Gadgets & Gizmos – June 2019

ASUZ 6Z

PRICE

`31,

HEART RATE
MONITOR

on the right edge. SIM tray is on the

left panel while the Type-C charging

port, speaker grill and the audio port

are at the bottom.

The only camera setup on the

Asus 6z is the one with a 48MP

Sony IMX586 main sensor along

with a 13MP 125 degree ultrawide

sensor. But images are captured

at 12MP resolution by default as it

uses four pixels as one for captur-

ing more light. All images shot on

this phone, including selfies, are

captured using this camera module

itself. As soon as I hit the camera

switch icon for the selfie, the cam-

era flipped open at 180 degrees. It

is a stepper motor-assisted camera.

I could adjust the camera module's

angle just by swiping up and down

on the camera switch icon in the

app. This comes handy when

capturing images of tall buildings.

What impressed me the most was

capturing panorama shots. While

capturing a panorama, instead of

moving the phone, the camera mod-

ule moved automatically. It worked

well for both horizontal and vertical

panoramas. However, the coverage

is not as good as that for panoramas

shot on iPhone. The images shot

using the dual camera setup were

impressive in the daylight but there

was some noise when used indoors

or in low-light. Other than the regu-

lar photo mode and selife mode, the

6z has motion tracking, slo-mo, time

lapse and night mode onboard.

When using the 6z for capturing

selfies, I was sceptical about dam-

aging the module in case of acciden-

tal drops. Thankfully, a fall detection

mechanism has been embedded

into the 6z that instantly brings the

camera back to its default position

even when it senses a slight drop.

Clean UI, performance

The Asuz 6z is not on Android One

program, yet the user interface is

very close to it. Thankfully, Asus

has done away with most of the

bloatware and unnecessary ap-

plications that used to hamper the

experience in the past. The only set

of pre-installed apps apart from the

Google apps and services are Asus

Data Transfer, Facebook, Instagram

and Gallery, to name a few.

This might be a budget flagship

but has got the Qualcomm Snap-

dragon 855 processor onboard. My

review unit had 256GB of internal

storage with 8GB of RAM. The

performance was top-notch. Be it

browsing the web, playing games,

streaming videos, handling emails

and documentation or using the

innovative flip camera, there was no

sign of a lag or a slowdown. The fin-

gerprint scanner at the rear is quick

to unlock and so is the face unlock

where the camera flips, unlocks the

phone and goes back to its position.

Battery

Owing to the motorised camera

module, the battery is bound to

drain quickly. Asus has considered

the same while designing this phone

and has added a 5000 mAh battery

onboard. This easily lasted me over

a day with still 30 per cent juice on a

single charge.

Tidbits

Asus 6z is known as Zenfone 6 in

international markets. It had to

rename the device to 6z after Delhi

High Court restricted the company

from using 'Zen' or 'Zenfone' or simi-

lar marks on its products in India.

Verdict

The new flagship from Taiwan-

based Asus is quite a compelling

device. It has got just the right set

of high-end specifications backed by

an impressive performance. It gives

a tough fight to the much popular

OnePlus 7 and is one of the most

aggressively priced mid-budget

flagship devices.

@nidhisingal

6.4-INCH

BEZEL-LESS

SCREEN

WITH

CORNING

GORILLA

GLASS 6