Zenfone 2 Laser review: A valuable smartphone under Rs 10,000

Asus, the company well-known for computer products, stepped into the smartphone and tablet industry a few years ago. However, after a tough competition, the tech giant is emerging with a difference. Recently, they were the first to launch the world’s first Android smartphone with a whopping 4GB RAM under the Zenfone series. Since then, there seems to be no looking back for Asus. Recently, the Taiwanese tech giant has introduced five more products into the market, of which four were new handsets in the same series. The Zenfone is aimed towards those who are looking at smartphones with a blend of performance, design and low price. We had the Asus Zenfone 2 Laser, 5.5-incher with us for a while, and we are pretty happy to write about the pleasant experience with the device.

The Asus Zenfone 2 Laser carries the same design from the Zenfone series, with the laser-etched holographic design on the front bezel. The Zenfone 2 Laser sports a very rugged body with sports a very rugged body with an arched rear panel and a Corning Gorilla Glass 4 protection on the front. Measuring just 3.9mm on the tapering edge, the handset has a maximum thickness of 10.8mm towards the center and weighs in at 170g. As opposed to other smartphones, the Zenfone 2 Laser does not feature any buttons on the sides, but has kept the power button on the top-edge. This is a little inconvenient for those with smaller hands as the 5.5-incher display form factor puts the power button a little out of reach. However, to make things a little easier, Asus has features the double tap to wake up, eliminating the need to press the power button to wake up the handset.

Apart from the power button, the Zenfone 2 Laser features the earphone jack and the micro USB socket on the top and bottom respectively. The volume buttons reside below the camera on the rear panel, and have a chrome (holographic) finish. The on each side of the camera are the dual-tone LED flash and a laser, while the lower part of the rear panel shows off a large speaker grille.

The chassis is made of a dual-done finish, with a glossy black front and a matte-finished rear panel in various colour options. Sadly, the device is not protected from the sides, which makes it prone to damages if it falls on the edge. Make sure you use a protective silicon case if you intend investing on this one. The rear panel is removable and interchangeable. It houses the removable battery, two micro SIM slots and a micro SD card slot.

The Zenfone 2 Laser is available in three variants—a 5-incher, 5.5-incher and a 6-incher. The 5.5-incher, the one we have, sports a 5.5-inch HD IPS LCD display with a Gorilla Glass 4 protection. Under the hood, the smartphone is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 410, 64-bit processor and 2GB of RAM. The internal storage is set to 16GB, and can be expanded to 128GB via the microSD card slot. The Zenfone 2 Laser features a 13MP rear camera, which boasts of an f2.0 aperture wide-angle lens and supported by a an infrared laser-guided focusing system. The front camera also speaks of an f2.0 aperture 5MP camera for better selfies. Apart from these features, the Zenfone 2 Laser also boasts of a dual SIM 4G LTE (LTE+LTE) compatibility and a good 3000 mAh battery. Lastly, the Zenfone is driven by Android Lollipop operating system with a custom ZenUI interface from ASUS.

As far as the user interface is concerned, the ZenUI is pretty intuitive and smooth. Though the applications are neatly categorized into different folders, there may be many out there (like us for instance) who prefer a simple and straight-forward app drawer. So if you are not as comfortable with the existing UI, you could switch to your favorite launcher. The ZenUI sports a couple of interesting add-on features that can benefit you in the long run. For example, the an auto-start manager to cut off apps from automatically running in the background that eat into your battery life and data plans, multiple user profiles, boosters and cache cleaners, Kids mode, and a few more. However, we did find that Asus has thrown in a few unnecessary bloatware apps that could have been avoided. Sadly, you cannot even uninstall them, and disabling them is the only option.

As for those concerned about its performance, the Asus Zenfone 2 Laser is fairly responsive. You will not see any lags or stutters. Whether you play mid-range games or watch high-definition movies, the Zenfone 2 will surely impress. The display is a 720p resolution and with a larger screen size (5.5-inches), but the quality is pretty sharp, with good viewing angles, colour richness and brightness. No issues here too. Audio quality is good enough, but the smartphone does not come along with bundled earphones, so you may have to invest on one.

Lastly, the camera performance is impressive enough. Especially the low-light photo capability and the quick capturing feature—all thanks to the infrared laser-aided focusing system. The camera does not need bright lights to focus on the subject as the invisible infrared laser helps the sensor in low-light areas. Other cameras suffer with this issue because they don’t have the infrared laser for focusing support. However, you should be informed that the low-light feature, though good for capturing images in dim areas, only shoots images in 3MP and not full 13MP. Therefore, the subject(s), though visible, are not clear enough and the photos are filled with noise. It is still better than regular cameras without the low-light feature, but it is almost useless as a good photo requirement. Check out some photos below which will help you gauge the camera's performance for yourself. In comparison with a Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge (16MP), the Zenfone 2 Laser’s low light photo is showcases side-by-side. (Click to enlarge)

However, the laser also helps in capturing photos faster than normal cameras. The laser helps pre-focus the subject in under a second, keeping the shutter ready to capture the action. Unlike other regular smartphones which focuses after the shutter button is tapped, or even those with an auto-focus camera, the Zenfone is definitely faster. Check out some photos from the camera (Click to enlarge).

Images above are without and with HDR.

As far as the quality of regular photos is concerned, the 13MP camera does a fairly good job. Colours are a bit vibrant, but good to the eye. Outdoor photos are sharp and clear. Indoor images are noisy, but with a flash in use, they turn out pretty well too. Just make sure your subjects are not too far away from the flash area. Check out the photos below which was shot indoors, with and without flash. (Click to enlarge)

The HDR functionality does a fair job, but the images seem unnaturally sharper than usual. The super-resolution mode on the camera was a little disappointing. It takes double resolution shots of the photo, but fails to impress as you don’t get what you would expect. Though the resolution (and file size) is large, images are slightly smoothened—not sharp enough, as you would expect. Check out the images below as samples. From left to right are images shot in normal, HDR and Super-Resolution. (Click to enlarge)

Click to enlarge (file sizes are huge. Make sure you have internet speed)

Overall, the Zenfone 2 Laser was impressive—a rock-solid build, cool user interface, decent performance, nice-to-have camera and a healthy battery life and lastly, a very pocket-friendly price tag. We would recommend this smartphone to those who are looking for a budget smartphone with features of a larger display and a good camera. Priced at Rs 9,999, the Zenfone 2 Laser 16GB is a steal for budget smartphone seekers.