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The recently released ASUS smartphone zenfone 2 has hit a new price/perf benchmark point with an MSRP of $199 but mid-high range specs:
-4G LTE
-Quadcore x86 processor
-5.5 inch IPS 1080P screen with gorilla glass
-2GB of RAM
-16GB storage
-3000 mAh battery
The low price is in part because Intel has been desperately trying to get a foothold in the mobile market and likely playing contra-revenue games. Unlike past low-cost options like the oneplus phone, this phone has wide release being sold at online retailers like Amazon.
Is this setting a new standard in low-cost, high-performance phones, or is this a temporary ploy until Intel starts charging for their SoCs? Will this lead to a price war between Mediatek, Qualcomm, and Intel? All of which have already released phones this year for the North American marketplace supporting the 4G spectrum. How low-priced can these smartphones with laptop-like specs go?
Reviewed here: http://anandtech.com/show/9251/the-asus-zenfone-2-review
[Editor's Comment: Original Submission]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Alfred on Thursday May 28 2015, @08:09PM
Jabs aside, since I didn't see a battery life in the article, I will hold to my jab while I put this in the "I'll believe different when I see it" category. I'm kinda prejudiced because I've never been fond of atom chips. The odd/horrible button placement is chip independent though.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Wierd0n3 on Thursday May 28 2015, @08:26PM
I had two big questions after testing the ZenFone 2's display. The first was "Why does ASUS employ the use of such heavy CABC and dynamic contrast?" The second was "Why does ASUS limit the maximum brightness to around 80% of what the display is capable of?" I think these battery results answer both of them, and ASUS provided some additional information that supports it as well. The display and LED backlight on the ZenFone 2 is likely not as efficient as those on some other smartphones.
seems the atom processor isn't the biggest hog on the device.
(Score: 2) by Alfred on Thursday May 28 2015, @08:31PM
*face palm*
That was my fail. No wonder the article seemed so short, I was missing 10 pages. Thanks
(Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday May 28 2015, @08:40PM
The processor hasn't been the biggest hog on any phone I've ever seen. Its the screen.
4 Cores? Means nothing! 3 of them are essentially shut down 95-99% of the time and the remaining one is rigorously throttled.
There is a hell of a lot of "stare time" on phones, where you can't shut down the screen, but you need virtually zero CPU resources.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by KGIII on Friday May 29 2015, @01:07AM
Meh... My solution has been to just go to buy a couple of extra batteries and an external charger from Amazon or a slow boat from China. They are usually sold in sets and are about $20. I swap phones often so I do this way too often for a normal human (perhaps I am abnormal). I have had to wait about a month before this option was available as the phone was new. I have never had quality issues with the non-OEM batteries.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday May 29 2015, @02:26AM
External battery packs are pretty nice too.
I've been lucky in that my current phone gets about 18 hours with normal use. After its a couple years old, that might change.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Thursday May 28 2015, @08:33PM
You don't have to see a battery life. Just the battery size indicates this will guzzle power.
But that said, modern phones are designed to get you through a day (when new). There is no point in developing a phone that gets 6 hours, because you will have no customers. They will size the battery according to what the market demands.
Samsung S6 has a 2,550mAh battery.
HTC M8 Battery capacity (mAh) 2600.
This phone: 3000mAh.
So it appears they've already baked in the difference in efficiency. (And intel is not as laughable as it use to be in this regard).
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Informative) by gman003 on Thursday May 28 2015, @08:43PM
http://anandtech.com/show/9251/the-asus-zenfone-2-review/3 [anandtech.com]
7.3 hours browsing web on Wifi, 6.3 hours on 4G, 3.2 hours running graphics benchmarks. None of those are exceptional, but it's not really that bad. (Anandtech chalks it up more to the display than the CPU as well).
They also support an extremely fast charger, which should help alleviate the limited battery life. As long as it can go a full day (9 hours) between charges with regular use, most people will be fine, and I suspect this can manage that as long as the screen-off idle usage isn't horrible.
(Score: 2) by TK on Friday May 29 2015, @09:33PM
I'm kind of excited about this, to be honest. It's at least double all of my current phone's specs (Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini with CyanogenMod11), for less than what I paid for this one. That being said, I am not an early adopter. About a year from now, when the CyanogenMod teams have made a stable and popular release for this phone, I'll probably pick up one of the $300 models, install CM and roll with it. Provided it lives up to this hype. I could use a bigger screen and more RAM anyway.
If not this, then the next best combination of supported, powerful and cheap that's available in 2016.
The fleas have smaller fleas, upon their backs to bite them, and those fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum