ASUS ZenFone 2 ZE550ML Review

Whats HOT and whats NOT What's HOT What's NOT

Sturdy build quality Bloatware that cannot be removed without rooting

Beautiful (subjective) design and great handling Rather large and hefty compared to other flagship devices, awkward power button placement

Very affordable compared to other flagship devices

Maximum screen brightness is relatively low

Great UI and user experience Weak audio

Great screen to look at indoors No fast charging as compared to its more expensive siblings, average battery life

Better low light camera performance than most competitors

Mediocre camera

Great performance

Introduction Asus will not typically be the first in mind when it comes to premium devices, but after unveiling the

worlds first smartphone with 4GB of RAM, it will be unwise for smartphone giants like Samsung and

Apple to simply ignore the Taiwan company - especially if the 4GB monster ZE551ML ($429) costs

roughly half as much as its competitors. However, not everyone needs such a powerful phone and

those with a tighter budget can opt for the more wallet-friendly ZE550ML ($299). The ZE550ML

comes with Intel Atom Z3560, 2GB of RAM, and a HD 5.5 screen, with an internal storage of 16GB

which can be expanded to 64GB via microSD. Would the cost cutting measures hurt its appeal, or

can it still give a wonderful user experience despite being cheaper? Read on to find out if the

ZenFone ZE550ML is right for you.

Design The first thing that you will notice is the huge size of the phone. 5.5" phones are already large to

begin with, but the ZenFone is noticeably larger (152.5 x 77.2 x 10.9 mm) than most phones of a

similar screen size. The size might lead you to think that it will be unwieldy in the hand, but the

curvature of the back allows the phone to fit so snuggly into the palm that it might make you forget

you are holding such a large device. The soft touch plastic offers a pleasant experience when holding

onto the phone while allowing the user to have a good grip. The phone chassis is sturdy despite it

being mostly constructed out of plastic. The only metal apart from the volume rocker and power

button is found as the screens bottom bezel, sporting the iconic concentric circles of Asus' Zen

design philosophy. Users might be led to think that the ZE550ML is much more expensive after

handling it for the first time, given the robust construction and premium design.

The back of the device sports a soft touch matte plastic finish that provides good grip. It doesnt look

like it can provide a great deal of protection though

Iconic concentric circles adorn the bottom bezel

However, being significantly cheaper than most flagship models, a side-by-side comparison instantly

brings out areas where the ZenFone 2 falls behind. It is noticeably bigger than the 5.1 Samsung S6

(143.4 x 70.5 x 6.8 mm) or the 5.5 LG G3 (146.3 x 74.6 x 8.9 mm), partly due to the thick bezels. It

has a screen-to-body ratio of 70.8%, as compared to the S6s 70.7% and the LG G3s 75.3%, and it is

better than the 5 ZE500CL screen-to body ratio of 65.1%. The distinction in weight also becomes

immediately apparent, with the ZE550ML coming in at a hefty 170g as compared to the 138g

Samsung S6 and 149g LG G3. That said, cost saving compromises have to be made, but it is so well

managed that despite having the added bulk, actual user experience is very much a pleasure. In fact,

the thick bezels make the user less prone to accidentally touching the screen while gripping the

phone.

The phones curvature nests itself nicely in your palm

The front of the device contains the ambient light and proximity sensors, a vivid 5.5" 720p screen,

and the non-backlit capacitive buttons. Tempered glass screen protectors are known to interfere

with the sensors leading to screen off during calls, so potential buyers should either avoid them or

get those with the appropriate cut-outs. There have been many complaints regarding the cost

cutting measures of removing the backlighting of the capacitive buttons and while this might cause

much annoyance for the first few weeks, once users familiarise themselves with the placement of

those buttons, they can operate the phone as swiftly as if there was backlighting installed.

You can barely make out the position of the proximity and ambient light sensor at the top of the

front face avoid covering it with a tempered glass protector

The large screen is covered in oleophobic coating, which is meant to repel fingerprints on the glossy

screen, but it works only to a moderate extent. Compared side-by-side with a typical glossy screen

protector however, the difference is apparent. There is also a led notification light, useful for users

who just want to occasionally glance at their phones without picking them up.

