Asus Zenfone Selfie review
Introduction
The Asus Zenfone Selfie has got to be the company's most straightforward attempt at product naming. Sure, it does have the mandatory 7-symbol alphanumeric model string at its tail, which means zip to the uninitiated, but unlike the piles of different Zenfone 2's, in this case a simple Selfie will suffice to describe the specific model.
The title does well to advertise the smartphone's headline feature and in person the handset isn't shy showing it off either. Selfie could very well come before Zenfone with this one, as the front 13MP shooter has pushed the earpiece out of its customary central position.A dual-tone front facing flash further emphasizes the device's priorities and is a bit of an exclusive feature. Setting aside rotating camera trickery like on the Oppo N3 and Honor 7i, you'd be hard pressed to find a smartphone with more than a single LED to shine at your face. The HTC Desire Eye is one, the only one perhaps.
At this point you'd be forgiven to think that the Zenfone Selfie is a one-hit wonder, but you'd be wrong. It can take on most any midrange competitor - after all, in 2015 the majority of those are equipped with the same Snapdragon 615 chipset anyway. Up to 3GB of RAM, a 5.5-inch FullHD display and a 13MP primary camera mean that the Selfie won't be shorthanded against all but the best-equipped rivals.
Asus Zenfone Selfie ZD551KL key features
·Dual-SIM, Dual Standby capability
·5.5-inch IPS capacitive touchscreen
with 1080p resolution and 403ppi density, Gorilla Glass 4 protection
·64-bit Qualcomm Snapdragon 615
chipset; quad-core 1.5 GHz Cortex-A53 & quad-core 1.1 GHz Cortex-A53 CPU;
Adreno 405 GPU
·2/3GB of RAM, 16/32GB of storage and
a microSD slot for further expansion, 5GB free lifetime ASUS WebStorage
·13MP main camera with f/2.0 lens,
laser autofocus, dual-LED dual-tone flash, 1080p@30fps video recording
·13MP front camera with 88-degree
wide-angle f/2.2 lens, contrast detection autofocus, dual-LED dual-tone flash,
1080p@30fps video recording
·Android 5.0.2 Lollipop out of the box
with Asus ZenUI overlay
·LTE Cat.4, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac;
NFC; Bluetooth; GPS with A-GPS; GLONASS; microUSB 2.0 port, USB host
·3,000mAh user-replaceable battery
·Plastic build, back covers in a
choice of colors and textures
Main disadvantages
·No 2160p video recording
·Rather large and hefty
For the record, the model number of the Zenfone Selfie is ZD551KL. We have here the version with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage, and there's a lesser 2GB/16GB option and surprisingly, both share the same model number. We're not big fans of the concept that the two numbers should be interdependent, but let's say that it allows for a more affordable base model, and that's a good thing where the Zenfone Selfie is positioned.
Asus Zenfone Selfie press images
We are happy that the Zenfone Selfie has a few features, which are slowly going into oblivion in the high end segment. The smartphone takes microSD cards for expansion, and it also has an easy-to-access swappable battery - batteries on Zenfone 2's have so far been guarded by a dozen screws despite the misleading removable back.
So as you see, the Asus Zenfone Selfie is an intriguing handset and we all but ready to put it through our customary review routine, with unboxing and hardware overview first up on the next page.
Color-accurate 5.5-inch IPS panel
The Asus Zenfone Selfie comes with a 5.5-inch display with 1080p resolution, and that translates to a density of 403ppi. It uses an IPS LCD panel, which our microscope shot revealed to have a standard RGB subpixel arrangement, unsurprisingly.
The Asus Zenfone Selfie has very accurate color rendition with the average DeltaE being the impressive number of 4.2 (for the primaries plus black and white). The max DeltaE is 7.7 and that's mainly the rendition of white, which is slightly on the bluish side.
The offered display tuning sliders allow you to improve that even further and by adding just a slight warmness to the display output we were able to achieve exceptional color accuracy - average deltaE of 3.3 and a max DeltaE of only 4.4.
Asus Splendid display tweaking app
The maximum brightness of the LCD panel (333nits) is not a good as it could be, but the relatively deep blacks (not as good as on the Lenovo K3 Note, but certainly in the top-tier among LCDs) allow the Zenfone Selfie to offer good contrast ratio of about 928:1.
At the middle of the brightness slider, the brightness level is less than a third of the maximum brightness level, but that is also true for many other phones.
The minimum brightness level is 22nits, which a lot more than the best we've seen so bear that in mind if you intend to use it frequently in pitch dark environment - this sort of light level might be unpleasant for the eyes in such conditions.
The Zenfone Selfie performed poorly in our sunlight legibility test perhaps due to the low maximum brightness. It's certainly far from good AMOLED screens in this respect (even the budget-minded Galaxy J7, for that matter), but the score is quite low even for an LCD panel, especially in 2015. Even the Zenfone 2 does somewhat better, and we're not quite sure why that is. The panels look very much the same, though the Selfie is indeed a bit dimmer, just not as much as to make that much of a difference in the sun.
Connectivity
The Zenfone Selfie is well stocked on connectivity options. First off, there's quad-band 2G/GPRS/EDGE on both SIM cards and that's where the second card is capped. SIM 1 also gets quad-band 3G and a multitude of LTE bands, which are region dependent.
Dual-band (2.4GHz and 5GHz) Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac radios are on board as well, with Wi-Fi Direct and hotspot support.
Bluetooth is in its 4.0 version, there's a GPS receiver with A-GPS and GLONASS and also NFC.
The microUSB port comes with USB host support for attaching your choice of peripherals and MHL support. The headphone jack is the standard 3.5mm affair, allowing you to plug in just about any set of headphones out there.
There's also a dedicated microSD card slot for storage expansion, which takes cards up to 128GB.
An FM radio receiver is provided for listening to music on the go without generating data traffic.
Asus Zenfone Selfie battery life
The Asus Zenfone Selfie comes with a 3,000mAh battery - a user-replaceable lithium polymer unit. The powerpack might very well be the same exact one as in the Zenfone 2, so we expected comparably unimpressive results. We weren't entirely right, it turned out.
It all starts with the twenty and a half hours of 3G call times - a good 4 and a half hours longer than the Zenfone 2 ZE551ML and a solid result on its own. It gets even better in the video playback test, where the Zenfone Selfie is good for 11 and a half hours of movie watching.
The good impression so far is marred by the web browsing longevity. When using the built-in browser, the Zenfone Selfie manages a lowly 6 and a half hours. Switch to Chrome, and the situation isn't as grim, but 7:43 hours is still only an average result. It's virtually the same number as the Zenfone 2 posted.
All in all, the Zenfone Selfie does okay in the battery department, noticeably better than the Zenfone 2. Its overall rating of 63 hours in our proprietary test is far from record-breaking but it's not disappointing either.
The Samsung Galaxy J7, for example, would last you a full 5 hours longer in video watching and a little over an hour longer in web browsing, but loses to the Selfie in call times. Another selfie specialist, the HTC Desire Eye, does about ten hours in both screen-on activities, but comes shorter in call endurance, too. Meanwhile, the Sony Xperia C5 Ultra trails the Selfie in all test disciplines.
Make note that our proprietary score also includes a standby battery draw test, which is not featured in our test scorecard but is calculated in the total endurance rating.
The battery testing procedure is described in detail in case you're interested in the nitty-gritties. You can also check out our complete battery test table, where you can see how all of the smartphones we've tested will compare under your own typical use.
