ASUS ZenFone 3 Deluxe review
ASUS made quite a splash in January last year with the mid-range ZenFone 2, with the device offering impressive specifications and features that were coupled with a very budget-friendly price tag. This is a practice that has becoming increasingly common since then, with a lot of OEMs jumping on the “high quality, affordable price” bandwagon, and has also become a growing trend in the flagship space as well.
- ASUS ZenFone 3 review
- ASUS ZenFone 3 family hands-on
This year, ASUS has released a high-end Deluxe edition along with the two mid-range ZenFone 3 variants, to better compete in this growing smartphone category. Is ASUS’ latest flagship offering a compelling option in the face of stiff competition? We find out, in this comprehensive ASUS ZenFone 3 Deluxe!
Design
Expectations are high when a word like “Deluxe” is tacked on to the name of a device, and the ASUS ZenFone 3 Deluxe does deliver in terms of design. As expected from a flagship smartphone, the build quality of this device is fantastic. Unlike its mid-range siblings that utilize a metal and glass construction, the Deluxe edition features a full metal unibody design.
Chamfered edges around the front and back, a sloping, curved back, and rounded corners and sides all make for a device that provides a smooth and comfortable feel in the hand. It is fairly thin, with a thickness of just 7.5mm, which gives it a sleek look, but even more impressive is the fact that the ZenFone 3 Deluxe features a truly full metal construction.
You won’t find any plastic antenna lines as is seen with every other smartphone with a metal body, and ASUS claims that this is the first smartphone to achieve this. This choice doesn’t seem to inhibit the phone’s ability to pick up a wireless signal, which makes you wonder why we haven’t seen this already, especially from much larger OEMs.
Like previous ZenFone devices, you will notice ASUS’ signature pattern of concentric circles above the display, on the bottom chin, and along the power button and volume rocker that are both located on the right side. Up top is the headphone jack, and at the bottom are the USB Type-C port and a single speaker unit. On the left side is the SIM and microSD card combination slot.
The device uses capacitive navigation keys, but instead of embedding a fingerprint scanner into the capacitive home button up front, ASUS decided to keep the sensor on the back. The fingerprint scanner features a thin rectangular design which is unlike the circle or square sensors that we are used to seeing with other smartphones.
Display
The ZenFone 3 Deluxe comes with a large 5.7-inch Super AMOLED display with a 1080p resolution. This screen is not going to stack up to a Quad HD display in terms of sharpness, particularly if you are planning to use this phone for VR, but it certainly more than gets the job done and actually looks really great.
You get bright and vibrant colors, excellent viewing angles, high contrast, and deep, inky blacks, which are expected features of a Super AMOLED display. The large display makes it the perfect size for playing games and watching videos and movies. It also comes with some handy features that are becoming increasingly common, including a blue light filter, and the ability to tweak the display and color settings to have the screen look the way you want it.
Performance
Under the hood, the ZenFone 3 Deluxe comes with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor that is backed by the Adreno 530 GPU and a whopping 6GB of RAM. This is the processing package that powers the majority of 2016 flagships, plus more RAM than the standard, so unsurprisingly, performance isn’t an issue with the smartphone.
The device handles everyday tasks like opening, closing, and switching between apps, browsing the web and social media, and a whole lot more, without a hitch. Gaming is very enjoyable, and multi-tasking is a breeze. You can easily have numerous apps open in the background, including a couple of games, without any signs of slowing down. Despite ASUS’ heavily skinned version of Android, the ZenFone 3 Deluxe manages to provide a very fluid experience.
Hardware
64GB, 128GB, and 256GB are the options available in terms of built-in storage, which is further expandable up to an additional 256GB via microSD card. However, keep in the mind that the second SIM slot doubles as the microSD card slot, so users will have to choose between dual SIM capabilities or expandable storage.
As mentioned, the device comes with a single speaker unit at the bottom which sounds fine and gets decently loud. It’s not going to compare to a phone with stereo or front-facing speakers though, and as is the case with any bottom-firing speaker, it is very easy to cover up when holding the device in the landscape orientation.
The different design of the fingerprint scanner from the back doesn’t take away from how accurate it is, with it able to unlock the device every single time. However, it isn’t the fastest sensor out there, and there have been a few instances where it took two to three seconds to wake and unlock the phone. I’m also not a fan of the fact that there is no haptic feedback or vibration when using the scanner, so there is no way to tell that you are actually unlocking your phone when you are doing it blindly.
The ZenFone 3 Deluxe comes with a decently-sized 3,000mAh battery, but in my experience, the battery life leaves much to be desired. Light usage will allow for a full day of use, but even slightly heavier usage that involves watching videos on Youtube and playing games will mean that you will need to charge your device in the middle of the day.
