Asus ZenFone 6 Review

The Asus ZenFone 6 is part of a new class of attention-grabbing models a little different to others you’ll find on shelves.

The Asus Zenfone 6 comes with an 18W charging brick, a USB-A to USB-C cable, a pair of white Asus earbuds, and a soft protective case. The case has a cutout near the back for the new flip-up camera. The earbuds are tuned by 1MORE and actually sound decent. If you want to take better advantage of the headphone jack though, you can get even better audio quality for just a bit of extra cash.

Camera

The Asus Zenfone 6 doesn’t sport quite as aggressive a look as the gamer-focused Asus ROG phone, but it still looks premium enough to get attention from a wide variety of people thanks to the a super-cool rotating camera.

Some other phones have little selfie cameras that pop out of the top of the frame, but the ZenFone 6’s flips around from the back, so the same two lenses are used for both selfies and regular shots.

One is a 48MP camera with a ‘normal’ view, the other a 13MP ultra-wide one. There’s no zoom, and night image quality is not nearly best-in-class. The Asus ZenFone 6 has a curved Gorilla Glass 6 front, an earlier generation of this toughened glass on its back, and aluminum sides.

Low-light images were quite good and didn’t show as much noise as we anticipated. The device struggled in more extreme low-light situations, but its long-exposure mode helped get more light out of a dark scene.

It may have a geeky aura, but this phone does not look or feel remotely cheap. The flip camera may repel people as well as converting fans, but Asus has done a great job here for the price.

Performance

Performance is key for power users, so there’s the Snapdragon 855 in charge of things. The lightweight software experience helps keep the device feeling fast, and the 6GB or 8GB of RAM allows you to multitask without forcing any apps out of memory.

Those folks also have large collections of whatever, so Asus made sure to include a dedicated microSD slot. And since they’re constantly on their phones, the 6 has one of the biggest batteries around at 5,000mAh.

For the price, the Asus Zenfone 6 is an absolute steal. Many flagships costing $1,000 or more don’t offer the number of features found in the Zenfone 6. Moreover, the new user interface makes this phone a joy to use.

The Zenfone 6 may not have wireless charging or an official water resistance certification, but it does have many things that people care about, and even more features power users will appreciate. The headphone jack, expandable storage, notification LED, and quick actions toggle are all nice extras.

These features sit on a strong foundation set by the Snapdragon 855 processor and healthy dose of RAM. It’s hard not to recommend this device at the price!