The Asus Zenfone 3 Deluxe is Asus' flagship offering from 2016, and it goes up against the best and most premium smartphones in the market. Does it match up to them?
Asus’ most premium smartphone for 2016 is finally in our hands. The company started selling the device in India from today, and it comes in two variants. The Snapdragon 821 variant costs Rs. 62,999, while the Snapdragon 820-powered Zenfone 3 Deluxe will cost you Rs. 49,999.
It is evident that Asus wants to take on the best of the best, and shed its image of being a mid-ranged player. Much like it eventually did in the laptop market, Asus wants to take on the market leaders, rather than chipping away from the bottom. Will it work? Well, we intend to find out.
But before the review, here’s what initial testing has revealed. We have the Snapdragon 820-version of the Zenfone 3 Deluxe, with 6GB of RAM.
Speed
Much like other Zenfone 3 models we’ve reviewed this year, the Zenfone 3 Deluxe also has a sluggish feel to it. To be clear, it is not a slow smartphone, ZenUI’s transitions make it feel slow. For example, after typing your pin on the lockscreen, the phone pauses for a second, before moving to the home screen. Similarly, the fingerprint sensor also takes a moment to register.
These aren’t because the phone is slow. In fact, the Snapdragon 820 is as fast as ever on this device. To explain the lock screen pause we encountered, the phone isn’t actually stuck here. On most devices, there’s a “Ok” or “tick mark” button that has to be pressed after entering the security pin. There is no such button on the Zenfone 3 Deluxe, but the phone seems to be simulating a button press instead of snapping to the home screen.
Also read: Asus Zenfone 3 Laser Review
From a benchmarking point of view, the Zenfone 3 Deluxe is amongst the fastest smartphones we’ve tested this year.
When playing games, we saw a few stutters, not while gaming, but within the in-game menus. For example, upon opening, Asphalt 8 has a car revolving at the center of your screen. This stopped for a second or so on the Zenfone 3 Deluxe.
You would notice that the sluggishness that we point out is indeed slight, but this is on a fresh device, just removed from its box. It points towards lack of UI optimisation, and may lead to further stutters when the device is really taxed in our review.
Heat
The speed of the Zenfone 3 Deluxe wasn’t really surprising, given what we’ve seen of ZenUI on other Asus smartphones. However, the Zenfone 3 Deluxe seems to be heating up more than other Snapdragon 820-powered smartphones that we’ve reviewed so far.
Also read: Asus Zenfone 3 Max Review
Playing Asphalt 8 on the device for 15 minutes, raised the temperature to nearly 39 degrees. CPU-Z recorded internal temperatures at 38.5 degree celsius, while our heat gun recorded 38 degrees. While these temperatures are still within the permissible limits, we recorded them standing outdoors during the onset of winters. The temperature in Delhi right now is 22 degrees, which means peak summer may be really tough for the Zenfone 3 Deluxe to handle.
Further, 5 minutes of 4K video recording took the Zenfone 3 Deluxe’s temperature to 41.2 degrees, which is not very good. 4K recording is indeed taxing on the SoC, but we’ve seen phones like the OnePlus 3, Moto Z and some others maintain sub-40 degree numbers. After 10 minutes, we recorded 41 degrees on the display, while the SoC was at 48 degrees, and the body at 44.5 degrees.
These numbers may not mean much in the short term, but it means the Zenfone 3 Deluxe isn’t very well suited for heavy usage over extended periods. When it heats 40 degrees, frame rates drop to the sub-20 fps levels, which is not good at all.
Heating could also affect the phone’s life in the long term. Excessive heating could reduce the internal hardware’s life, especially for those who play games for long hours on their devices.
Bottomline
It is too early to pass a judgement on the Asus Zenfone 3 Deluxe at the moment. Our initial findings have left us with mixed feelings about the device, but further testing may reveal more. Stay tuned for Digit for the review!
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Prasid Banerjee
Trying to explain technology to my parents. Failing miserably. View Full Profile
