A couple of years ago, if you had to buy a flagship smartphone, you could have gotten it in Rs 40000.
But a lot has changed since then, and I agree that so much has improved in the technology field, smartphones these days have more RAM than a typical laptop. But the price has also gone for too high.
We are talking about the price in the range of Rs 60000 to Rs 80000. This Crazy price hike created a gap in the market, and companies like OnePlus, Xiaomi, and Asus started filling it.
We now have a couple of smartphone OEMs that have been bringing smartphones with top-end specifications but still keeping the price in the price bracket of Rs 30000- Rs 40000.
For the year 2019, Asus’s phone in that price segment is the Asus 6z.
The smartphone is powered by Snapdragon 855, the most premium chipset available in 2019 as of now.
The smartphone has a glass body and is protected by Gorilla Corning Glass 6 on front and back (back glass isn’t series 6 though).
You will find the full specification of the smartphone further in this article. You may continue reading further.
Short Review: Amazing smartphone at a fantastic price of Rs 32000 for the 6 GB ram and 64 GB internal storage. The key factors are the 5000mAh battery, notch-less display, and great set of cameras, perhaps the best selfie smartphone, and a content creator’s dream phone.
Longer review
Although it is a fantastic smartphone, it isn’t perfect. I am using the Asus 6z from last few months, and I have come across some flaws. I will be talking about it in the more extensive review.
Design and Build quality
Part of it we have already discussed in the article above, it is a nicely built smartphone with a glass body and Aluminium frame.
The thing about glass built smartphones is that they are prone to damages and scratches.
The Gorilla Corning Glass would prevent it from minor ones, such as key is rubbing against the smartphone in your pocket, or keeping in the Dashboard of your car.
The thing you would hate the most in a glass body that it is a fingerprint magnet, a few marks of your finger would make it a bit distracting.
Asus makes sure that it provides a clear hard case to protect the smartphone from minor scratches and smudges, but it also completely hides the beauty of the smartphone.
Finding custom case for the Asus 6z would be a little complicated, because of its flipping camera module, which honestly it is the only reason I bought the smartphone.
So, I am still using the clear hard case until I find something better.
The Asus 6 is a smartphone, without the case, is quite stunning and a treat to hold in hand.
But, the majority of the people wouldn’t be using it without a case, and it is also not recommended.
If the glass of the camera brakes, the Asus customer care would charge as much as Rs 6000 to change the tiny glass that covers the camera lens.
On the back, Asus has its branding, along with the fingerprint sensor, which is placed in a comfortable position, although it is a little smaller than the usual ones.
The dual-camera setup is placed to horizontally with the dual-LED flash placed between them. It feels it has two eyes, and a nose of an owl, and if that is what Asus was trying to achieve with the design, they have succeeded.
We will talk about the cameras in detail in the camera section of this review.
All the buttons of the smartphone are placed on the right-hand side. The power button is situated at an appropriate place so that the thumb doesn’t have any difficulty to reach when you are holding the phone.
Many smartphones don’t have a comfortable placement of the power button, which makes it create a task 2 to lock the phone or wake the screen using the power button.
The volume rocker is placed just above the power button, and above that, there is the third button which is customizable for any task.
Three actions can be set, which are,
- Single clicking the button
- Double-clicking the button
- Long pressing the button
By default, they are set as,
- You put the phone on silent, vibrate, normal
- Turning on the Flashlight
- Taking a screenshot
Another smartphone that puts an extra button, apart from the power button and volume rocker, is Samsung.
But they have tied it with their Bixby assistant, which isn’t liked by a lot of people.
So, it is a good thing Asus is providing the users with an option to customize the button as per their liking. It has been pretty useful for me to put the phone on silent or take a screenshot quickly.
The absence of this extra button wouldn’t make me miss the feature.
On the left-hand side, there is no button, and it just holds the SIM tray, which contains two Sims and a microSD for expanding the storage.
At the bottom, the smartphone gets the USB type C slot for data transfer and charging, speaker grill on the right-hand side and 3.5 mm audio jack in the left. Yes, 3.5 mm audio jack is present in a flagship smartphone from Asus.
High-quality earphones are also provided in the box.
Screen and display
Like I said earlier in this article, the smartphone has got a Clear, all-screen display without any notch, thanks to the flipping camera module.
The owl-shaped cameras on the back, flip to the front when you turn different camera mode in the camera app.
It has made it possible for Asus to bring a 6.4-inch smartphone with 83.8% screen to body ratio and to have an aspect ratio of 19.5:9.
