Asus Zenfone 3 Ultra Review

Calling Asus Zenfone 3 Ultra, a smartphone isn’t right because it isn’t one. It is one mammoth of a device that was launched link with the Zenfone 3 and Zenfone 3 Deluxe in India last year. These large screened phones or phablets are preferred by people who love watching movies or videos on the go or gamers in case the hardware is good enough to support graphic intensive games. So if you’re either of the two, please continue to read the Asus Zenfone 3 Ultra review.

Asus Zenfone 3 Ultra SAR Value : Not mentioned on the box or Device

Asus Zenfone 3 Ultra – Unboxed

Inside the box, you get pretty regular stuff like

Asus Zenfone 3 Ultra Mobile phone itself
A Power Adapter (supports QC 3.0)
Headphone
Data cable
SIM eject tool
Quick Start Guide

Asus Zenfone 3 Ultra Review : Design, Build

In terms of design, Zenfone 3 Ultra does not have anything fancy however the device looks extremely elegant and beautiful. The massive phone weighs around 230 grams and feels pretty balanced in hand. Thanks to the large screen the phablet is impossible to operate/manage by one hand.

On the front, you have the led indicator, a front-facing camera on the top, earpiece and regular sensors.While at the bottom of the display you can find the backlit touch capacitive Android button and the fingerprint sensor embedded in the home button.

On the right, you have a power button and two separate nano sim trays one of which supports either the second nano-SIM or a microSD card slot and nothing on the left side of the device. A 3.5 mm headphone jack along with a mic is located on the top while the USB type C charging post and speakers can be found at the bottom. The volume rocker has been placed on the back of the device. The back of the device is rather plain with only Asus and Zenfone brand and the Rear Camera along with dual-tone LED and laser sensors are located at the top left corner of ZenFone 3 Ultra. Overall build quality ios great and the phone feels quite good in hand although its way too large for my liking.

Overall build quality ios great and the phone feels quite good in hand although its way too large for my liking. I like the way Asus has removed the antenna bands and are barely visible giving the phablet a neat and uncluttered look. Asus could’ve done away with the thick bezels from the front top and bottom on the Zenfone # Ultra and could’ve reduced the overall size of the device. The weird alignment of the home button and the soft Android buttons makes them look ugly and out of the place.

: Hardware, Performance, and Display

In terms of the hardware on Zenfone 3 Ultra, it packs a 1.8 GHz Octa Core Qualcomm 652 along with 4GB ram which does perform exceptionally well. There were no lags or hiccups whatsoever. I loved playing games like Nova, Asphalt 8, Gods of Rome, OC2 and NFS No Limit. I did not notice any stutter or lag whatsoever. I used the phone for playing games and watching videos more than any other device ever that I have reviewed, thanks to the sheer screen size. The phone did heat up a bit after around 45-50 minutes of continuous gameplay, however, it was never uncomfortable.

Asus has been including a lot of bloatware in their smartphones, which we have pointed out in all our reviews starting from Asus Zenfone Max, Asus Zenfone Max(2016), Asus Zenfone 3, Asus Zenfone 3 Max, Asus Zenfone 3S Max. The performance of almost all of them was affected due to the bloatware preinstalled. The 4GB RAM present on the phone does come in handy here. In terms of additional features, I didn’t find anything unique worth mentioning here as almost everything is same as the other phones of Asus.

If you’re planning to buy this phone than Display has to be top most priority and the Zenfone 3 Ultra does not disappoint. The Full HD panel has near perfect color rendition and found no issues in outdoor usage. Although, given display being a priority, a higher resolution display would’ve been great.

Asus Zenfone 3 Ultra Review: Camera and Battery

Zenfone 3 Ultra does pack one of the beefiest battery pack (4600 mAh) in a smartphone and it easily gave us 2 days of usage which included browsing, watching videos and playing a few games with Reliance Jio sim connected to 4G VoLTE. In the case of regular calls, the battery lasted beyond 2 days with any issue which is a splendid backup. It would’ve been a shame if the phone did not have such a battery backup.

The camera on Zenfone 3 Ultra left much to be desired. The phone comes with a 23MP rear camera with dual-tone LED Flash, a Sony IMX318 sensor and f/2.0 aperture and laser auto focus. It also has a 4-axis OIS and 3-axis EIS. On papers, this is one of the best few setups however, it falls just short of expectations. Images shot on the phone looks great till the time you zoom in. You can easily notice noise present n images with artificial lighting. Color reproduction was good however despite having a Laser focus assist, the camera struggled with correct focus.

Like the previous devices, there are plenty of modes including panorama, slow-motion, time-lapse, gif animation etc and a lot of tweaks and settings to control the camera as well. Videos shot on the Zenfone 3 Ultra were good thanks to OIS but the phone did heat up considerably when shooting videos in 4K resolution