[REVIEW] Asus Zenfone Zoom, new era of mobile photography?

23:59:00 Unknown 0 Comments

Asus had released their latest mobile photography smartphone, the Asus Zenfone Zoom in Malaysia this early January at the retail price of RM 2,099 (included GST). Asus Zenfone Zoom is powered by Intel Quad Core processor, 4GB RAM and also 128GB ROM. The rear camera is a 13MP PixelMaster camera with 10-element lens with built-in laser auto-focus. The appearance of Asus Zenfone Zoom creates a new era of mobile photography with sleek design, thinner body yet with a feel of owning a DSLR.

So let's go on a tour looking at how powerful Asus Zenfone Zoom is in creating a new era for mobile photography!

the [A]ppearance
During mid of 2014, Samsung did launch a smartphone that comes with optical zoom, literally being named as Samsung K Zoom. It was one of the hottest model in the market previously, however it is too bulky to bring around as a phone. It is an honor to say that Asus managed to keep the thinness of Zenfone Zoom, making it as the world's thinnest optical zoom smartphone. Unlike the other Zenfone models, Zenfone Zoom is covered with a premium leather back casing. It boosts up the whole look and the classiness in both the milky white or piano black. A shutter button is equipped at the same side of power and volume button, lead to easier and more time-saving photo capturing or video recording session. No longer losing any special scene! Additionally, the volume button is customized to work as the optical zoom function that zooms up to 3X without any noise. 

The shutter button is very useful for photo capturing especially selfies!

the [B]rain
The brain of Asus Zenfone Zoom is powered by the latest Intel 64 bit Super Quad-Core processor together with 4GB RAM. If 128GB storage is not sufficient, you may add on extra storage through the Micro SD card slot available, up to another 128GB. The 3000mAh capacity non-removable battery is common in the market that makes no difference among Zenfone Zoom and other smartphone. Somehow, Zenfone Zoom can still lasts up to almost a day for moderate usage. No hassles charging Zenfone Zoom in the middle of your work and/or battery dying on the way back home after work. Does it sound great to you?  ZenUI is one of my favourite OS as it offers smart grouping, knock-to-wake feature, customized gesture to open the app directly when phone is sleeping and many mores.

the [C]amera
Asus has underlined Zenfone Zoom as a new era of mobile photography with its hoya 10-element lens as well as the 3X optical zoom. However, the aperture will be adjusted automatically between f2.7 and 4.8 depends on the focus length used. The built in Optical Image Stabilization (OIS) is able to eliminate shaky and blurry shot, but it does not helps during night time photography as the photo taken still shaky or blurred. Although Low Light mode (mode specially designed for users to take photo when the light source is not sufficient) is available on device, but photo only captured at 3 megapixel which will destroy the image quality . 
I do enjoy taking photo using Zenfone Zoom's auto white balance as it brings out more accurate environment tone and save up my time from doing any editing before posting on social media. The 3X optical zoom works better than post-cropping your photo. You can #ZoomToMax to #SeeTheWorldUpClose yet with awesome and sharp photos. It will be better if the aperture stays at f2.7 to create greater bokeh feel even after applying the 3X optical zoom.

Below are some sample shots taken with Asus Zenfone Zoom

the [D]enouement
It is a shame to say that Zenfone Zoom heats up much more faster and consumes much more battery with the boosted Intel processor. I found that it can easily eats up 30% of battery after shooting continuously for 2 hours. From the perception of a professional photographer, who will be using gears for at least 6 hours for an event, a powerbank is needed in hand if you plan to snap photo using Zenfone Zoom as the spare battery tricks will not be working on this device for the nondetachable battery. Furthermore, Asus should improve low-light mode or night time photography to make it more like a DSLR smartphone. Other than that, RAW image format should be included in the camera software to work alike to a DSLR. If Asus is able to overcome all these limitations, it is for sure Asus Zenfone Zoom will become the new era of mobile photography!