It’s the world’s slimmest and lightest 5.5-inch smartphone, and comes with a 2.3X optical zoom and 12X digital zoom. Before the camera wows you, the design does.
In this age of high-end iPhones, Galaxys and Pixels, it’s tough for any other phone to stand out. Correct? No. The recently launched Asus ZenFone Zoom S not only challenges them, it even one-ups them in certain areas. It’s the world’s slimmest and lightest 5.5-inch smartphone, and comes with a 2.3X optical zoom and 12X digital zoom. Before the camera wows you, the design does. Its display is a 5.5-inch full HD AMOLED panel that has high 500cd/m2 brightness for outdoor-readable images. The result is extreme clarity and contrast. It also has the Corning Gorilla Glass 5 display cover panel that, the company claims, is 70% more resistant to drop damage compared to the previous generation Gorilla Glass. Attention to detail is apparent in the way the panel has been shaped to fit within the phone’s aluminium alloy body. And even though it is all-metal body, Asus has given the phone a fine sandblast finish for a better grip. At the back, it gets the fingerprint sensor that unlocks the device in 360 degrees of finger placement. There are two colours to choose from: navy black and glacier silver.
A recent Ericsson ConsumerLab study found that, by 2020, 50% of all TV viewing will be done on a mobile device. In that scenario, the ZenFone Zoom S is future-ready. Not only does the screen reproduce perfect images, the phone also has one of the best audio experiences, courtesy a five-magnet speaker boosted by NXP SmartAMP (audio amplifier). The headphone takes the audio experience to even higher levels. It gets DTS Headphone:X —it’s a technology that simulates the 3D environment of the audio’s original mixing stage. Its dual-camera system consists of a main camera with a 25mm wide-angle lens paired to a 12MP Sony IMX362 sensor; and a dedicated 59mm, 12MP zoom camera with 2.3X optical zoom and 12X total zoom. This setup ensures sharp focus on subjects at any distance. The Sony IMX362 is the highest rated camera sensor right now, and the result is photos almost as good as the subject you view with your eyes.
The company says the Asus SuperPixel camera achieves light sensitivity that is 2.5 times (2.5X) greater than that of the Apple iPhone 7 Plus, and 10X that of an average smartphone. The front selfie camera has a 13MP Sony IMX214 sensor and has high light sensitivity. An interesting feature is the ‘screen flash’ mode that uses the display as a flash in low-light conditions. If you are a photographer, you can do so much more with this phone. For example, you can try its laser autofocus and subject-tracking autofocus, or you can shoot and store photos in RAW format—RAW files save the full data of the photo captured by the camera’s sensor and are ideal for enhancing later with editing software. Lastly, it has a 48MP super resolution mode. It combines four 12MP photos to create a single large image with 4X clarity, greater detail and less noise.
The more the features, the more energy you need. For that, the ZenFone Zoom S houses a high-capacity 5000mAh battery. It easily lasts two days of regular usage. In fact, the battery is so powerful that it can double up as a power bank to charge other devices – i.e. it has the reverse-charging ability.
For all these features, you have to pay almost half the price of the best smartphones in the market. Right now, the ZenFone Zoom S is available exclusively on Flipkart for Rs 26,999.