Just two years ago, I was using a smartphone with a 6.4-inch screen size, and it was huge, it used to be fit in my pocket. I am talking about the Mi Max to a smartphone from Xiaomi.
But Asus 6z also provides the same size of 6.4-inch but is very comfortable to hold in one hand and even fits in a pocket without any issues. All thanks to the thin bezels from all four sides of the smartphone.
The screen display is full HD plus with the resolution of 1080×2340 pixels.
Although there is one downside of the screen which isn’t expected from a flagship, it’s an LCD screen instead of the usual AMOLED screens found in flagship smartphones.
But, it has HDR 10 support, which means it isn’t that bad. The people who have been using LCD screens would find it pretty amazing.
Performance and Battery life
The performance of Asus 6z is top-notch, thanks to the Snapdragon 855 chipset. The smartphone has got Octa-Core and Adreno 640 GPU.
In Plain English, you have the top specs available for a smartphone in the year 2019.
The base variant, the variant I have, has 6 GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage. Other options available are, 6GB RAM/ 128Gb Storage, and 8GB RAM/ 256GB Storage.
6GB RAM is more than sufficient for keeping all your essential apps in memory, which is crucial if you to do a lot of multitasking by switching between the apps.
Asus has also talked about a feature they use in this smartphone, which makes the App launches even faster. I think it’s called AI boost which is available in the notification panel.
I was initially worried about the 64GB of internal storage capacity. The last phone I owned was Galaxy Note 9 with 128 GB storage, and I had almost filled half of it.
Thankfully Asus 6z has an option to expand the storage via microSD. I have talked a 32GB micro SD, card just in case.
I do not consider myself a heavy user, but I still use my phone for multiple tasks throughout the day.
I don’t play games, but I do edit short videos to share them on social media or kids movies on Family WhatsApp groups. There have been no issues with the performance so far.
I found that the smartphone gets heated a little bit when the camera is in use for more than a few minutes, especially recording 4K videos. But nothing major.
Talking about the battery, it has got a massive 5000mAh battery. When you combine it with the power efficiency of Snapdragon 855 (built on 7nm), it is impressive.
The only downside is, the phone gets a little heavey at 190 grams, but it’s find when you get used to it in a few days.
My last phone the Galaxy Note 9 had 4000mAh battery, and I had to charge the phone twice in a day.
It was irritating. I had to reduce my phone usage so that I didn’t have to charge the phone twice. I was carrying a power bank whenever I used to go out.
Thankfully I haven’t even touched my 10000mAh Power Bank from Xiaomi in the last few months, thanks to the massive battery of Asus 6z.
I usually have 30% charge left at the end of the day, but I still charge so that it doesn’t get empty in the middle of the next day.
There also have been some instances, where I forgot to charge my phone at night, and I was still able to pass through the next day, with minimal usage.
Which means, seldom checking emails and social media messages, not listening to music or watching videos, and keeping the phone in the pocket most of the time.
Some people measure battery performance with the Screen On Time (SOT). I’ve got screenshots of the SOT on Asus 6z in different scenarios.
The SOT has always been more than 5 hours, and, in one case, it was more than 10 hours also.
We can take an average of around 7 to 8 hours of screen on time, which is quite impressive, especially when you buy a smartphone of this price segment.
The smartphone has support for 18W Charging (Quick Charge 4.0). The charger that comes in the box is 18 watts charging with quick charge 2.0 support.
The charging speed is reasonably good on the charger that comes with the phone. I charged my mobile phone from 0 to 94% in 1 hour, 51 minutes. The mobile data was turned on, and the phone was connected to Wi-Fi as well.
Charging the smartphone to 100% would take around 2 hours, which is fair considering the smartphone has got huge 5000mAh battery.
The Camera (Videos and Stills)
Now let’s talk about the reason I bought the smartphone in the first place. It’s sleeping camera module, which has a dual-camera setup.
The primary camera is a 48-megapixel sensor with f/1.8 Aperture, and the secondary camera is an ultra-wide lens with a 13-megapixel sensor having f/2.4 Aperture.
It is the most sensible dual camera setup where both the cameras are used in different scenarios.
The 48-megapixel make sure you get the sharpest image possible, and the 13-megapixel ultrawide camera makes sure you capture more stuff in the frame.
You can record 4K videos in up to 30 FPS and full HD videos in up to 240fps. The slow-mo feature allows taking videos in 480 FPS at HD quality.
The great thing is that you can record videos from both the cameras and the videos turn out to be stable, because of the gyro-based Electronic Image Stabilization (EIS).
