rediff.com
News APP

NewsApp (Free)

Read news as it happens
Download NewsApp

Available on  gplay

Rediff.com  » Getahead » These two Asus Zenfones are the new Budget Kings
This article was first published 9 years ago

These two Asus Zenfones are the new Budget Kings

Last updated on: July 11, 2014 15:56 IST

Image: Asus Zenfone 4
Photographs: asus.com Himanshu Juneja

Asus Zenfone 4 and Zenfone 5 are clearly targetted at Moto E and Moto G and in days to come can seriously dent their market, says Himanshu Juneja

Asus on Wednesday unveiled 3 of its mobile phones and created quite a buzz with the latest entries, as they seem to be placed nicely to take on the competition in their respective segments. Asus made it quite clear that they are not here to just fill the numbers.

The three phones are from the Zenfone series, and are named Zenfone 4, Zenfone 5 and Zenfone 6 respectively. Among these, the Zenfone 4 and Zenfone 5 are particularly garnering a lot of interest because they are priced sub Rs 10,000.

Let us take a look into what these smartphones have on offer.

Asus Zenfone 4

There is no doubt that Asus marked Motorola to compete with, thanks to the stellar show by Moto E in the recent months.

One look at the specs of the Zenfone 4, and any doubts regarding its segment and intended rival vanishes. The Zenfone 4 is pitted directly against the Moto E.

Both phones are clocked at 1.2Ghz (different chipsets), carry 1GB of RAM, and have a 5MP front facing cameras. Apart from these, the phones are Dual SIM phones. But this is where the similarity ends.

At 5999, the Zenfone 4 is priced Rs 1,000 lesser than the Moto E. The Intel based chipset claims hyper-threading of 4 threads instead of 2 threads of Moto E. This means, that on paper at the least, Zenfone 5 will be better than the Moto E in terms of performance.

Another plus point is that the Asus's phone has 8 GB of internal memory than Moto E's 4GB. This well might come in handy and near about eliminates an immediate need of a memory card.

Speaking of the memory card, Zenfone supports memory cards up to 64GB worth of capacity, while Moto E's limit is half of it, that is, 32GB.

The Zenfone trumps the Moto E in the front facing camera department as well, by offering a 0.3 MP camera, whereas there is none in the Moto E.

Asus has provided plethora of colour options for the Zenfone 4 right at the beginning, whereas Moto E comes with two colours only, and its replaceable back panels are coming for a pretty price of Rs 660 at the moment.

Speaking about the advantages of the Moto E, it carries a slightly bigger display at 4.3" instead of the 4.0" display of Zenfone 4. Not a huge margin here.

At a resolution of 540 x 960 pixels, the Moto E beats the Zenfone 4, as the latter carries a resolution of 480 x 800 pixels. This means Moto E is again slightly ahead with a pixel density of 256ppi, vs the 233 ppi of Zenfone 4.

The areas where Moto E really trumps the Zenfone 4 is the software side.

Moto E comes with Kitkat version of android with a good chance of Android L on the cards, whereas the Zenfone 4 carries Android Jellybean out of the box. Asus should have taken care of this aspect.

Of course they can and should be able to compete here as well by just committing themselves to the next updates. The hardware is there to do so.

The Li-Ion battery of the Moto E shows higher capacity, but with Zenfone's Li-Polymer battery promising 10 hours of talktime should make a match out of it.

The Moto E provides the option of FM radio to the user, whereas this feature is sorely missing on the Zenfone 4.

Finally, it really should boil down to personal preferences here. The market hasn’t really seen a good mobile phone with a 4" screen for quite some time, and Asus' effort to get slightly more processing power with a front facing camera should appeal to people who value these advantages, whereas Moto E should be able to attract customers based on latest Android version and availability of radio for the music lovers.

Although, the extra memory support via the memory card should be able to attend to this gap by a decent margin.

Please click NEXT to read about Asus Zenfone 5

Asus Zenfone 5

Image: Asus Zenfone 5
Photographs: asus.com Himanshu Juneja

The Asus Zenfone 5 has some good advantages over the Moto G. First up, and one really cannot overlook, is the fact that it is a decent bit cheaper than the Moto G.
Rs 2,500 is not a small margin, and is redefining the budget segment.

The Zenfone 5 has a bigger display as well. At 5 inches, it is trumping the Moto G's 4.5" easily, but having a same resolution means the pixel density takes a hit.

The display on the Zenfone 5 may be bigger, but will lose out on the sharpness to Moto G. Yet, the display on the Zenfone 5 seemed pretty decent.

Both the phones carry corning gorilla glass 3 for protection, which was good to see.

The Zenfone's processor is capable of handling 4 threads during its performance.

This combined with 2GB RAM means the phone definitely is better while performing and especially while carrying out multitasking jobs.

Moto G comes with only 1 GB worth of RAM.

Another serious claim to superiority for the Zenfone 5 is the camera department. It carries an 8 MP Camera with LED flash. The Moto G comes with 5MP camera and no flash at all. This might be a factor for the shutterbugs out there.

The Zenfone's 2MP front facing camera also is double the pixels than Moto G.

The Moto G did miss out the trick by not including a flash for the camera. Another area which really is a sore point for many is the absence of a memory card slot. Zenfone addresses this and allows the users to bring in memory cards up to 64GB. This will be a huge factor for people considering a good budget choice.

The Moto G nudges ahead of the Zenfone in terms of operating system. With the latest of the Android version available, and news for the next Android L being nearly confirmed, this might generate interest. Also, the Moto G carries the option of FM radio, whereas the Zenfone left this feature out. But again, with bigger memory card support, this should be nullified to some extent.

All in all, the advantages of the Zenfone 5 cannot be ruled out, and especially with its price tag, it seems the Zenfone 5 is here to spoil the party for the Moto G.

One announcement regarding OS updates, and it will be well and truly the new budget King.