Asus ZenFone 6 Hands-On And First Look: The Affordable Priced Phablet That Also Looks Great

Rating:

4.0/5

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PROS

• Large Display
• Beautiful Design
• User-friendly UI

CONS

• Processor
• Heavy and cumbersome to handle

The so-called "phablets" have come a long way from being mere large screen phones. These handsets are having screen sizes greater than 5 and smaller than 7-inches, making them (sort of) tablet and a smartphone at the same time.

There are a whole lot of phablets out there in the market, but very few of them have managed to entice consumers. If one goes by their specifications, all phablets can be compared to a high-end smartphone; there are simply no cheaper or rather affordable large screen phones available in the market these days.

Over the past few months, some of the biggest tech titans in the industry have revealed large screen handsets. However, most of them drew less attention, thanks to their exuberant price tags.

Earlier this week, Taiwanese giant Asus launched its popular ZenFone smartphone lineup here in India. The Asus ZenFone 6 is the largest handset in the ZenFone lineup. The insanely gorgeous handset has a massive 6-inch display and will cost you less than Rs. 18,000.

Asus is coming late to the phablet game, and it remains to be seen whether the company is offering enough new and better features to remain competitive. We will find out more in our hands-on review of the Asus ZenFone 6.

Asus ZenFone 6 - From Factor, Design and Operating System

Like any other 6-inch handset, the ZenFone 6 is extremely large. The device measures at 9.9mm in terms of thickness and weighs in at approximately 200g. Yes indeed, the phone seemed to be bulky when we held it for the first time. We do recommend you to check out some other handset in the ZenFone range instead of the ZenFone 6.

Build quality is similar to the ZenFone 5; the device is completely made out of plastic. Look wise the ZenFone 6 is appealing in nature. It has shiny concentric circles beneath the screen. It's just there to create an impression of being a premium handset.

Nonetheless, the new ZenFone 6 is way bulkier compared to similar handset in the same league. It is impossible to operate the phone for more than 3 minutes at a stretch.

With a 6-inch display, the Asus ZenFone 6 is a mid-end phablet and offers a resolution of 720 x 1280 pixels, resulting in a relatively good pixel density of 245 ppi. Asus is using a low-resolution display to keep the price down, and that's somewhat understandable. The screen is also protected by Gorilla Glass 3. Despite all odds, we really liked the quality of the screen. Texts look readable even under the direct light. Moreover, the screen provides decent colors and good viewing angles.

The demo version of the Asus ZenFone 6 we played with was running the Android 4.3 Jelly Bean. The company says the device will be updated to the Android 4.4 Kitkat, but there is no fixed time line planned. As mentioned above, the phone runs on Android 4.3 Jelly Bean with Asus' ZenUI slapped on top.

The UI is very simple and easy to understand. Again it's not a stock Android, but the UI is surprisingly user friendly. There are a couple of native apps preloaded on the phone that may not be useful.