After a typical hour of usage, the fingerprints start to collect, but it is much better than your typical

glossy screen

There are none of the usual buttons on the side. In fact, to reduce the thickness of the device, Asus

opted for a completely clean design. The power button was displaced to the top - reminiscent of

Nokia phones of yesteryear - and the volume buttons are shifted to the rear, taking an obvious

design cue from a manufacturer well experienced in the design of larger phones. The index finger

slides naturally into place when changing the volume of the phone, making it really intuitive, but

reaching for the power button is an absolute chore for one-handed operation of the phone.

Thankfully, it is a chore that most users only have to do rarely. Because the phone supports double-

tap to wake, the power button would only likely be used for powering on or off the device.

The sides are completely bare, with the exception of a small groove to remove the back cover

Sharing the space at the top of the device is the 3.5mm headphone jack and a secondary

microphone, while the main microphone can be found on the bottom of the device alongside the

USB port, which unfortunately does not support fast charging. The bundled 5.2V, 1.35A adapter is

different from other 18W adapters of the ZE551ML variants, and fast charging is not officially

supported on the Asus website.

The power button is shifted to the top

The bottom contains a micro-USB port and the primary microphone

The bundled charger wont win any awards for fast charging

The back of the phone has the volume rocker buttons that are easy to press, and a speaker grille

covering an underwhelming speaker. The soft touch plastic provides the user with good grip, and is

pretty fingerprint resistant. Unfortunately, despite the overall sturdy construction, the back cover

flexes when significant pressure is exerted on it, and it is not known to be impact resistant. Users

who drop their phones frequently should consider a case even though the back cover can easily be

replaced.

The back of the device

Contains the camera and the dual-tone LED flash, as well as the volume rocker

And impressive looking speaker grilles

That opens up to reveal the lacklustre speaker

The back opens up to allow for a dual-Sim installation and supports micro-SD cards up to 64GB and

the non-removable 3000 mAh battery is tightly fastened in the chassis of the phone.

There are 2 flip cases officially offered by Asus amongst other accessories such as an external flash

and Power Bank.

The ZenFone Flip Case

This phone can actually be quite large in the pocket and climbing up stairs or sitting down cross

legged will remind the user of his large device. However, this is inherent of most large phones and it

is an acceptable trade-off for a larger screen.

Overall, the ZenFone is solidly built, pleasing to the eyes, and despite the large footprint, it is easy to

handle and is actually quite comfortable to use. Users will have to be accustomed to the different

placement of the volume and power buttons though.

Display The display of the ZenFone measures 5.5 which provides ample screen real estate for viewing of

videos or documents. It has a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels which yields a pixel density of 267 ppi.

Some might complain that this is way too low for a phone in this era, but it is almost impossible to

discern individual pixels when used at arms length. Despite the average pixel density, it would be

hard to tell that this screen belongs to a low priced device. The viewing angles are great with low

colour shifts when viewed from extreme angles, owing to its IPS panel technology.

Colours are vibrant when viewed up front

However, blacks start to deviate with greater horizontal shifts, while remaining dark despite extreme

vertical viewing angles. This is hardly an annoyance in normal usage and it is evident only when

viewed in near complete darkness.

Viewing angles are okay for a phone of this budget

The colours are sufficiently vibrant and the images are sharp. My untrained eyes detect no

noticeable tint on the display, but sharp eyes or professional software may give different opinions.

The ZenFone comes preinstalled with the Splendid app, which allows custom colour calibration,

allowing the user to set different profiles and change the colour temperature, tint, and saturation of

the display.

The Splendid app interface

Contrast is great and blacks are low which makes it a pleasure to view images. Of course, this cannot

compare with the amazing AMOLED display of the Samsung S6. However, the average user switching

from an older or cheaper phone should still be impressed by the rich display. Using the phone

outdoors is a less positive experience. The glossy screen makes it hard to make out text with

reflections overpowering the weak maximum brightness. Users who use their phones outdoors on

sunny days should keep the dim display in mind.

Overall, it is a nice looking display that would appeal to most users who use their phones indoors

most of the time. Those who prefer to use their phones outdoors can opt for a matte screen

protector, or get a panel with a better maximum brightness like the Samsung S6.

Software and features All ZenFones run on ZenUI top of Android lollipop 5.0. The launcher is responsive and looks good.

