Hands-on: The ASUS ZenFone 5 is an Android phone with a notch

Familiar?

ASUS today took the wraps off the latest phone in its ZenFone series, and in some ways I’m not even surprised by what I’m seeing.

It’s impossible to talk about the ZenFone 5 without first addressing the elephant in the room. The ZenFone 5 looks really similar to the iPhone X, so much so that you could be forgiven for not being able to tell them apart at first glance. 

The resemblance is more than superficial, and it even uses the same vertical camera orientation as the iPhone X. 

ASUS isn’t the first Android manufacturer to ape Apple’s flagship and its signature notch, but it’s certainly the first major brand to do so. Depending on how you feel about so-called clones, this is either a depraved move or a stroke of genius.

But I’d rather not waste time passing judgement and dive into the specifications. They’re promising for sure, and clone or not, this may be ASUS’ best ZenFone yet.

The Taiwanese company announced three variants of the phone comprising the ZenFone 5, ZenFone 5Z, and ZenFone 5Q, but it’s the first two notched models that will obviously garner the bulk of consumers’ interest.

Design & Hardware

Both phones share a lot in common, and save for some key hardware differences, are actually identical. For a closer look, you can check out our photo gallery here. 

Here’s what they share in common:

• 6.2-inch 2,246 x 1,080-pixel IPS LCD notch display
• 100 per cent DCI-P3 color gamut coverage
• Main rear camera: 12-megapixel, f/1.8
• Second rear camera: 8-megapixel, f/2.2 120-degree wide-angle lens
• Front camera: 8-megapixel, f/2.0 83-degree lens
• Dual SIM/microSD support
• 3,300mAh battery
• 153 x 75.6 x 7.85mm
• 155g

However, despite all the similarities, the ZenFone 5Z is really the top dog, and it's far more powerful. Here's a table summarizing their differences:

Both Qualcomm chips can take advantage of the newly announced Artificial Intelligence Engine, but the Snapdragon 845 also enables something called AI Boost. That said, this sounds slightly gimmicky to me, as it's sort of an on-demand overclocking option that pops up when the phone detects a demanding app.

It increases the operating frequency to boost performance, but you'll have to activate it manually when the phone prompts you, which seems slightly strange.

Another AI-powered feature is what ASUS calls AI Charging. This is supposed to extend the lifespan of your battery by varying the charging pattern to suit your usage habits. For instance, if the phone learns that you tend to go to bed at 10pm, it'll charge slower to reduce heat and avoid overcharging. 

The 19:9 aspect ratio also allows you to make the most of the available screen real estate when watching 16:9 videos. This means no unsightly black bars around your video, which is definitely welcome. Furthermore, ASUS decided not to allow video to play around the notch, opting instead to blackout the areas to the left and right of it. The notch can be quite distracting when watching video, so I quite like this move.

That aside, the main camera on both phones uses a Sony IMX363 sensor with large 1.4μm pixels that can let in more light for better low-light photography. The second 120-degree wide-angle camera is better suited for capturing wide landscapes, so ASUS is providing you with a choice, not unlike what LG did on the V30. 

The wide-angle camera can come in handy for shooting broad landscapes or in confined areas, where you need to capture more of a scene but don't have room to maneuver. 

In addition, you get 4-axis optical image stabilization on the main camera and dual-pixel phase detection autofocus (PDAF) for faster focusing.

Both rear cameras are complemented by a color correction sensor and LED flash packed into the round window below the camera module. 

And now, for a closer look at that notch. It's slightly narrower and taller than that on the iPhone X, and it holds the front camera, speaker, proximity sensor, and LED indicator. As it turns out, the notch is supposedly 26 per cent smaller than the one on the iPhone X.

The phone is sandwiched between two sheets of 2.5D Gorilla Glass, and one of the most distinctive things about it is the way that light reflects off the glass back. It may have a similar vertically-oriented camera module as the iPhone X, but the pattern of reflections it produces is quite singular. 

The other key difference is of course the presence of the fingerprint sensor, which sits at the back of the phone.

The ZenFone 5 charges via a USB-C port, and there's thankfully a 3.5mm headphone jack here as well. 

The power button and volume rocker are located on the right, while a combination nano SIM and microSD slot sits on the left. 

Being slightly larger and also lighter than the iPhone X, the ZenFone 5 feels less hefty in hand. I don't necessarily mean this in a bad way, but those who like how weighty the iPhone X feels won't find the same thing in the ZenFone 5.

