ASUS - ZenFone 5Q with 64GB Memory Cell Phone (Unlocked) - Midnight Black

I will start this review by saying that I can understand the few reviewers confusion because this phone is listed with Android 8.0 but it's still on 7.1. Asus did verify that 8.0 will be coming in a few weeks so that's not a reason to rate it low. To give you a brief history I have owned/used the Moto G4, Moto G5 Plus, Moto G5S Plus, Galaxy S8, Honor 7x and Mate SE as my personal devices so I will provide highlights of this Zenfone 5Q below PROS: - EASILY the best looking phone (IMO) between any device under $600 - Device is lightweight and feels great in hand - FRONT FLASH for the selfie cameras - The wide angled lenses add a nice touch and have become my goto mode - Picture quality is GREAT! I was shocked to see how crisp the pictures are. Photos look fairly good in low light and the camera outperforms ANY of the Moto G devices without a doubt - The phone is fast, I have experienced no lag at all through, emails, snapchat, fb, browsing, etc. - This has NFC, yes at this price point..it has NFC and works very well - Face unlock and fingerprint sensor work quick, no issues - Battery can last you a day and a half, gaming is FAST and you can play PUBG on the medium setting without issues - NO NOTCH! Room for Improvement? - Not really "slow" charging but they could have added some kind of quick charge technology. C'mon mannn - I have so many micro usb chargers that I don't care for USB-C but I know some of you would like to see that feature - The Asus Launcher....not terrible but it's not the best. My wife doesn't mind it at all but I prefer to install Nova or Action Launcher anyways so that's an easy fix. Overall you cannot go wrong with this device! Screen looks great, camera works great, etc. If you are torn between the other mid range selections, this Zenfone slightly out performs the Moto g6, Honor 7X and can hang with the Galaxy s9. I'm no longer going to buy expensive flagship devices because these mid range devices perform virtually the same, it's the NAME, the fancy designer cameras and newest processors you are paying for.

I purchased this phone in June and so far, I really like it. The only negative is that it comes with Android 7.1.1 Nougat, not Oreo 8.0 as advertised. That is surprising for a midrange 2018 phone. The phone has a great display, decent cameras, NFC, 64gb of storage and a fast processor. No lag when using multiple apps. Battery lasts all day with over 50% left most of the time. This is a really good phone, but will be better if it gets the Oreo update. I will post a few images from the camera.

I think this phone is great but one glitch with the camera not working and have to restart to fix & that the description says it’s Android Oreo make it lose a star.

the screen is bright, pretty fast, wifi connects well in spotty places. Super good 4g connectivity from AT&T. Cameras are brilliant.

I am rating it a 5 (even though 4.4 doesnt round up to 5) because the current rating (3.9 as of August 8) doesnt accurately reflect the quality of the phone. Don't be mistaken. This is an excellent phone. Excellent build, excellent quality, excellent price. You just need to know what you are getting, that is all. The biggest reason one would opt for this phone is because it has quad cameras (2 each side, 1 normal 1 wide FOV on each side). It has an 18:9 screen. No notch. And most importantly is the inclusion of T-Mobile band 12 for LTE. So few phones have Band 12 support. The biggest knock with this phone is the processor. But, if you are looking for a mid-range phone, you sort-of expect this. You won't be getting a flagship processor (e.g. SD845) in a mid-range phone. The processor that they give you is actually very good. The SD630 is a good performer. Next biggest knock? For a phone with a non-removable battery, it is kind-of a downer that you don't get waterproofing. The whole REASON manufacturers gave us batteries we can't replace was to allow for water proofing. If a phone isn't going to be water proof, then you might as well make the battery replaceable. The next biggest knock, which isn't so apparent with the specs, is the polarization. Unfortunately, the 5Q's polarization is such that you can't view the screen vertically when using polarized sunglasses. Horizontally looks perfect, though. Real bummer. And lastly, the last knock on the phone is Micro USB. Very strange to me that they would use Micro USB instead of USB C. I get the downgrades between the 5Z, 5 and 5C to provide actual justification for price differences, but Micro USB? I mean, at least I get to continue using my existing micro usb cables, but USB C is the future. Android N comes with the phone out of a box. People will knock the phone for that. ASUS has said officially (on their forums) that they will skip Android O and go directly to Android P, to be released in early 2019. You might find some problems with the Google Play store out of the box. You just need to update all the firmware, make sure everything is up to date. On a more positive note...the phone cameras are excellent. Having a wide FOV selfie camera is very unique, as is the front LED flash. The phone comes with a TPU case (very nice!), which unfortunately is kinda necessary to install just because the build of the phone is so smooth (hard to grip). The screen is very clear. The FM radio is great to have - the phone comes with a built-in app for that. Very unique is the fact that they SIM tray offers two SIM slots PLUS a dedicated media card slot. Usually the second SIM slot is shared with the media card - very very nice. Would I recommend this phone? If you are OK with micro USB and don't use polarized sunglasses you will really like and enjoy this phone, especially for the price point.