Asus decided to give the users plenty of apps that they will probably never use, and then not give

them an option to remove it. This is less of a problem unless the user is actually running them, and it

is surprisingly quick to see 2GB of ram being eaten up. The OS and preinstalled apps take up a

portion of the 16GB storage on the phone, but folks who demand more storage will be glad to know

that the phone can support microSD cards up to 64GB.

There are users who report significant battery savings after rooting the phones and removing up to

36 unwanted apps. However, rooting the phone is not recommended for inexperienced users as it

would void the warranty of the phone.

The phone takes 26s to boot up, which is an okay timing but it is quite unimpressive considering that

the ZenFone actually has a powerful processor. Grabbing a connection to the network was also quite

slow from boot, sometimes requiring upwards of 10s after booting up, but it was almost

instantaneous after recovering from airplane mode.

Asus provides many software updates to improve the performance and battery life of the phone.

While this means that Asus is actively trying to give its users a better experience, it might reflect

badly on the company, releasing a product that has not be extensively tested. Given the frequent

updates, however, users can look forward to better software features in the near future.

Speaking of software features, the ZenFone comes with plenty of them to try to make the phone a

pleasure to use despite its comparatively lower price point. It is a fact that the ZE550ML is a large

phone, and Asus has to make it comfortable for one handed operation. A nifty feature is the One

Hand Mode, which shrinks the screen to one corner to allow easier use with one hand. On top of

that, double tapping on the screen allows the user to wake the phone without having to press the

awkwardly positioned power button at the top of the phone. Another useful gesture function would

be the ZenMotion option, which allows users to open up to 6 apps while the phone is locked by

swiping the respective letter on the lock screen.

One-handed mode

ZenMotions touch gesture settings

However, there was an instance when the display of the phone was turned on while in the pocket

and it may be due to the presence of these features. Some users on the forums also report such

incidents and it may be wise for users to periodically check their phones. Mine was quite a bad

scenario, and with the screen on from 3pm to 10pm, I only feared the worst. On a positive note, I

started the day with 75% battery at 10am, and after this traumatic incident I was left with 17% and

no overheating issues despite the screen being on for such an extended period of time.

Apart from the gesture features, another useful implementation is Whats Next which aggregates

reminders form notes, birthdays and weather forecasts, allowing the user to view them all from one

location. It is even smart enough to remind the user if he had a missed call. The ZenUI also allows the

user to tweak multiple settings, even allowing a silent mode that mutes a first call and lets the

second call through. It has a Kids Mode that lets parents allow their children to use their device

without worry, and a Snapview application that allows separate user profiles so that the user can

safely lend a colleague or a friend the phone without worrying about his privacy being intruded.

Kids mode

In fact, there are so many apps that for every useful app there is, there are 2 apps that the user will

probably never touch after opening them for the first time and realising its meaningless existence.

This is disappointing as Asus can definitely produce some great apps, but the average user does not

need every single app there is. An option to safely disable or remove those apps will be very much

appreciated.

Asus showed off the PixelMaster technology in many of its advertisements ("see what others can't

see") and there are excellent features such as the low light mode that combines 4 physical pixels into

one digital pixel. This is meant to create an amazing image with low noise at the cost of some image

sharpness. There is also a great deal of functions the aspiring photographer can toy with in the

manual mode included in this phone. But how does the camera actually perform in real life?

Camera The ZE550ML presumably uses the Toshiba T4K37 13MP sensor coupled with a fast F/2.0 lens. It

comes with a dual LED flash and is capable of video recording at FHD resolution (1920 x 1080p) at

30fps. There is no optical image stabilisation included in the ZE550ML, though that is hardly to be

expected from a phone at this price point.

The camera took 1.43s to start up, which is pretty average for its class. Autofocus from a distant

object to a near one took 1.37s which is quite decent. In darker areas it can take upwards of 2.7

seconds and sometimes it just gives up without grabbing the focus. The cameras performance lags

behind the phase detection autofocus of the Samsung S6 or the iPhone 6, and the laser autofocus of

the LG G3. Software updates have been bumping the speed of the camera app up and performance

upgrades will be welcome as the camera app is average at best.

The camera speeds are not amazing either. Taking a photo in auto mode takes about 1.35s from the

tap of the shutter button to the phone saving it to memory, and this gets worse at 2.10s if HDR

mode is enabled. Switching it to manual gives a great time at less than 0.5s, but the user can always

opt for a longer shutter open time (up to 0.5s) for artistic photos.