Heavy gaming will cause rapid battery drain with any smartphone, but I noticed that it was much faster with the ZenFone 3 Deluxe when compared to other flagship smartphones I’ve used recently like the Galaxy S7 Edge, Google Pixel, and OnePlus 3T. The phone typically lasts about 8 to 9 hours off the charger, which is significantly shy of what I would normally expect to get a full day’s worth of use. The phone does support Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0 though, so at least it doesn’t take a long time get it back to a full charge.
Camera
The Deluxe comes with a 23MP rear camera with a f/2.0 aperture, optical image stabilization, and a laser autofocus system. Up front is an 8MP shooter with the same aperture, and it works pretty well to cover all your selfie needs. A slew of beauty mode settings to take a better selfie are available to use with the front-facing camera, that can hide blemishes, change your skin tone, widen your eyes, and thin out your face.
The camera app is packed with a variety of features, and comes with 20 different shooting modes, including beautification, low light, depth of field, timelapse, and more, so there is a whole lot you can do with this camera. The built-in manual mode is surprisingly well fleshed out. Apart from the usual granular controls for white balance, exposure, ISO, shutter speed, and focus, you also get a built-in histogram and a horizontal level so you can get a perfectly straight shot every time.
With a 23MP shooter, you might expect the photos to be very well detailed, but that unfortunately just hasn’t been the case. The color reproduction and dynamic range are pretty good, but the images lack a lot of detail and sharpness, even in daylight shots. Shots do look fine overall, but zooming in is when you can really see the detail start to break down, and everything just appears rather soft.
In well-lit lighting conditions, the shutter is nice and fast, but in low-light conditions, it slows down drastically. The image quality also deteriorates and OIS doesn’t seem to be of any help here. There is a lot of noticeable noise and blooming in the highlights, and the overall image is just soft and lacking in detail or sharpness. It takes a good two or three seconds for the camera to capture a shot in low light, and that makes it really difficult to get a shot that was in focus. Any movement before you are sure that the camera has taken the picture will result in a blurry image.
What is impressive about the camera experience is all the features and shooting modes that are available, but quality of images it is able to capture is a little underwhelming to say the least.
Software
On the software side of things, the ZenFone 3 Deluxe is running Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow with the Zen UI on top. While many OEMs have been streamlining their user interfaces, AUS has gone in the opposite direction. Zen UI changes a lot of the Android experience, and comes jam packed with a ton of features which may or may not be all that useful.
If you prefer something more simplistic, the Zen UI can certainly feel a touch overwhelming. Some of the elements also feel slightly outdated. For example, the app drawer still houses all the widgets, which we haven’t seen on stock Android since the Ice Cream Sandwich and Jelly Bean days.
The out of the box is also very animation heavy, and while they do look good and flashy, some of the animations are quite long and can make something as simple as opening an app from a folder take more time that it should. You do have the option some of these, like the home screen scroll effects and folder animations to something shorter, but if you stick with the regular settings, it will make the experience feel a lot slower.
Zen UI is very reminiscent of Samsung’s TouchWiz from a few years ago. It is very bright, colorful, has a lot of cartoonish icons, and comes pre-installed with a handful of ASUS’s own bloatware applications. The experience can feel incohesive and bloated, but it isn’t all bad. There are some features that are useful, such as double tap to wake and sleep, a one handed operation mode, and a robust themes store that lets you change the look and feel of the UI.
Specifications
| Display | 5.7-inch Super AMOLED display 1080p resolution, 386 ppi |
| Processor | 2.15 GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 Adreno 530 GPU |
| RAM | 6 GB |
| Storage | 64/128/256 GB expandable via microSD card up to 256 GB |
| Camera | 23 MP rear camera, f/2.0 aperture, OIS, laser autofocus, dual LED flash 8 MP front-facing camera, f/2.0 aperture |
| Connectivity | Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac Bluetooth 4.2 NFC GPS + GLONASS IR USB Type-C (USB 3.0) |
| Battery | 3,000 mAh |
| Software | Android 6.0 Marshmallow |
| Dimensions | 156.4 x 77.4 x 7.5 mm 170 grams |
Gallery
Pricing and final thoughts
So there you have it for this in-depth look at the ASUS ZenFone 3 Deluxe! The device is priced at $499.99 which isn’t a bad price tag, but there are several other smartphones out there like the Axon 7 and the new OnePlus 3T that undercut this price, while offering very similar experiences.
The ZenFone 3 Deluxe features a beautiful design, a great looking display, and comes with a ton of features, but so do a lot of other smartphones, and the Deluxe just falls short in too many key areas to make it really stand out from the crowd.
Will Ferrell will bring eSports to the silver screen
According to Variety, Will Ferrell has reportedly signed on to star in an upcoming film about eSports. The as-of-yet untitled movie will feature Ferrell as a member of a pro gaming team with the twist being he’s super old for an industry where most people retire in their mid-20s. The film will also include appearances by the Evil Geniuses and Fnatic, two actual professional teams.
