Hands on: First impressions of the ASUS ZenFone Selfie

In a rather loud and very crowded event in Delhi on August 6, ASUS India launched a series of phones and tablets primarily aimed at the smartphone photographer, selfie generation and stylistas. Post the event, we checked out the devices and here’s what we found--in this case their selfie-focused smartphone, the eponymous ZenFone Selfie.

The ZenFone Selfie goes to great lengths to pander to the narcissist in you--named as such, this 5.5-inch phone basically puts a 13MP camera on its front, aiming to deliver a no compromise selfie-taking experience. In this era of relentless self-promotion and the need to ‘get yourself into the scene’, here’s a device that actually manages to pull out the stops on this front.


 
The first thing a selfie fiend will notice on this 5.5-inch phone is its prominent camera lens front and center, up top. It also has a dual-LED ‘real tone’ flash beside it that aims to deliver more natural skin tones in photos. This 13MP camera with its f/2.2 aperture make for pretty good pictures, coupled with its mandatory set of ‘beautification’ modes, there’s plenty to keep ardent face-shooters busy. This front camera has a wider-than-usual 88-degree field of view, so come selfie time you can pack more friends into the frame.

Like the ZenFone 2 Deluxe, this one also has a Full HD display along with Gorilla Glass 4, delivering a very sharp display and photo review experience.



The back cover of the phone sports a satin-type finish that is apparently smooth to hold. But, in the long run, this would increase the chances of it slipping right out of your hands. The rear shooter is 13MP as well, but with a slightly better f/2.0 lens and a narrower 75-degree field of view. This camera comes with the new laser focusing system which we found to work as advertised--the 0.3 seconds to focus claim seemed about right. We’ll know more when we put it through our full-fledged review though. The volume rocker as center-back continues here as well, which you may or may not like. We aren’t particularly fond of this button placement.
 
The photos we took were crisp, with balanced colours, albeit a tad on the underexposed side when used for indoor photography.
 
This phone, based on the popular 1.7GHz Snapdragon 615 processor and Adreno 405 GPU put the phone on par with numerous others in its price range on the performance front. The version we used packed 3GB of RAM which made for a smooth user experience, although in all fairness the phone was nowhere near being packed with real-world apps, files and images that could slow it down.
 
Stay tuned for the complete review coming up shortly. Meanwhile, read more about the launch event here.