In auto mode with flash turned off, the picture is overly grainy and the autofocus took a long amount

of time to lock on to the subject, which during this time, turned its head away in boredom.

The auto mode also does not handle differences in brightness well. Here, we can see that the sky is

too bright to register any details.

There is a HDR mode to try to combat this. Compare the following pictures with HDR mode disabled

(on the left) and enabled (on the right). With HDR on, colours captured are more natural,

representing the yellow hue cast by the setting sun, instead of the overly cool green-blue on with

HDR off. HDR processing is also able to bring out more detail in the whites, but this comes at a cost

of increased processing time.

HDR off (left) and HDR on (right)

Night time performance is particularly interesting. The ISO of the sensor can be pushed to 800

maximum, but this is not recommended for almost all cases. Comparing a shot taken in ISO 800 in

manual mode (on the left) with a shot at ISO 400 in night mode (on the right), the manual shot

exhibited much noise (blown up, left), heavily detracting from the overall aesthetics. Comparatively,

the night mode shot has aggressive noise reduction done resulting in a dreamy softness (blown up,

right).

Manual at ISO 800 (left) and night mode at ISO 400 (right)

Blown up: Manual at ISO 800 (left) and night mode at ISO 400 (right)

Apart from the night mode, there is the additional low-light mode mentioned in the previous

section, where 4 pixels combine to form one. Judging from the sample photo below, we can see that

the amount of light per pixel is significantly increased and the picture appears to be markedly

brighter. There is definitely a greater amount of detail that can be shown from darker areas but

disturbingly, it erases some detail from the bright areas note the lack of portrayal of the

handlebars in the blown up picture on the right. This said, I would only recommend the low-light

mode in really dark situations where there is no light source in the picture else there might be a

chance where the picture will lose details in the brighter areas. For most normal night shots,

especially in Singapore, the night mode should be sufficient.

Picture taken with low-light mode

Blown up: night mode (left) and low-light mode (right) note the differences in detail between the

light and dark areas

There are also many other modes like time-lapse and beautification shots that some users may find

useful or enjoyable to tinker with.

The front-facing camera has a 5MP sensor that can record HD video at 30fps. It is not outstanding by

any means and it would be sufficient for the occasional Skype call.

The camera, despite its many flaws, can be pretty pleasant to use. Even though it may not be

anywhere near the best in its class, it can produce many images that are usable where many other

phones fail to do so. Its low light performance can be good if pushed to its limits, being able to

capture some detail in near-complete darkness, but the overly-aggressive noise reduction is a

feature to be wary of.

Audio Audio is typical of a smartphone in this price range (excluding the Desire series from HTC). The

volume is sufficiently loud to cover a small room but the sound is tinny and hollow. Bass is almost

non-existent. Granted, this phone is not a professional device catered for audiophiles, but it would

be recommended to use headphones or external speakers if the user demands a better audio

quality. A thing to take note of: while the audio performance of this phone is not particularly great,

most phones of this price range also perform similarly. Before making a purchase, it would be

advisable to go down to the nearest electronics shop (e.g. Courts or Challenger) to test out the audio

quality of new phones.

The 3.5mm output is great for a phone of its price and users are recommended to enjoy their music

using headphones instead of the built in speakers.

Performance The Intel Atom Z3560 belongs to the Moorefield generation based on the 22nm manufacturing

process. Its quad core, non-hyper threaded processor runs at 1.8GHz while keeping a low TDP.

Putting the processor through a series of tests gives a respectable result.

GeekBench 3[1] provides a benchmark for the processing capabilities of the device. The larger the

score, the more powerful the processor is. Unsurprisingly, the S6 pulls way ahead of the pack, but

the Qualcomm flagship is closer in performance to the Intel Atom SoCs than the Exynos 7420. This is

good news for the Intel powered ZenFones.

Antutu 5[2] gives a more rounded approach, taking into account RAM, CPU and GPU performance

and many others. Here, the S6 takes the lead again and the ZenFones put up a really good fight,

which goes to show that Asus did not sacrifice all that much performance while bringing down the

costs substantially. Most competitors of the price range of the ZE550ML will be using the

Snapdragon 400 or 410 which only offers roughly half the performance of the Z3560.

.