This marks a significant milestone in the development of eSports leagues. In just a few years, the industry has gone from hobbyist pastime to niche sideshow to legitimate entertainment attraction (and investment). Heck, last year’s League of Legends finals garnered more views than the NBA’s championship. Now, eSports have so thoroughly integrated into the mainstream that the industry is being depicted in other mediums including television, Facebook and board games.
Source: Variety
How to enable battery percentage on the Pixel
Easily enable battery percentage on the Pixel with System UI Tuner.
Enabling battery percentage is standard fare if you’re using a handset made by Samsung, LG, or HTC. All you need to do is head into your phone’s settings and toggle an option to display the percentage in the battery icon. Getting it to show up on the Pixel isn’t as straightforward, but it is relatively easy.
How to enable battery percentage on the Pixel
Swipe down on the notification shade.
Press and hold on the Settings gear icon for five seconds.
You’ll see a notification that says System UI Tuner has been enabled.
Open Settings.
Navigate to System UI Tuner.
In the System UI Tuner menu, select Status bar.
Navigate to the bottom of the page to find the option for Battery.
Select Always show percentage.
Now you’ll see the battery percentage in the status bar icon.
That’s all there is to it. Even though the battery percentage is displayed by default once you enable the option, the value gets switched out to a “+” symbol once the phone goes into battery-saver mode.
Google Pixel + Pixel XL
- Google Pixel and Pixel XL review
- Google Pixel XL review: A U.S. perspective
- Google Pixel FAQ: Should you upgrade?
- Pixel + Pixel XL specs
- Understanding Android 7.1 Nougat
- Join the discussion in the forums!
Google Store
Verizon
Instagram now lets you like comments and remove followers from private accounts
Trolls, spammers, and unwanted followers, be-gone! Instagram’s got your back with their latest update that adds an extra layer of safety to your profile.
Instagram has always given you the option to make your profile public or private, and deleting and blocking IG comments has always been easy, but now the popular social media app is letting you get a bit more hands-on with those who interact with your content.
Today we’re beginning to roll out our next set of tools and controls to help people feel safe expressing themselves on Instagram and improve the comments experience. This update includes: Turning off commenting for individual posts, the ability to remove followers for private accounts, and comment liking.
After rolling out their custom keyword filter that monitored and restricted certain keywords in comments, Instagram has also added an anonymous option for reporting self-injury.
It’s super cool to see that such a major social media platform is making it easier for us to feel protected online, but a small part of me wonders if this isn’t just another layer of over-protective bubble wrap that may end up eventually suffocating rather than saving?
What do you think about Instagram’s latest update?
Spotify now lets you control Sonos speakers from its app
Stream to your Sonos speakers straight from Spotify.
Premium Spotify users can now stream music to Sonos speakers directly from within the Spotify app using Spotify Connect. Spotify has teamed up with Sonos to better integrate the popular music service with the high-end wireless speakers, and the result looks pretty damn cool. In essence, if you have Sonos speakers set up throughout your home and rely on Spotify Premium for your music, you can control both your Spotify music and your Sonos speakers all through the Spotify app. The announcement comes after a brief beta testing period.
Check out the video Sonos released to announce the new feature:
Now you can quickly tap to cast the music playing in your headphones to your Sonos speakers when you arrive home — all within the Spotify app — so you never skip a beat. You’re also able to group and ungroup Sonos speakers as needed right from the Spotify app, so you can bring your whole home to life with music or keep it all contained to one room on the fly.
It’s all apart of the new integration between the Sonos and Spotify apps, which actually goes both ways. so you can start your playlist in the Spotify app, then switch over and control everything from the Sonos app, if you so prefer. If you’ve got Spotify Premium and some Sonos speakers set up around your home, make sure to keep an eye out for these new features in the Spotify app.
See Sonos on Amazon
Tweet an emoji at Google for a fun reply
A cute distraction.
Admittedly, it’s always fun to tweet random emoji at Google’s Twitter account, but that’s not how this works. In an effort to show off how powerful its search engine’s Nearby capabilities really are, Google is tweeting back.
Here’s how it works: Tweet an emoji at the official Google account on Twitter and it will reply. You might get a GIF reply, as has been the case for anyone tweeting food emoji, or you might find yourself reciting Destiny’s Child lyrics. The point is to tweet an emoji that can activate Google’s Know Nearby capabilities. Not all emoji will work, but the official Google Twitter account will do its best to satisfy you with query results. Here is mine:
@Ohthatflo Click https://t.co/jx2AJYZ1LP and we’ll shoyu. #KnowNearby pic.twitter.com/j0Dl7l37IS
— Google (@Google) December 6, 2016
- Try it for yourself!