Camera smarts

ASUS may have jumped onto the notch bandwagon, but it also has no intention of falling behind the AI photography trend as employed by the likes of Huawei and LG. In fact, AI plays a really big part in the phone's capabilities, and is mostly centered around the phone's photo-taking capabilities.

For starters, the ZenFone 5 supports things like AI Scene Detection, which identifies the scene or subject a user is shooting and automatically applies the ideal settings for the best results. This takes into account things like color saturation, white balance, exposure and brightness, auto exposure time, sharpness, and noise. 

It is capable of detecting 16 different scenes:

• People
• Food
• Dog
• Cat
• Sunset 
• Sky
• Green field
• Ocean
• Flower
• Plant
• Snow
• Night view
• Stage
• Text
• QR code
• Tripod 

You'll notice fine distinctions between things like cat and dog, and ASUS says that's because it wanted to take into account different expectations when shooting the two. For example, dog owners tend to have the luxury of having more time to frame the shot of their pup, whereas cat owners may want to capture their feline in action. In the latter case, ASUS may then apply a faster shutter speed.

When it comes to landscape shots like sunsets or the ocean, the camera will also draw from its AI data model and apply the ideal settings.

This seemed to work well enough when I tried it out with photos of flowers, animals and fields (and actual food) provided by ASUS, but there were also small glitches, such as when the phone initially identified a picture of a flower as text.

Still, things may improve as this isn't the final version of the software yet. The data models aren't static either, and ASUS says the overall experience will improve as the pool of reference photos that builds them grows. However, no user data or photos are sent to the cloud to refine these models, and ASUS will simply refine them on its end and push them out with firmware updates. 

In addition, the camera uses AI to learn the type of photos that owners want through something called AI Photo Learning. The phone presents you with identical photos treated with slightly different image settings and lets you pick the one you like best.

Over time, the camera comes to understand your preferences, and it then applies what it thinks is the best setting to replicate a similar look and feel for future shots. 

The settings derived from AI Photo Learning also take precedence over those that the AI Scene Detection feature may suggest. However, not all scenes and subjects are supported, and compatible photos will be marked by an icon in your photo library. 

Other so-called smart features include AI Beautification and AI Portrait, which works best for those who like to take selfies. The beautification mode can supposedly detect the gender of human subjects and apply digital makeup for women.

ASUS says it's analyzed over 100 different shades of skin color for the best results, and captures facial details using a scanning pattern with 365 dots. The effects can also be applied in video while live streaming on popular social media platforms, which sounds pretty handy if you care about that sort of thing.

Finally, the AI-powered portrait mode applies a bokeh effect to the background in real-time, and it works with both the front and rear cameras on the ZenFone 5 and 5Z. 

The rear cameras offer a hardware-based solution as they can use both lenses for more precise depth perception, whereas the front camera relies on software. 

However, the software on the demo unit I had still appeared slightly wonky, and the front camera tended to produce over-exposed images with uneven patches of blur in the background. Similarly, I wasn't able to get the rear cameras to work with objects. 

But since the firmware is still being updated, retail units may perform better.

The camera software also offers options for a gradienter and histogram, and you can toggle a manual mode that lets you play with things like focus, ISO, and exposure. 

ZenUI 5.0 and ZeniMoji

Finally, ASUS says that this is its cleanest version of ZenUI yet, with no duplicate apps for the browser, email, keyboard, or messaging. 

But now that we're on the topic of software, the ZenFone 5 has taken yet another leaf from the book of the iPhone X. It supports something called ZeniMoji, which as its name suggests, is a form of allowing cute avatars to take cues from your own facial expressions.

ASUS uses a combination of 52 different expressions to mimic yours, and it can also be used in video calls or live streams on social media. The company doesn't use a 3D depth camera for this, and it's instead trained its algorithm on hundreds of thousands of 2D faces with different expressions, lighting conditions, and angles. The algorithm then makes use of this data to approximate a 3D model of your face.

Unfortunately, I haven't had a chance to try this out yet, so I can't say how well it works.

Price and Availability

The ZenFone 5Z will retail for €479, so ASUS is looking to be one of the most affordable flagships with a Snapdragon 845 SoC. The 5Z is slated to be available in June. 

On the other hand, the ZenFone 5 retails at S$488.

First published Feb 28, 2018.

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