Antutu results

The GFX benchmark [3] rates the GPU performance of the device. The results (in frames-per-second,

fps) start to display a trend, placing Samsungs offering at the top of the pack again, with the M9

scoring a second. Any test clocking a frame rate below 30 fps starts to exhibit some jitter or

stuttering, and the PowerVR G6430 of the ZenFone cranked out a 30 fps result, which is impressive

considering its closest competitors struggle to offer half the ZenFones frame rates. It even managed

to inch out a victory over the expensive ZE551ML. Real life gaming is a lot smoother as the graphics

requirements are not too heavy. Higher frame rates are desired for better GPU performance. Here,

the AKA managed to perform ever so slightly better than the more powerful Redmi 2, but the

difference is only marginal. The ZenFone offers more than a quadrupling in GPU performance as

compared to those phones.

Mozilla Kraken [4] is a benchmark that tests browser performance, running a JavaScript heavy

workload. Results are measured in milliseconds (ms) and the lower the result, the faster the device

can load a webpage. The Zenfones direct competitors are far behind in terms of web browsing.

These tests place the Atom SOC quite comfortably over the aging Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 used

in phones around the same price as the ZE550ML and rivalling the Snapdragon 615 used in more

expensive phones. Pitting it against its bigger brother found in the ZE551ML, the Z3560 is only

slightly weaker in most aspects compared to the Z3580. Top of the line Snapdragon 810 and the

Exynos 7420 fare from marginally better to significantly better, but it is an impressive feat for the

Intel chip to hold its own against much more powerful rivals.

The PowerVR GPU is the same on both Intel chips are the same, and they are able to deliver more

than sufficient processing power for most applications. Even during intensive gaming sessions, the

device remains cool enough to prevent thermal throttling from happening and high frame rates can

be sustained for long periods of time.

Overall, the ZenFone is snappy in most applications, and owing to its ample 2GB of RAM,

multitasking is carried out easily as long as there are not too many demanding applications running

at the same time. Its processor and GPU are very powerful for its price point and it is a significant

step up compared to other processors of most of its competitors. However, it cannot match the

performance of high-end flagship devices.

Battery life The ZenFone comes equipped with a large 3000 mAh battery. The phone should be equipped to last

for more than a day of moderate usage, but in actual fact there are quite a number of things to take

note of. First, for the ZE550ML, its screen time is expected to be better than the more expensive

ZE551ML due to a lower screen pixel count. On Wi-Fi, screen on time of more than 6 hours can be

expected in optimum scenarios. Second, the battery is not in its ideal state in its first few charges.

Only after around 3 full charges does the battery performance stabilise, otherwise there might be

instances where the battery drains faster than usual.

Speaking of battery drain, the ZenFone had a terrible standby battery drain performance on the out-

of-box state. The android OS is the main culprit in my experience with 2 separate ZE550MLs. In both

cases, setting the devices on airplane mode in sleep had the android OS eating up more than 60%

(and 99% on another!) in terms of total battery performance. A further analysis of the graph showed

that the device refused to enter deep sleep. On a phone with the Flip Case, the screen will randomly

turn on at times and this is an extremely disturbing behaviour. Users could expect battery drain

upwards of 10-20% throughout the night even on airplane mode.

It was completely unacceptable and this battery drain issue is widely reported as an Android Lollipop

feature. Users should always make sure to update their software to the latest version and disable

auto-syncing, auto-upload of Photos and location, Wi-Fi always scanning and generally any services

that forces the device to wake unless absolutely critical. A factory reset, software update and several

tweaks to the settings later, the device consumed an acceptable 2-3% over a period of 9 hours on

airplane mode, and I ended a workday with a respectable 77% of light usage with roughly 2 hours of

screen on time. This said, I had very high hopes for a phone with such a large battery and I believe

that there is still some room for improvement.

Charging with the non-fast-charging charger, the phone took 1h 59min to achieve max charge. The

rate of gain of battery percentage seems to taper off as the phone reaches the max charge, and

getting from 98% to full charge appears to take much longer than expected. Conversely, the phone

seems to drop from full to around 97% extremely quickly, less than the span of 3 minutes. The top

right side of the phone also got noticeably warmer than usual during this period of time and I could

only hope that it is normal. Users from different forums also noted that the phone can appear to

charge past 100%, which actually refers to keeping the phone plugged in for roughly 15 minutes

even after a 100%. This was noted to significantly increase the time it took for the phone to drop to

97% but I am unsure of the impact this charging method has on the battery life. It is also stated on

the safety manual that some devices are not meant to be plugged into power sockets for extended

periods of time.