Google just made Android app updates way smaller — again!
App updates are awesome. Burning mobile data to download them isn’t.
There aren’t many people who turn off automatic app updates as soon as they get a new phone, but many who do say the biggest reason is data usage. If you only have 4GB of data in a month, losing 200 megabytes every month to seemingly-constant Instagram and Facebook updates is a waste of bandwidth. At the same time, not updating apps means efforts made to improve your experience have been lost until you remember to go look and see if there’s an update for you the next time you’re on Wi-Fi.
Google tried to address this problem not too long ago by using an algorithm that helped optimize the size of an APK. Now, that process is being taken one step further with file-by-file patching, and according to Google it’s going to dramatically reduce the size of app updates.
Google has a full and detailed explanation of how this new process will work on the Android Developers blog, but the bottom line is you can expect anywhere between a 65% to 90% decrease in the size of your average app update. You’ll also start to see update size information in the Play Store description, so you know what you’re getting into before you click the download button.
Check out the Android Developers Blog for more!
Netflix finally adds video previews to help you decide what to watch
We’ve all been there: it’s 8 pm on a Monday night, and you’re scrolling through Netflix looking for something to watch, only you can’t decide.
But have you ever looked at the art displayed for shows and movies and wondered why Netflix couldn’t just give us a little trailer clip, or something, rather than a still image? Surely that could help us decide quicker whether something is worth watching. Well, apparently someone at Netflix has had this same thought, because it’s just added a new feature to improve our TV-viewing experience: video previews.
- How to watch Netflix on TV: Your complete guide
- Netflix review: The leading light in home entertainment
In order to help you find something you want to watch in its massive streaming catalogue, the company is adding video previews, which you can see while browsing through Netflix’s content. It enables us to get an idea of a show or movie without having to hit play. The previews aren’t trailers but are synopses for “quickly highlighting the story, characters, and tone of a title”.
We realise this is a simple update, but it’s huge. The new previews should mean you’ll be watching movies by 8:15 pm on Monday night, rather 9 pm, and better yet, you may be happier in the end with your decision, because you’ll have a better idea of what the show or movie is about from the get-go. We’re excited to try video previews, which should start rolling out on 6 December.
Video previews will appear in the Netflix app for game consoles, Roku devices, and smart TVs in the coming weeks and months. It is being launched globally, so if you don’t get the feature straightaway, no worries. Just be patient.
You now have another way to watch 4K content: Google Play
One week after Hulu joined the ranks of Amazon and Netflix by streaming content in Ultra HD, Google Play has begun making the same move.
Google first made movies available on Android devices in the US five years ago, and at the time, you could only rent movies from three major studios. Now, its Google Play Movies app sells just about any movie and TV show you might want to watch – in 117 countries. You can watch those digital movies and shows not on your Android phone, but also your iOS device, laptop, TV, and set-top box.
- How to watch 4K Ultra HD content on TV and online
So, to be honest, it’s about time for the company to offer its content in 4K. Starting 6 December, Google Play Movies now offers more than 125 movies in 4K resolution in the US and Canada. You can purchase 4K movies on your Android device or the web, but you can only stream them with a Chromecast Ultra, Sony Bravia Android TV, or Xiaomi Mi Box 3.
We’re assuming support for more devices is in the works. Google said that all movies on the Play store use the VP9 codec, which means you should experience a sharp picture quality and reliable streaming.
Stand-out titles in 4K include Ghostbusters, Star Trek Beyond, Captain Phillips, and The Secret Life of Pets.
Google Play adds 4K movies to its catalog
When we reviewed the Chromecast Ultra, one of our biggest gripes was the dearth of 4K content to justify it — not even Google’s own movie store had material to watch. The company is fixing that glaring omission, though. As of now, Google Play Movies & TV carrying over 125 4K movies in the American and Canadian stores. You’ll have to buy them (no 4K rentals yet), but you can choose from big-name movies like Captain Philips, Star Trek Beyond and The Secret Life of Pets. If you own a Chromecast Ultra, you’ll even get a free movie (from a handful of approved selections) as a reward for your early adopter status.
You’ll need to own a 4K-capable device to watch, of course. Besides the Chromecast Ultra, Google is pointing to newer Sony TVs and the Xiaomi Mi Box 3 as examples of hardware that can handle Google Play’s higher-resolution catalog. This isn’t an exclusive list, of course, and Google is quick to add that 4K titles will come to other countries in the future.
Google certainly isn’t the first major video provider with 4K movies — Netflix, Vudu and Hulu have beaten it to the punch. However, this is a big deal if you thrive in the Google ecosystem. You now have a go-to place for premium 4K video right from the get-go, without having to turn to third-party services.
Source: Google Blog
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