The EIS also works in 4K videos record in 60fps, which means there is no setback for content creators.
As per stills, Asus 6z has got Portrait mode, an HDR mode and an HDR enhanced mode.
HDR enhanced mode takes multiple shots and combines them to give you a sharper and clearer image.
The same features are also available in the ultrawide camera as well. So you can capture more at the same time get a crisp and clear photo.
All the flagship smartphones have been offering some night mode to enhance the night photography.
The Asus 6z also offers the same, but it is not as impressive as it is on Google Pixel or Oneplus.
It’s not bad, but if, taking photographs in low light is your priority, you shouldn’t be going with this smartphone.
Oneplus 7, which is in a similar price range, would be a better choice for that.
In other aspects of the camera department, the dual camera set up on the Asus 6z performs much better, especially for the front camera.
The magic happens when you flip the camera, to make it the front camera.
The flip camera mechanism might look fragile but is it is quite useful for taking high-quality photos in selfie mode.
Since the dual-camera setup of the back is flipped to the front, you also get a dual-camera setup for the front, with all the features we mentioned above available for taking selfies.
Which means you can take selfies with the 48-megapixel camera having portrait mode on or the HDR Enhanced Mode On.
You can also switch to the ultra-wide camera, which is a fantastic feature for taking group selfies since you can capture more stuff in a single frame.
And you can also use HDR enhanced for The Portrait mode for the night mode for the front camera as well.
I tried taking selfies in different light conditions, and they turned out amazing. I only did not like the output from the Ultra-wide camera when it was used in low light conditions.
But, you still get the option to turn on the Flashlight while taking a selfie in a dark environment.
It might not be the best way to take selfies, but you still have the option to use Flashlight for selfies.
Another significant part of having the back camera flip to the front is that you can use high-quality cameras for recording a video of yourself.
It can be useful in many cases such as doing a vlog, for recording a video of yourself for Instagram stories, for Snapchat.
I captured a video using the cameras on the Asus 6z, and the ultrawide camera in selfie mode was particularly helpful in creating the video.
I did not have to stretch my hand to put myself in the frame.
I think other manufacturers should also bring an ultrawide camera module to the front.
A lot of people record videos for social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, and Tiktok.
Support for an external microphone is Cherry on the top for content creators like me.
It ensures that you can record videos in a noisy environment if you have an external microphone plugged into the smartphone.
Here is an IGTV video that I recorded by switching between the Primary and the Ultra-wide camera and using a microphone to record my voice in a noisy environment.
I’ve some sample shots that I have captured during my usage. You can find the highest quality photographs in this Google photos folder.
Software
The Asus 6z is powered by Android 9.0, with ZenUI 6, which is Asus’s custom skin over Android.
But the ZenUI 6 is very minimal customization over pure Android. The OS experience I pretty much like Stock Android.
There was no bloatware installed out of the box, and I had installed apps of my choice from the Play Store.
I usually don’t like the custom UI from smartphone OEMs, but ZenUi 6 almost face like it’s stock Android. It seems that a source has taken inspiration from oneplus for doing minimal customizations to Android and offer a clean OS experience.
Asus is not known for providing updates frequently. A lot of people are not happy with its other phones, which are available in the budget segment as the updates are not timely.
But since Asus does not have an extensive lineup of Smartphones and considering this is a flagship lineup incredible that I will be getting updates on time.
However, this is the case with almost every smartphone OEMs. The Android updates are not as fast as they are on Google Pixel smartphones.
If you are a sucker for Android updates and want to get the next version of Android ASAP, you should consider a phone that runs on Stock Android.
We would reccommend a Pixel or a budget-friendly Pixel A.
Conclusion
The smartphone did not come to me for a review I bought it for my personal use by doing some research to look for a smartphone that would be the best for my usage.
I chose Asus 6z because of its flipping camera module, and the fact that back cameras can be used for the front as well.
And, it has an ultra-wide camera to capture more while vlogging, or recording videos for social media.
A 5000mAh battery is a plus, so you don’t have to worry about charging your phone now and then.
I prefer Stock Android because I was already fed up of the Samsung one UI
If you are reading this in 2019, and are looking for a smartphone with amazing camera capabilities, and your price segment is also under Rs 40000, then this is the smartphone to buy.
It has got almost everything that is trending right now in the smartphone industry. And we are not going to see any considerable improvements in smartphones till 2020.
It is currently available on Flipkart at Rs 31999 you can purchase the smartphone using the link below.
