All of a sudden, there has been an onslaught of big-battery phones in the market. You know what the best part is? You don't (even) have to burn a hole in your pocket to get a hold of one of these big-battery phones. The combination -- big battery plus mainstream price -- is quite a steal, and it's no surprise then, that more and more companies are now actively toying with the idea simply because, there's a lot of consumer interest -- specifically -- in this product category. Asus is one of those companies. The company actually has a dedicated line-up of big-battery phones -- carrying the Max moniker -- that are also quite affordable.
The original ZenFone Max came with a whopping 5,000mAh battery. It was, however, made of plastic. Its successor, the ZenFone 3 Max, meanwhile, came with a full-metal body. But, it crammed a smaller 4,100mAh battery inside. Clearly, the Max range from Asus has (always) been about one or the other compromise, for better or for worse.
With the newly launched ZenFone 3s Max, however, Asus is looking to change all that. The ZenFone 3s Max, as a result, doesn't compromise on battery capacity. It doesn't compromise on looks (and feel) as well.
The ZenFone 3s Max is quite a looker
It comes with an almost all-metal body. It is slim (8.85mm) and weighs in at just 175 gram, which was -- once upon a time -- a rare feat for an Asus ZenFone. Not anymore. To recall, the ZenFone 3 Max was (also) on very similar lines. Asus has also managed to get the bezels right, so much so that the ZenFone 3s Max boasts of a pretty impressive 75 per cent screen-to-body ratio. Not bad, not bad at all.
The underlying principle may be the same - as the one governing its predecessor -- but Asus' new phone is a different phone altogether, especially if you were to talk about its looks, and looks alone. Unlike the ZenFone 3 Max, the ZenFone 3s Max looks a lot more original, even with its kind of, sort of dated design elements. The biggest difference, perhaps, is the positioning of the fingerprint scanner. It now lies on the front, and also doubles as a home button. Asus claims, it can unlock the phone in just 0.5 seconds. It's safe to say that it lives up to the company's claims (well, almost). The phone, also comes with on-screen navigation keys this time round. Both these aspects are in sharp contradiction to how things were in the case of the ZenFone 3 Max. The rear-mounted fingerprint scanner on-board the ZenFone 3 Max was (relatively) slow and definitely one of the most inaccurate ones around. Also, it came with physical capacitive keys on the bottom of the display which were non-backlit. The ZenFone 3s Max -- when you look at it in its entirety -- is a considerably more mature effort from the company in question.
The ZenFone 3s Max, as a result, doesn't compromise on battery capacity. It doesn't compromise on looks (and feel) as well
It really helps that the ZenFone 3s Max is an equally well-built phone. Gradual curves and rounded corners form its epicenter and help ergonomics; while 2.5D curved glass on the front looks pleasing to the eyes. But, it's an all-metal phone so you'll have to get used to all that extra smoothness on-board. The power button and the volume rocker on the right are well-built and offer good tactile feedback. A hybrid card slot meanwhile rests on the left. The phone comes with a bottom-firing mono speaker.
The ZenFone 3s Max has best in-class battery life
The main USP of the ZenFone 3s Max is said to be its 5,000 mAh battery which is rated to deliver "up to 34 days of 4G standby time, 28 hours talk-time on 3G and 25 hours of web browsing over WiFi on single charge," according to the company.
Battery life in a word is fantastic: the phone lasted for up to 16 hours (dropping to below 20 per cent) in our continuous battery loop test after all. While heavy usage -- that saw us playing lots of games, 1080p video playback, phone calls, web browsing and managing multiple social media accounts -- gave us close to one full day (24 hours), mixed usage gave us close to two days, on the device. A more generalised usage should see most users sail through two to two and a half days effortlessly. In addition, the ZenFone 3s Max also boasts of outstanding standby time, and loses almost no charge when you keep it untouched overnight. The phone, moreover, comes with as many as five different power saving modes should you be looking to squeeze out more juice from it.
The ZenFone 3s Max, much like all Max phones, also supports reverse charging and can therefore be used as a portable power bank to charge other gadgets via OTG.
While battery life is phenomenal, it's disappointing that the phone doesn't support a fast charging technology and does not ship with a fast charger in the box. Instead, it ships with a regular charger and takes an awfully long time to charge completely.
"At the time when we were designing the phone; our focus was on a big battery. You need fast charging because your battery is not enough. But with the Max, from the beginning, we aspired for a phone that you won't have to charge all day and charge it only when you go back home, overnight," Peter Chang who is region head, South Asia and country manager for Asus India, explained to me during the launch of the original ZenFone 3 Max. Looks like, the company is still sticking with the same philosophy.
