I got this cell phone as a backup while my Asus ZenFone 3 Deluxe is being repaired. Pros: supports MicroSD card, excellent battery life Cons: only 16GB storage

I got this phone to use on business overseas. For the money it is a great phone with solid performance and endless features. Very happy with this purchase.

Design: This phone definitely feels more premium than it actually looks. It has a great feeling aluminum alloy body with a 2.5D curved glass. It feels fairly lightweight. It also has a fingerprint sensor which is very responsive. It is great to see a phone with fingerprint sensor at this price range. Display/Audio: Overall, the display is excellent. The screen is nice and bright. The resolution of 1920 x 720 works well for this phone. The audio is decent enough. The sound is faithful at low volumes but can be distorted at louder volumes. The outdoor mode can get volumes to a decent level. Also, the placement of the speakers on the back can be accidently blocked with a hand so be careful. OS/UI: It is great to have a phone out of the box with Marshmallow. The UI, ZenUI, is a bit more difficult to measure. The UI is mixed with a combination of bloatware, useful features, and annoying quirks. Depending on the user, your mileage with the UI will vary greatly. Camera: The camera is decent for the price. The camera can take decent photos in well-lit conditions. However, too much light can cause a lot of noise. The low-light is fairly bad, but most phones struggle to do well in this category. However, it does a decent job for being under $200. Recordings and pictures were better than expected with a decent set of controls. Battery/Charging: The battery life on this device is great. It can easily get someone through a day easily with moderate usage. The main issue is that there is no quick/fast charging. On average, it takes 3.5+ hours to fully charge this phone with no usage. However, it is expected fact since the battery is so large. Would have been nice if it used USB type C as an early adopter but is understandable at this price. Storage/Memory: The base storage is a bit lacking at 16GB. However, it is really good to know that the storage is expandable up to 64GB which is decent enough. For me, the killer was the 2GB ram. At mid-2016 and onward, 3GB should be the budget minimum for ram, since that is the highest amount that this chipset accepts. Processor/Performance: The processor, at this price range, is acceptable. The MediaTek MT6737 was able to perform at some moderately high demanding apps with some frame rate drops. As such, it is decent with all basic functions. I would not recommend for users that require lots of processing power for his or her apps. Other (Calls, Compatibility, Accessories, Firmware/Updates): Call quality was great. No issues or distortions. This phone is GSM only. It does not work with CDMA (Sprint, U.S. Cellular, Verizon). This package does not come with accessories. Best Buy made a mistake in the listings. There is very little 3rd party support for things like cases and screen protectors other than Chinese vendors. Asus is notoriously slow in releasing firmware updates. However, it is supposed to get an Android Nougat Update 7.0.0 in Q1 2017. Conclusion: There is no doubt that this is a decent phone. However, the question is: is this the phone for you? It really depends on your preferences. People that require high levels of computing power should look elsewhere, but everyone else can find something they like here. Is the best value? That is a hard question to answer as companies like Motorola, Honor/Huawei, ZTE, OnePlus, and Alcatel have brought tremendous value to the budget smartphone market. Because of this, I would say you are getting what you paid for. That isn't necessarily a bad thing as the bar has been significantly raised this year (2016). My suggestion is to choose based on your needs and willingness to pay. 2016/2017 has shown that you can't go wrong no matter what price range you choose. FYI, it occasionally goes on sale for 129.99.

I have a Blade Spark and got this for my wife. This has NFC but can't handle 64GB memory card. Cases are a must and they are hard to find in physical stores. Good camera, good sound, good battery. For the price it is a good choice.

I bought this phone back in April and have been using it for a few months now. The specs are decidedly midrange despite the phone's budget price. The quality of the screen is excellent indoors and at least tolerable in sunlight. The rear camera takes amazing pictures in auto and HDR modes under most lighting conditions. The autofocus feels quick and responsive, and the camera still manages to take a sharp picture even in my shaky hands. The low-light mode is a bit grainy, but manages to produce pictures bright enough to see clearly even in lighting dim enough that I struggle to see. The big compromises in this device are in performance - while it's more than enough for social media, browsing, and video playback, the phone struggles with more demanding apps and games. If you are planning to make this a gaming device, I'd move on to something with a more powerful processor. For me, this isn't an issue, I have my desktop computer for gaming, and don't really feel the need to do anything beyond the most casual games on a phone. Wifi connectivity is only single band 802.11b/g/n, which is understandable for the price, but a dual-band chipset would have definitely been a nice to have. LTE reception is good, often rivaling more expensive devices from better known manufacturers. The battery capacity is impressive, but the phone does not use it as efficiently as possible - while you can easily get 2+days of usable life from the phone with what I consider normal usage, you can easily drain the capacity down with a single day of heavy use if you are the type that never lets the screen turn off. Be aware that the charging is slow enough that it can take 3-4 hours for a full charge - not as big of an issue with the large battery capacity but you will want to be in the habit of charging overnight so that you have a full charge when leaving home. Overall, I feel like the phone is the best device all around at its price point, and I've received an OTA update to Nougat in the last day as a very unexpected but welcome surprise that I feel makes it an even stronger pick.

Approaching 1 year of use without any interruptions or glitches. The fastest processor I have owned to date,The camera quality is outstanding and it is packed with great software out of the box.