Overall, the ZenFone only produced mediocre results for a phone with such a large battery. I am not

sure if it is the fault of Androids Lollipop, Asus launcher or simply poor user habits, but I look

forward to better battery runtimes from future software updates. Users who want to dramatically

improve the phones battery runtime should definitely turn syncing features off and prevent the

device from waking up.

Sibling Rivalry The ZE550ML, in my opinion, is the perfect balance between budget, battery life, and performance.

It comes equipped with the 64-bit quad core Intel Z3560 running at 1.8GHz, 2GB of RAM and 16GB

of storage, and a 5.5 1280 x 720 pixels screen. Compared with the cheapest option, the 5 ZE500CL

($249), the $50 saved comes at a terribly high cost. The processor is downgraded to the older 32-bit

dual core Z2560, which is a waste considering ZenFones run Android 5.0 lollipop. The cheaper phone

runs on single SIM with the first slot capable of reaching LTE Cat 3 (100/50 Mbps) and has the Wi-Fi

standard 802.11 b/g/n, whereas the ZE550ML is able to reach Cat 4 speeds of (150/50 Mbps) and

supports the newer 802.11 ac standard. A sixth of the battery capacity is shaved off from the

3000mAh batter of the larger model, to the 2500mAh battery of the smaller one. On the software

side, the ZE500CL loses the manual mode functionality offered by its bigger brothers, which is a big

deal for photography buffs. This is a pity, considering how well the camera app is designed for the

larger phones.

Compared to the most expensive variant of the ZenFone, the ZE550ML gives up the full HD display, a

slightly more powerful Intel Z3580 processor, quick charging and 2GB of RAM. It might sound like a

bad way to save $130, but the performance loss is actually not very apparent. In fact, the ZE550ML

only has 1280 x 720 pixels to push, resulting in less stress for the PowerVR G6430 and significant

gains in battery life. 2GB of RAM is generally enough for multitasking of around 4 apps

simultaneously, and unless the poorer screen pixel density (403ppi for the ZE551ML and 267ppi for

the ZE550ML) is a concern, or if you are a multitasking power user, the increased battery life and

money saved would more likely appeal to the average user. The other apparent difference would be

the different back cover material. The ZE550ML uses a soft touch matte plastic back cover, while the

ZE551ML uses brushed plastic. Both are equally appealing to me, and if those aren't enough, there

are always other options available online.

Performance wise, the Z3560 of the ZE550ML is a close rival to the Z3580, but the older generation

Z2560 is significantly weaker than its bigger brothers.

The Z2560 CPU performance is roughly half that of the Z3560, and because it is that old, it does not

have results for latest tests [5], or can the 64-bit test be carried out on it. In actual fact, because of

the higher pixel count of the ZE551ML, the benchmarks do not always reflect real life performance

and the ZE550ML can be faster in a few instances than its bigger brother.

The SunSpider benchmark [7] also tests browser experience (html5) and the lower the results (in ms),

the faster the page should load. Here we can see that the newer generation SoCs fare much better

that the out-dated Z2560.

For a side-by-side video comparison of the 5.5 variants, readers can check out the following video

(for which we have no affiliation with) but I think it provides a good gauge of the real life

performance of each phone: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JfvMCMbENU.

Overall, the Z3560 is a close match to its bigger brother the Z3580, but the Z2560 should be avoided

unless the user has an extremely light workload and prefers portability and cost savings of the

ZE500CL over the performance of the ZE550ML. Power users or those demanding a higher screen

pixel density can opt for the much more expensive ZE551ML.

Alternatives Most competitors of the ZE550ML would be other cheap and powerful phones, and they would likely

be either a stripped down budget version an expensive phone (like the LG G3 S), a mid-ranged, solid

performer (like the HTC Desire 620), or a similarly cheap and powerful phone built with budget in

mind, like the China made Xiaomi Mi 4i.

