The Asus Zenfone 3s Max is a powerful handset packed with a 5000 mAh battery, yet weighs around 175 grams and is comfortable to hold and use. Zenfone 3s Max will be available in India for Rs. 14,999 is it a good buy, find out.
Unboxing the Asus Zenfone 3s Max – box pack content : handset, user manual, warranty card, SIM tray ejector pin, good quality earphone, data cable and travel charger 5V / 2A. SAR Value : 0.400 W/Kg @ 10g head and 1.230 W/kg @ 10g body.
Design, Display and OS
The Asus Zenfone 3s Max is packed inside a premium crafted metallic body. I got the Gold color version for the review. Handset looks great, feels good and quite comfortable. In spite of it housing a 5000 mAh battery the handset weight is 175 grams and thickness is 8.85mm.
This is a dual SIM hybrid handset – you can use micro SIM + nano SIM or micro SIM + micro SD card. 4G with VoLTE is supported. This smartphone comes with LED notification and loaded with following sensors : accelerometer, proximity, light and magnetic.
Screen is 5.2 inches with a 2.5D curved glass supporting 1280 x 720 pixels resolution. Color reproduction, viewing angles and touch response are quite good.
Asus Zenfone 3s Max is running ZEN UI over Android Nougat version 7.0.
Memory and Storage
Zenfone 3s Max comes with 3GB RAM and 32GB ROM. On first boot you will get around 22GB free internal storage space and 1.4GB RAM on an average. OTG is supported you can connect external pen drive.
Performance and Benchmark
This handset houses the MediaTek MT6750 @ 1.5GHz 64 bit octa core processor coupled with Mali T860 GPU. Performance was smooth, no lags and heat up was under control.
Benchmark
Quadrant : 18880
AnTuTu : 39360 / 4819
Nenamark 2 : 56.3fps
Disk Speed : 70 MB/s read / 106 MB/s write
Multi Touch :10 point
Gaming
I tried Asphalt 8 in high quality mode and it worked really smooth, no lags.
Camera
There is 13MP camera on the back and 8MP on the front. It’s with PixelMaster camera technology. Camera quality is average. Handset can shoot full HD videos, the video quality is very good.
Camera Rating 3 out of 5
Asus Zenfone 3s Max rear and front camera sample
Download Original Image files (right click and save) (do not use it for commercial purpose, without permission of gogi.in).
Others
Sound was loud and clear, no issues with networks. Reliance Jio SIM worked and I was also able to make calls (VoLTE supported). The home button doubles up as finger print sensor. There are on screen navigation buttons and a single home dedicated button.
Finger print detection is a bit slow but decent enough. To unlock with finger print you need to press the home button and keep your finger on the sensor.
Battery
The Asus Zenfone 3s Max comes with 5000 mAh battery that does an excellent job. You can expect over 2 days of battery life with mixed moderate usage. On a full charge you will get around 7 to 16 hours non-stop moderate to heavy usage.
Asus Zenfone 3s Max Battery Performance (time / battery % drop / estimated battery temperature)
- Running Benchmark app – 10 minutes / 1% / 34 degree
- Asphalt 8 game play – 17 minutes / 4% / 41 degree
- Fhd video playback with full brightness (WiFi /4G on) – 38 minutes / 7% / 37 degrees
It took me 2 hours 45 minutes to charge the handset from 1% to 100% using wall charger.
Verdict
The Asus Zenfone 3s Max is a good handset packed with a powerful processor. Camera quality is average and battery performance is excellent. Price is way too high at Rs. 14,999.