the viewing angles were excellent.

Performance & battery life

At $199, you shouldn"t expect beastly performance out of this phone. The Snapdragon 430 is a decent SoC, but I found several instances of lag và stutter when using the Zenfone 4 Max. ZenUI really bogs this thing down sometimes, lớn the point where it takes several seconds khổng lồ open an phầm mềm, go bachồng to the home page screen, or even answer a call.

For the majority of my time with the Zenfone 4 Max, I was pretty disappointed with the overall performance. Those lags & stutters happened often enough to lớn stick in my mind. One or two every now and again is fine, but several in the span of a few hours becomes frustrating. And, of course, this being a budget phone, there are plenty of RAM-conserving issues khổng lồ be found, too, though Asus isn"t as bad about this as other OEMs like Xiaomày or Huawei. Still, 3GB is plenty enough, which is why I find myself annoyed lớn see such strict memory regulation.

The battery life is where this phone shines. The 5,000mAh cell goes forever... well, not really, but you know what I mean. I took the phone off the charger one morning with the battery at 100% và didn"t plug it in again until two days later. Bear in mind that I was using this phone regularly, so color me impressed. On idle standby, the battery life is even better.

One other interesting feature is reverse charging, i.e. the Zenfone 4 Max can act as an external battery baông xã for your other devices. That"s pretty neat & Asus even includes a compatible cable— it"s just a male microUSB to lớn female USB-A dongle. I like khổng lồ see this sort of thing và I used it while I was simultaneously testing another Hãng Asus phone. It came in handy, for sure.

Camera

The camera performance is where Asus has firmly placed its focus (heh) for this phone. Without a doubt, you can eek out some decent photos in the right lighting conditions, especially given the price point. On the bachồng, the dual cài đặt is comprised of a 13MPhường main shooter and a 5MPhường 120° wide-angle lens. Like I said earlier, you get 8MP on the front with a single LED flash.

What this phone puts out will never come close to lớn what you"ll see in the higher-end spectrum of điện thoại thông minh photography, obviously, but image quality is decent on its own merit. With proper lighting, photos have sầu accurate colors, good Trắng balance, and above-average sharpness. Detail is definitely good enough for social truyền thông media, especially Instagram, which is what Asus seems lớn be aiming for.

Low-light is, understandably, hit or miss; however, my results ended up being much better than I expected. There"s still plenty of noise, but I"ve sầu seen far worse in recent months. My biggest problem, though, is with the autofocus— it"shorribly slow, inaccurate, and more annoying than helpful. Dynamic range is also disappointing, but using HDR helps in many cases. The main camera is not without its flaws, but I respect what Asus managed khổng lồ squeeze out of it given the budget price of the phone.

I vày not typically use front cameras more than once a month, but since the selfie game is where Hãng Asus wants the Zenfone 4 Max to succeed, I think it"s appropriate khổng lồ talk about it. In short, it"s pretty terrible. The flash is less than useless; it actually makes the photos worse. In every one I tried, in multiple lighting conditions and environments, the camera took my ruddy complexion và blew it out of proportion (much lượt thích the Beautify feature you see on phones these days). Normally, you wouldn"t catch me ever posting photos like this anywhere, but it"s just part of the job I suppose.