An advantage of the stripped down version of a flagship would be that it would likely inherit some of

the more desirable qualities. In the case of the G3 S, it certainly looks a lot like the bigger brother,

the LG G3, which is to say that it looks great. It also shares the signature laser autofocus which would

be great for photography fans, if not for the downgraded camera sensor. The camera is not the only

hardware downgrade - there are downgrades in the CPU, screen, and battery, just to name a few.

The G3 S is not a bad phone by all means, just that the inclusion of some of the more premium

features while keeping the price low will really cause major compromises in some areas. It runs on a

Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor, and sports a pretty 5" 720p screen, and a price worthy of the

Asus. Another alternative in this category is the Sony Xperia Z3 Compact, a powerful but expensive

mini-flagship.

The Desire 620 screams mid-range mid-range processor, mid-range screen, and most importantly,

mid-range pricing. These phones are built from the ground up to have a unique placement for

people who are not satisfied with the run of the mill budget phones, but do not want to fork out

ridiculous amounts of money for the flagship devices. These devices usually come equipped with

better specs but it is hard for them to pull away from being ordinary. More recently, companies have

taken steps to differentiate themselves from the rest. The Samsung A series caters for the youth by

providing lightweight and stylish phones, and the LG AKA takes this up a notch by giving their phones

a personality, making it especially appealing to younger people. The Desire 620 takes another

approach with its selling point as its Boomsound speakers. Some dislike the design, as the speakers

make it extremely long and harder to handle, but it is no doubt that the speakers are on a whole

different level than the ZenFones. The speakers cause the phone to have an elongated profile which

is hard to appreciate. The use of cheap glossy plastic on the back exacerbates the poor handling of

the phone, but the cost savings are translated to better hardware: the Desire comes equipped with a

Snapdragon 410 powering the 5" 720p phone.

The greatest rival of the ZenFone (in my opinion, other than the elusive OnePlus One or Yu Yureka

phones) would be the Mi 4i. It takes on after the powerful Mi 4, with the "i" standing for India (or

international, if you prefer to see it that way). The phone appears minimalistic and runs on Mi Ui 6,

which provides a similar user experience to that of the iPhone. It is not necessarily a bad thing, as

usage is simple and snappy. That is in part contributed by its hardware: despite being marginally

cheaper than the ZenFone, it packs in a strong snapdragon 615 SoC, a larger battery with a 3120

mAh capacity, dual Sim capability and a vibrant 5" FHD screen. Looking to be better in almost every

aspect, why should anyone still consider the ZenFone? The Mi 4i has two critical flaws: first is that its

16GB internal storage cannot be expanded - a mighty deal breaker - and second is the widely

reported overheating issue, making extended gaming near impossible. Aside from that, the Mi 4i is a

well-constructed, pretty phone that should be attractive to those who do not require that much

storage, or those who desire a smaller, slimmer phone.

Those that cannot live with the Zenfones bulk can consider the smaller LG G3 S, LG AKA or the Mi 4i.

They can also go for the significantly more expensive but metallic Samsung A3. Those who prefer a

good audio experience at the cost of increased heft can choose the Desire 620 at roughly the same

price. But those who enjoy a well-balanced phone capable of delivering a great user experience on a

budget should seriously consider the Zenfone ZE550ML.

Conclusion The ZE550ML is all about balancing compromises. Make it too expensive, and it loses its unique price

placement. Make it any cheaper, and Asus risks taking out too much of the good stuff. Honestly, the

ZenFone ZE550ML is not the best phone you can get; it is also not the cheapest phone one can get.

But not everybody desires the absolute fastest and greatest, and not everybody can live with a

terrible budget phone. There is a large group of people who are willing to fork out just a tiny bit

more to enjoy the experience of a well-made phone, and it is this group of people that Asus is

targeting. And Asus delivered a phone that did it. It is a pretty, well-built phone, with a great deal of

power. It can hang around comfortably around premium flagships thrice its price without being out

of place. It is not the best in everything, but it performs great in areas that are important.

Who should get this phone: Users that are switching from a budget phone who want a great user

experience and a large screen without paying too much

Who should not get this phone: Users that come from really premium phones or those who

demand the latest and greatest

One-liner summary: For a low asking price, the ZE550ML offers impressive performance in a large

but beautiful and manageable device

References

[1] Results for phones taken from GeekBench website

[2][3] Results for other phones taken from GSMArena website

[4] Results for phones taken from GSMArena website

[5][6][7] Results for phones taken from Notebookcheck website