Asus Zenfone 6

[alphaod]

I just picked one of these phones up for about $240. It runs Android with an Intel processor.

First impression is holy moly, this phone is enormous. It looks kind of ridiculous in my hand and I have decent manly hands.

Other than that, it's not slow or anything and I'm not bothered by the 720p display on a 6" screen. Viewing angles and colors are a-okay, so no complaints. I runs everything I through at it.

Now I'm waiting for KitKat on it which I guess might a take some time.


Compared to other Android phones I have right now... a Samsung Galaxy S4 Active and HTC One M8 (and a M7), it feel great and seems to have no performance issues.

The dual-SIM features is very handy. I can have my local and AT&T SIM in one phone and switching is a touch of a button.

Will it replace my iPhone? Definitely not as I'm too attached to the iOS ecosystem, but I am looking forward to the bigger 5.5" iPhone should that come around.

 

[ozaz]

I know nothing about ASUS's Android skin.

Can you say something about it? Light skin, heavy skin? etc

Thanks

 

[Savor]

How is battery life?

Read in many comments in GSMArena that it has stability issues. I saw a person use it next to me the other day and it looked smooth though.

I'm thinking of getting a Zenfone 4 just because I want a smaller phone again as a third stringer and it is dirt cheap at under $100 but I heard battery life is plain terrible. Still, it would be nice to have a smaller phone that I can throw into my pocket without worries. Both my HTC One (M7) and Xiaomi Mi 3 have their own holster cases. Zenfone 4 and its 2-3 hr screen time battery is probably something I'd use if I was exercising or going to an unsafe place like a bar. Yes, I have an iPhone 5s to use as an iPod touch but that is expensive to lose if I did lose it. I really do like Asus along with HTC and Xiaomi. Their Nexus 7's, Fonepad 7's, and Zenbooks have good build quality.

 

[alphaod]

I know nothing about ASUS's Android skin.

Can you say something about it? Light skin, heavy skin? etc

Thanks

The skin is lightweight I think. I'd say it's probably heavier than Sense, but lighter than TouchWiz (if you've used those two). It's definitely not laggy or anything and the icons are big and colorful. A lot of the built-in apps are good, but I have most of them disabled. I simply don't use a lot of built-in functionality and it was clogging up my app drawer. The pulldown menu is customizable and all the short cuts are good. The only issue is sometimes it will default to the notifications screen and sometimes do the control panel. I'm not sure if this is intentional (and if it is, what the trigger is) or bad design.

I don't use the default launcher, but Nova Prime, so I can't comment on that.

Personally don't like the stock Android interface. I like the Asus one.

How is battery life?

Read in many comments in GSMArena that it has stability issues. I saw a person use it next to me the other day and it looked smooth though.

I'm thinking of getting a Zenfone 4 just because I want a smaller phone again as a third stringer and it is dirt cheap at under $100 but I heard battery life is plain terrible. Still, it would be nice to have a smaller phone that I can throw into my pocket without worries. Both my HTC One (M7) and Xiaomi Mi 3 have their own holster cases. Zenfone 4 and its 2-3 hr screen time battery is probably something I'd use if I was exercising or going to an unsafe place like a bar. Yes, I have an iPhone 5s to use as an iPod touch but that is expensive to lose if I did lose it. I really do like Asus along with HTC and Xiaomi. Their Nexus 7's, Fonepad 7's, and Zenbooks have good build quality.

I don't have any stability issues with mine. For some reason all the reviews online say this phone has a 2GB processor and 1GB of RAM, but mine has a 1.6GHz processor and 2GB of RAM. In terms of performance I don't have any issues. No issues with the skin and interface, and it runs my games and such very well. I don't find the 720p screen distracting or anything; in fact I like that things are much bigger on the screen compared to say on my HTC One (M8).

In comparing battery life I did not ever consider the Zenfone 4, but I did consider the Zenfone 5. Main reason I settled for the Zenfone 6 is because I figured if I was going to screw with an Intel phone might as well get something interesting and different from what else I have. I have say after using this phone for a while I like the big screen.

With the big screen comes with the big battery. I can do a day on a charge no problem. Honestly I always have an option to plug in. At work I work on a computer, so I can charge it, in the car I have chargers, and even these days flying the airplane has USB ports. I'm not too concerned about battery life and I don't really test that. That said, throughout a day I'm using navigation (TomTom), streaming music (Amazon Cloud Player), and browsing online and looking at emails. I don't have issues getting through the day without plugging it in. I think the phone has some sort of default power saving mode. I can disable it, but it's on by default. Seems to work great.



As for bar phone, I have a Nokia candybar phone for that. I keep a second number to give to random people. The Nokia lasts a week on a charge, is basically indestructible, and nobody is going to bother stealing it.