Asus has launched a plethora of devices under Zenfone 4 series this year and one of such devices is the Zenfone 4 Selfie Pro. As the name suggests this device has its USP in the selfie camera or should we call cameras as the device comes with dual selfie camera. The Zenfone 4 Pro selfie is priced at Rs 23,999/- . So does the device justify the price tag or its an overpriced player in arena of 'Selfie Experts' ? Let's find out.
Specifications at a glance:
The zenfone Selfie pro is powered by time tested Octa-core Snapdragon 625 with 4 GB RAM and 64 GB of internal storage. The Zenfone 4 Selfie pro comes with 5.5 inch Full HD AMOLED display which has brightness of 500nits and clor gamut that's greater than 100% of NTSC color space as claimed by company. The display is crisp and can handle any type of content with ease. Even in outdoors on bright sunny day the display is readable and bright enough. The Zenfone 4 Selfie pro comes with a 76.7% body to screen ratio, however competitors in similar price segment are coming up with full view display now.
The phone comes with a finger print sensor on the front which is claimed to unlock phone in 0.2 seconds. We can say that finger print sensor is fast and accurate and we didn't faced any issues while using the device. Zenfone 4 Selfie pro comes with 3000 mAh strong battery with Fast charging support. The charger supplied with device has a rating of 10W (5V/2A) rating.
On camera department the Rear camera is a 16MP Sony IMX351 Sensor, which supports 4K video recording and comes with ASUS own SuperPixel Engine. On Front there are are two cameras for selfie , the first one features Sony IMX362 dual pixel image sensor that is said to be equivalent of 24 MP resolution camera. The 24 MP DuoPixel camera technology uses the information captured by the sensor to intelligently create one 24 MP photo. The second sensor is used to widen your frame area, i.e. it expands your view to upto 120 degrees which is best suited for group selfies.
Design:
The Zenfone 4 Selfie Pro is a sleek and stylish device which feels premium when held in hand. The device sports a rectangular metal unibody design with rounded corners. On the front of the device 2.5 D corning gorilla glass protects the 5.5 inch display. On top of the display there are two selfie cameras to the right of the ear piece and array of sensors to the left of ear piece. On the left edge of the device there is a SIM tray slot which can be ejected using the pin. The SIM tray can hold 2 Nano SIM cards and a micro SD card (upto 2 TB is supported). On the right side of the device you get volume rockers on the top and power button just above the middle of the edge.
Bottom of the device houses speaker grill, micro USB slot, mic and 3.5 mm audio jack. On the top edge there is just another mic (probably noise cancellation one). Turning the device on back, Antenna lines are visible on the top and bottom of the back panel. The Rear camera is sitting in middle horizontally and towards the top vertically with a flash light placed just the left of the Camera unit. In the middle of the back ASUS branding is visible.
Camera:
The frond camera works well in normal mode where there is enough light. The images are sharp and colors are natural. Sometimes images are overexposed when you are using front camera in sunlight. The low light performance is mediocre and images become bit noisy or blurry.
There is a portrait mode as well in front camera which works pretty well. In group selfie mode the secondary 5 MP camera comes into the play and increases your view area. In view finder one can observe that switching to group selfie mode the edges resembles that of fish eye mode. The selfie camera is also capable of shooting 4K videos which will be useful for Vloggers specially.
The back 16 MP camera does its job as expected and doesn't disappoint. The images from rear camera are detailed and clear in bright lit areas however in low light the images are grainy and not something we were hoping for with this camera. The images loose detail as soon as the light source is diminished. The autofocus of the camera works fine and quickly locks the focus on object in frame. The image processing is quite good and images are rendered in real time without any noticeable lag.
Below are few samples from the camera.
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| Low Light (Rear Camera) |
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| Artificial Light (Rear Camera) |
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| Day light (Rear Camera) |
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| Group Selfie Mode (front camera) |
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| Normal Mode (Front Camera) |
OS and Apps:
The Zenfone 4 Selfie pro runs on Android 7.1.1 Nougat with its own ZenUI 4.0 skin on the top. Thankfully Asus has listened to our pleas and this device is as neat as you would want in terms of applications. The only app on board are the required minimal set of apps to get started without any bloatware. The UI experience is fluidic and smooth. We didn't noticed any lag while opening multiple apps. In settings we have an Asus customized settings option where in you can enable twin apps feature for accessing two accounts on apps like Facebook and Instagram.
Final Verdict:
This selfie expert has great build quality and hardware strength. The phone has got most of the things on the right side. We are happy that Asus has not compromised on the hardware or quality in this device. The camera features are in line with the competition, however the competitors are offering features like full view display at lower or similar price. If you are looking for a decent camera phone with smooth UI experience then you can opt for this phone. For other uses there are still options in market at lower price.
Thank you for the review!
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