But, the ZenFone 3s Max is all downhill from there
The ZenFone 3s Max comes with a 5.2-inch 720p screen that is bright (enough) but colours on-board seem to be a little washed out. Even though the screen of the ZenFone 3s Max gets effectively bright, colours aren't always the most accurate. They seem dull and lifeless, and lacking in contrast. There's also no option to manually tinker with the phone's colour saturation. The phone also leaves you asking for more when it comes to viewing angles. These are just about average.
The phone is powered by a 1.5GHz octa-core MediaTek MT6750 processor clubbed with Mali T860 GPU and 3GB RAM. It comes with 32GB of internal memory which is further expandable by up to 2TB via a hybrid microSD card slot.
And because, competition is giving you better these days, the ZenFone 3s Max ought to be judged based on that. Basic tasks are handled (mostly) well, which means you can make phone calls, text and WhatsApp, watch movies, listen to music, browse some Internet and also play less demanding games on it, rather at ease, most of the time. But it is prone to lag or stutter every once in a while, especially when being used for longer periods. Lags or stutter exist even while navigating between home screens and switching between apps. Opening and closing of apps is also accompanied by an odd delay or two. More demanding games like Asphalt 8: Airborne meanwhile are nearly unplayable at medium and maxed-out settings.
A lot of this also has to do with the phone's software. The phone seems to be lacking in necessary optimisation which results in frequent lags and delays while navigating between home screens and opening and closing of apps.
Speaking of which, you get Google's very latest Android 7.0 Nougat on this one, with Asus' proprietary skin (ZenUI 3.0) on top. The user interface is heavily bloated, but thankfully receives all the key Android Nougat features like multi-window support, a revamped drop-down notification menu, improved battery management and more. Although there's some heavy skinning, Asus has stuck with the good-old formula of ease-of-use and some thoughtful customisations through its UI which is nice.
The Mobile Manager app deserves a mention here since it's aimed at making your life a lot easier. It lets you directly uninstall all apps that you're sure you're not going to use. There will be a few apps (system) that you cannot uninstall though. You can selectively disable them, however, from within the app itself.
The Mobile Manger also lets you control data usage (selectively), free RAM, check for privacy concerns and track battery consumption.
While we are on 'consumption' the ZenFone 3s Max "features a very loud mono 5-magnet loudspeaker which produces high-fidelity sound with very less distortions compared to the competition," according to Asus. That's a lot of marketing talk, however. The mono speaker vent on the bottom edge of the phone churns out average at best audio. It gets loud but there is some distortion at peak volume.
Phone calls made with the ZenFone 3s Max are of acceptable quality and we did not encounter any odd call drops on our review unit. The phone supports 4G LTE (VoLTE-ready) on both SIMs, although you can use only one SIM and one microSD card simultaneously if you're looking for more memory.
The ZenFone 3s Max sports a 13-megapixel camera on the rear with f/2.0 aperture, Phase Detection Autofocus and dual-LED (real-tone) flash.
Photos clicked using its rear camera in good lighting come out well, with good detail and colours which are mostly true to source. Dynamic range is fairly good, but sometimes there are metering (overexposure) issues. But the camera is good for only subjects that are not moving.
This is because, even though the phone is pretty quick to focus, there's an odd delay or two, or shutter lag accompanied with every shot. This means, if your subject is on the move, you're most definitely bound to get blurry photos. At the same time, some pixilation is observed while zooming into the images clicked using the phone, which would be more pronounced when you view them on a big screen. In tricky and low light, the phone's built-in night mode helps achieve slightly better results, although, more often than not photos clicked in such situations have lots of noise and some metering issues.
The phone's front 8MP shooter, meanwhile, clicks pretty-detailed selfies, even in tricky light.
Should you buy it?
The Asus ZenFone 3s Max is a one-trick pony, the trick being its fabulous battery life. It also manages to look good, if you're looking for that sort of thing. But, it's all downhill from there. The ZenFone 3s Max has an average screen, average performance, average set of cameras and no fast charging. Also it costs Rs 14,999.
The Xiaomi Redmi Note 4, the Lenovo P2 (and the K6 Note), the Moto G4 Plus and the Huawei Honor 4X are better phones in comparison. You know what the best part is? All of these phones have good battery life as well. As for the ZenFone 3s Max, its only saving grace at the moment is the fact that it will be available for buying from both online as well as offline channels, which means you'll actually be able to buy it. Even then, you're better off with a Zenfone 3 Max (ZC520TL) which retails for Rs 12,999.
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