Asus Zenfone 4 A400CG Review: Rounding Out the Family

 

Look and feel
The Zenfone 4 is pretty small by today's standards, which means it's very easy to hold and use. It's very slightly shorter and wider than an iPhone 5, but quite a bit thicker. The bulging back in fact makes it more comfortable in the hand.
Our Zenfone 4 test unit came with a striking satiny blue rear panel, though black, white and red are also available. It's a high-quality finish, but we really wonder why Asus printed its own logo in red, right beneath the camera lens and speaker grille. There are also prominent white Intel Inside and Zenfone logos on the bottom rear.
The front is pretty consistent with the larger two Zenfones - there are three capacitive buttons below the screen and a speaker and camera above it. The lower lip and buttons have the distinct concentric circle texture that all Asus's Zen products have, but in this case it's all plastic and much less apparent.
The power and volume buttons are on the right edge, while the Micro-USB port is on the right and headset socket is on the top. There are two SIM card slots on the left edge, beneath the removable cover. The microSD card slot is to the left of the camera lens, right above the battery cavity. Unlike its bigger siblings, the Zenfone 4 has a removable battery.

Specifications and Software
With reduced prices come reduced specifications. The screen is a 4-inch 480x800-pixel panel which really isn't very bright and has poor viewing angles. The processor is a relatively low-end Intel Atom Z2520, which is a dual-core 1.2GHz model with Hyper-Threading and integrated PowerVR SGX544MP2 graphics. The 1GB of RAM and 8GB of internal storage space are both on the higher side for phones in this price range, and will help keep things fresh and snappy for a while. You also get Wi-Fi b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, A-GPS, an accelerometer and proximity sensor. The essentials are all accounted for, except maybe an ambient light sensor for automatic brightness control.
Asus ships the Zenfone 4 with Android 4.3, and there's quite a heavy skin on it called ZenUI. For the most part, we like Asus' work. The lock screen is clean and simple with all the required functionality - a big clock, weather information, notifications, alarm time, and shortcuts to the phone, messaging and camera apps. The shortcut icons also show the number of missed notifications, but strangely, you can't see who called or messaged.



Camera
Asus has packed quite a few filters and effects into its camera app. There are twelve modes to play with, including Time Rewind, Night, Selfie, Miniature, Smart Remove, All Smiles and GIF Animation. A Time Lapse mode is available when recording video. These work to varying degrees, but it takes quite a while to process some effects such as fake depth of field. There are also assorted filters which are applied before taking shots - Pencil, Cartoon, Lomo, Sepia, and more.
Party Link is a feature that uses Wi-Fi to sync photos between Asus phones as soon as they're taken. One person creates a group, and then others in the vicinity can join it. Other options you can adjust include image size, burst, anti-shake, face detection, auto focus mode, face detection, ISO, white balance and EV. It's a pretty broad range of capabilities for such an inexpensive device.

Images measure only 2560x1440 (16:9) by default, but you can choose the larger 2560x1920 (4:3) if you prefer. Despite the low resolution, our test photos came out surprisingly sharp and clear. Other phones in this price range have fixed-focus lenses, but the Zenfone 4 has full autofocus and you can tap anywhere on the screen to change focus and metering. Close-up shots are far better than landscapes, but even so, the amount of detail in shots is remarkable. Even in low light, quality isn't bad at all - there's no flash, but we've seen far worse photos from phones which are twice as expensive or more. Even the front camera does an admirable job - another area in which budget phones typically don't do well at all.