Asus Zenfone 3S Max Review

Asus is one of the most popular Smartphone manufacturers in India and their rise to fame was mostly because of their Zenfone lineup of Android Smartphones that started to offer a very premium hardware and software experience within a very budget pricing.

The main reason for the success of Asus in India is indeed their brand value. They have been recently very aggressive in the Indian Smartphone market with their product launches. One of the recently launched product from Asus was the Asus Zenfone 3 Max. The Zenfone 3 Max turned out to be a very power packed Android Smartphone experience within the price range.

And now very shortly within, Asus is back with yet another powerful and economic Android Smartphone, the Asus Zenfone 3S Max. Even though the naming does sound very familiar with the earlier launched product, the Zenfone 3S Max brings quite some incremental upgrades than its predecessor.

Today, we have got a chance to review the latest product launch from Asus, the Asus Zenfone 3S Max and here we are with an in depth review of the experience we had with the Asus Zefone 3S Max Android Smartphone.

Hardware Specifications of the Asus Zenfone 3S Max:

To begin with, lets get away with the internal hardware specifications of the Asus Zenfone 3S Max.

Powering the device is an octa core MediaTek MT6750 chipset that features a 1.5 GHz quad core processor and another 1 GHz quad core processor. There is also 3GB of RAM provided in the Zenfone 3S Max for superior multi tasking performance.

The internal storage space provided is of 32GB wherein you can expand the same up to an additional 256GB using a MicroSD card.

Talking about the display, there is a 5.2 inch IPS LCD display with 2.5D curved glass that features a 1280×720 pixel HD resolution.

The primary camera sensor in the Zenfone 3S Max is of 13 MP resolution and f2.0 aperture. Features of the primary camera includes phase detection autofocus along with a two-tone LED flash and 1080p Full HD video recording at 30 fps.

There is also a secondary camera with a 8 MP resolution and video recording support for 720p HD videos at 30 fps.
Following the recent rise in 4G LTE connectivity and the availability of VoLTE supported Smartphones, the Asus Zenfone 3S Max features both a dual SIM 4G LTE connectivity and VoLTE support as well.

Other features of the Asus Zenfone 3S Max include a fingerprint scanner found at the bottom of the display in the front, a bottom firing mono speaker, WiFi 802.11n, Bluetooth 4.0 and A-GPS as well.

The battery unit provided within the Asus Zenfome 3S Max is of 5000mAh and is non-removable. The Asus Zenfone 3S Max runs on Android 7.0 Nougat operating system with the brand’s own ZenUI 3.0 on top.

Asus Zenfone 3S Max In depth Review and Analysis:

Now that we have done away with the hardware specifications of the Asus Zenfone 3S Max, let us talk about the phone itself in depth.

The Asus Zenfone 3S features a clean and compact design which is a take off from the lineup of Zenfone 3 devices that are currently available in the market. Despite having a huge battery at 5000mAh, the phone manages to have a thin and light footprint which makes the phone quite easy to handle and also for one handed use, which many of current time’s Android Smartphone’s lack.

The Asus Zenfone 3S Max does away with capacitive buttons in the front bottom of the display, which now features only the fingerprint scanner. The home, back and menu buttons are now on screen. Even though the fingerprint scanner is indeed a button, you will only require to press the button while registering your fingerprints and while scanning for the fingerprint in future usage, all you have to do is to place your finger to the sensor.

Towards the top of the Smartphone, along with the earpiece, secondary 8 MP camera, and the proximity and light sensors, there is also an LED notification light provided, which is quite a welcomed feature.

The right side of the Zenfone 3S Max features the power and volume rocker controls which are placed very user friendly and has a good tactile feeling to it. To the left side you will be seeing the SIM card tray that accepts the Dual SIM cards for the phone. You can also add a MicroSD card slot in this SIM tray provided that leaves you with space for just a single SIM card.

The bottom middle of the Smartphone features a MicroUSB port that can be used for charging and syncing the Smartphone along with a microphone to its left and the speaker to its right, while the top features a 3.5mm headphone jack, which is missing on most of the Smartphones these days.

The Asus Zenfone 3S Max features a metal built with plastic strips featured at the top and bottom, for cellular antennas. Something that Asus is very well known for is the built quality of its Smartphones, and with metal built Android Smartphone flooding the market these days, the built quality in the Asus Zenfone 3S Max feels quite top notch when compared to the rest of the competition.

The 5.2 inch display found on the device has 282 PPI, which is quite good enough for a display this large and with HD resolution. For outdoor usage, the Smartphone does get quite bright. However, the color accuracy does falls behind the competition.

The resolution of pair of camera’s in the Asus Zenfone 3S Max is something that we have seen in dozens of other Smartphones but what really matters is the software optimization and overall picture taking experience, over the megapixel count of the camera. Well, even though camera performance of Asus Smartphones were not something to brag about in the past, they have come quite far and the performance of the camera output have progressed very well. Outdoor shoots with ample of lighting will yield you with some pretty amazing shots. That coupled with the software optimization and features of the ZenUI does offer a very impressive camera performance out of both the camera sensors, overall.

The 1.5 GHz octa core processor coupled with the 3 gigs of RAM does ensure that performance of the Smartphone is one of the best offered in this price range. No matter whether it be high end gaming or multi tasking, the Zenfone 3S Max does away with it quite impressively.

Talking about the performance takes us to the battery of the Smartphone. The 5000mAh battery in this Smartphone is no joke and is indeed one of its strongest selling point. A day worth of use, if not more can be easily juiced out from the Zenfone 3S Max even with high level of usage.

Final Words:

The main selling point of the Asus Zenfone 3S Max is its battery, no doubt. But that doesn’t mean that the company have skimmed on other features of the Smartphone either. Overall, the Asus Zenfone 3S Max is one of the better performer with a really long lasting battery backup in its price range.