Pros: - Fast processor with zero interface lag - Plenty of RAM for multitasking (I tend to leave more apps than desired open at once, and this phone has NO problem tasking the threads appropriately, and making sure that foreground applications retain the most resources. - Quad Camera design allows for your choice of wide angle, or regular FOV shots on the front, or rear of phone. - Has "Pro Mode" on the cameras that allows you to finetune focus, ISO (100-3200) Shutter Speed 1/1000 - 32s) Exposure value (which disables ISO if you use it instead) AND FEATURES AN ON-SCREEN HISTOGRAM so those that TRULY understand the VALUE of the histogram, and want to take great quality photos can DEFINITELY do so with this phone. - Features "Super Resolution" mode where basically the camera takes your standard image, and cuts it into the rule of thirds, and turns it into a SIXTY-FIVE MEGAPIXEL BEAST! (Can select lower if you want.) - Another unmentioned feature is that you can record 120FPS Slow-Motion on 720p - sadly it isn't 240FPS @720p when it could be since the 5Q and 5z have the same camera's but meh, not bad. - The camera quality, contrast, color reproduction, sensor, image grain, focal length, and depth of field for potential bokeh are all honestly REALLY amazing for a phone with a stationary sensor. I'm not entirely sure if the phone has optical image stabilization, but it does a really good job of making sure that even as fast as 1/64 shutter speed the images don't blur all that much at all. This is a welcome addition to someone such as myself who is seasoned with DSLR camera photography and knows that one of the most basic rules is "stay below 1/250s for handheld photography - which obviously comes with a few caveats making SOME potential handheld shots difficult. - Build design is nice, and it comes with a silicone case (which is nice since there aren't many cases on the market for this phone.) - Sturdy design. my Toddler got ahold of this phone the other day, and chunked it across the floor directly into the corner of a wall, and although it did take some paint off the wall (and put it on my case) the phone held up JUST fine with the impact point being nearly directly on the bottom-left corner. No cracks, dents, spider-craking, or performance issues since then. Not even a dropped call, or wifi signal interruption. This is TRULY a sturdy phone to not be gorilla glass or IP Rated. - The speaker is a dual stereo speaker configuration at the bottom of the phone and is probably 3x louder than my old Stylo 4's speakers were. It also features an "outdoor mode" where lower frequencies are muted, and the higher frequencies are normalized (this means adjusted to be louder.) - Fairly easy to root although there are no custom ROMs floating around out there for it, so you'd have to do all the overclocking and editing yourself for the most part if you wanted performance differences. - The included headphones have a slight "off-kilter" design to them where they seem to be less "straight-forward, and more profiled to fit your ear naturally, which allows for larger driver surface area and also makes them slightly more comfortable to sleep in if you have a significant other that snores like mine does, and they're PLENTY loud (I'll never go above 50% on this phone wheras on most other phones, and third party headsets like the JBL marshmallows I'd nearly always be at, or directly below 100%. - The equalizer is astonishing, and the 3.5mm appears to reproduce frequencies as low as 40hz and possibly lower (I haven't hooked it up up to my spectrometer to analyze it, but it has a really good tonal response on bass frequencies. Cons: - The dual-sim slot is a bit confusing, and nearly looks as if it's a single larger sim style caddy (they go in sideways- one after the other, which is kind of weird.) - The Front facing camera is 20MP, whereas the rear is only 16MP - To me, this was kind of a "What were they thinking?" I'm sure there's a reason for it, but I couldn't possibly think of a viable one. - Not having an option for 240FPS Slow motion when the Asus Zenphone 5z has the same exact sensors is kind of depressing, but the phone's easy enough to root so I'm sure I could get the 5z's camera apps loaded onto the phone, or edit the buildprop to get it working if I wanted to bad enough (Which I really don't.) - Comes with Android 7 out of the box, which is a MASSIVE disappointment in terms of future proofing, but is easily capable of handling 8, and 9 so hopefully ASUS will update it like they're SLATED to. Overall thoughts - For the price, this is PROBABLY the best phone you're going to get your hands on. $300 for a phone with 4GB RAM, 64GB ROM, Expandable storage, Dual simn, FOUR CAMERAS with front,a nd rear flash, and some of the best overall specifications and durability I've seen in a phone - It's a steal. Period. The included picture was taken with the zenphone 5q's camera in "Super Resolution Mode" and then uploaded to google photos, and redownloaded, so there's a bit of compression, and it still looks amazing.

Well I must say this phone definitely lives up to the hype. The specs written on the site are completely correct but it does not run android 8.0 out of the box. It's still 7.1.1. There will not be any known date for it to be updated. The phone itself is pretty quick to handle everything you can throw at it. It even comes with a clear silicone case for it. However again to be clear don't expect any kind of updates to come to the device as it is a budget phone essentially.

Before I bought this phone, I had been searching online for a good phone for my needs. I watch a lot of videos, record and edit videos, play games, etc, and it all needs to be on my phone. I had an Asus Zenfone 2, with an Intel Atom in it and 64GB of storage. Its battery life wasn't great, but that was my only real gripe about it. As a loyal fan of Asus, I spotted the Asus Zenfone 5 when it came out. There were several versions available, some were not going to work for me. The flagship was the one I had my eyes on, but it was out of my budget. I ended up buying the Asus Zenfone 5Q, and I have to say, I couldn't be happier. I even had enough money left over to buy a new headset to go with my new phone. As I've only used this phone for about 2 months, I don't know about how the battery will behave over the life of the phone. However, I get at least 36 hours of use out of it before I need to charge it up again. Often times, I can skip plugging it in for 2 nights in a row and be perfectly fine. My only gripe so far would have to be the way the multitasking feature is set up. When I hit the multitasking key to view recent apps, the app that was on screen is huge and right in the middle of the screen while all the other apps are smashed down on the bottom of the screen. That makes it feel clumsy at first when trying to quickly switch between recent apps, but it's not that bad once you get used to it. Overall, I think this is an amazing phone for the price. Seeing as my only real complaint is about software that can be changed with an update, I would recommend this to anyone.