A smooth flipping camera, but better battery life
An Android phone emerges from the left field every now and then and surprises everyone how nice it is. The recent instance is the Asus ZenFone 6 that, thanks to its distinctive gimmick, you may have seen: a back camera that flips to become the selfie camera.It's one of the many smart ways that telephone companies try to create a real edge-to-edge screen, and you're nearly guaranteed to get a response when you're showing it off.
If you want upgraded RAM and storage, the ZenFone 6 is a $499 phone $599, and the bar for computers at that price point is considerably greater than it was before. Even a "budget" phone is no longer sufficient to nail the basics. It must have something to distinguish it from and beyond the slew of other sub-$600 phones.You believe the camera-flipping trick of the ZenFone 6 is likely its primary characteristic, but that's not my favorite thing about this phone. The best thing about the ZenFone 6 is the astronomically nice battery life.
The ZenFone 6 is a large, dense telephone. It has a 6.4-inch display, but it's not as chunky as it might otherwise be thanks to minimal bezels. I discovered it difficult to use it with one hand and I was amazed to see that it weighs less than an iPhone XS Max because it feels much heavier.
But the advantage of creating a large phone means Asus can fit inside additional things. All the mechanics necessary to get the whole camera module to flip from back to front are available. There's a battery of 5,000mAh that will last forever; with no issue, I get two days of fairly heavy use.(That's a screen time of eight to nine hours, as Android counts it, including hours of network-intensive games and processors.) Brute force may not be the most elegant solution to extend battery life, but it is certainly the most effective until battery technology improves.
All that room also implies there's a headphone jack on midrange and lower-end devices, which is progressively uncommon but obviously still needed.Asus couldn't fit wireless charging in there, but it could be more of a price choice than a space issue. It also sounds like a nightmare to charge a 5,000mAh battery at wireless charging speeds. Apparently, Asus could have selected a larger battery with quicker wired charging speeds than the 18W it endorsed, but instead decided to use the larger battery.
I’m glad Asus decided to make that trade-off. In fact, I’m glad about a lot of the trade-offs that Asus made with the ZenFone 6.
A ideal instance is the screen. It's big, but it's just 1080 x 2340, so on other devices it's not as tack-sharp as screens. It's also an LCD instead of OLED, meaning the blacks are less black and it's hard to see outdoors, but both options imply the ZenFone 6 may be less costly.The lower resolution screen also implies that the phone needs to push less pixels, which is a major boon in the battery life.
Asus pushed the screen out close to the phone's bottom, yet there is still a lunette because getting rid of those last few millimeters implies adding a few hundred bucks to the price. But the screen still looks spectacular because it's large, the lunettes are tiny and there's no knot or camera cutout.
Asus cut costs without making it feel like a cut-rate phone. There’s a fingerprint sensor on the back, which is glass but feels almost like metal. The phone feels good and solid, but you can definitely find the seams between the different parts that make up the body. Compared to the $479 Pixel 3A XL, the ZenFone 6 is a huge upgrade in every way but one: the camera.
Okay, I gave you enough time to wait: let's talk about that wild camera. It's flipping! There is a primary sensor of 48 megapixels coupled with a wide angle lens of 13 megapixels. Flipping around implies that you get high-quality cameras for your selfies instead of anything small that can fit on other devices above or inside the screen.
Obviously, I can't speak to its longevity over time, but after a week of use it seems solid, and Asus has given the usual promises it will hold. The phone has no rated IP number for dust or water resistance, so I would avoid letting either get close the system anywhere. If it detects a drop, it will also auto-flip back to its home position.
It's not moving as fast as you want, it may take a second to do its thing, but it's only half a second longer than many camera applications take to switch to the selfie camera anyway.
With the OnePlus 7 Pro, you can get a better camera or a nicer screen for a few hundred bucks more. You can spend more than a few hundred bucks to get luxurious devices like the iPhone XS or the Samsung Galaxy Note 10. You can spend much less on a slower processor or a narrower phone.Even though your phone decisions seem to be dwindling, it's not true. There are loads of alternatives. It may be difficult for a phone to justify its presence among so many alternatives, but the Asus ZenFone 6 has it entirely. For not too much money, it's a battery champion who usually doesn't sacrifice the phones things like screen size, camera, or velocity.
The flippy camera is a nice trick, but the true magic is to get the stuff individuals want in a $500 phone.
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