Asus Zenfone Max Pro M1

Asus ZenFone Max Pro M1 is a low mid-range phone which comes with the mid-range brilliance attached to it. Priced at Rs. 10,499, the phone comes with brilliant specifications that keeps it on top of many phones in the market.

Combining looks, performance and immersive display, the Asus ZenFone Max Pro M1 keeps itself classy and user-friendly. It comes at a low price and thought there are some aspects of the phone that may not be well-rounded, overall, the Asus ZenFone Max Pro M1 makes a statement of being a top value-for-money budget.

Asus ZenFone Max Pro M1 is a handsome phone. The back is not slippery, and there is a rounded-edge glass present on the front. According to Asus, it has used high-quality, durable glass for it. The frame is of aluminium and has a metal backplate. It does not have any sharp edges and sits well in your palms. The cameras do protrude, and hence, the back panel is mostly smooth. However, the back does attract a lot of fingerprint smudges. The phone is a bit heavy, going about 180g and it quite thick at. The fingerprint scanner is quite ergonomically-placed too, but it does not respond appropriately for the first time. It is slightly thick at 8.61mm. A slight disappointment is that the phone comes with a micro-USB port and not the new USB Type-C port. However, you get a 3.5mm audio jack too, making it a delight for traditionalists.

The phone has a notch-less display of 5.99-inch screen. It arrives with an 18:9 aspect ratio with a resolution of 1080×2160 pixels. The phone has a 450 nit maximum brightness along with an excellent contrast ratio of 1500:1 and an 85 percent NTSC colour gamut reproduction. The bezel-free display makes it look modern and also, quite immersive. The colours are in general, quite bright and can be used outside. Plus, the colours are adequately vibrant. There is no problem with the viewing angles too. Plus, the phone has Night Mode as well.

Asus ZenFone Max Pro M1 has a Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 636 processor which is a midtier processor for mid-range phones. Redmi Note 5 Pro is fitted with the same processor. The phone has either a 3GB or 4GB variant. Videos and games ran quite smoothly, but there was a bit of an issue with heat. The phone scores a good benchmark getting 4755 points in Geekbench 4, which is quite a great score.

The phone comes with a 13MP primary camera with a 5MP depth sensor. On the front, it has an 8MP camera with LED flash. The daylight shots were quite vibrant, and the colours pop out quite naturally. However, distant objects were not sharp enough – daylight shots are usable, but the night time, the focus shifted a lot. At night, the low-light shots turned out to be quite poor – details were fuzzy, and there was a problem with the autofocus. Regarding the selfie camera, the quality of selfies in ideal light conditions was just ok, but when you activate the flash, it can be quite harsh on the face.

Regarding videos, the phone can shoot 4K videos from its rear but with two kinds of 4k – 4K DCI and 4K UHD. The difference is that 4K DCI is 4096×2160 and 4K UHD is 3840×2160.

The main highlight of Asus ZenFone Max Pro M1 is that it has a 5000 mAh battery. It can get one through an entire working day as well as it can take up some video streaming as well. A video loop test found that the phone was able to work through an entire 13 hours 29  minutes, which is ok but is a bit lower than what Redmi Note 5 Pro could get with a much smaller battery. It also does not reach Asus’ huge claim of 25 hours of continuous video playback. Power management is an issue with this phone. The phone gets from 0-100% in 3 hours despite saying that it can charge rapidly on display. It does not explicitly support Fast charging.

Asus ZenFone Max Pro M1 can be a significant player in the mid-range market, competing with the efficiency Redmi Note 5 Pro. It has a great battery, excellent performance and a good design going for it. However, its battery life is not up to the mark, lagging even behind Redmi Note 5 Pro and the phone has dropped in its camera performance. Overall, the phone is a great but due to some power management issues and the improper camera installation, Redmi Note 5 Pro holds a better chance to succeed over it.