Asus is known for experimenting with the emerging product markets such as netbooks, wearables, tablets and also smartphones. The Zenfone lineup has helped them gain popularity in the smartphone market since 2014. Asus was one of the first companies to pioneer the low-cost smartphone war. This time too, the company has unveiled their new Zenfone to compete with the likes of the Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Pro in India.
Xiaomi has been ruling the smartphone market of India since their release of the Redmi Note 3. In 2017, the Redmi Note 4 gained the top spot as the company managed to sell 9.6 million units in a year as per the report published in Times Now. The highlighting features of Redmi Note 4 were the 4100mAh battery, premium build, and the Snapdragon 625 processor. This year too, the company is all set to rule the market with the Redmi Note 5 and Redmi Note 5 Pro. With tension in the market, where Xiaomi is currently unable to keep the sufficient stock of their Redmi Note 5 Pro, Asus has launched their latest Zenfone. The new Zenfone packs the similar specs and the processor that made the Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Pro so popular in India and around the world.
Asus Zenfone Max Pro M1, under the hood, is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 636 processor. The highlighting feature being the massive 5000mAh battery, the device will last up to two days on a single charge. The phone features a 5.99 inches Full HD+ IPS LCD panel of 1080x2160p resolution with pixel density of 402ppi. Like every other smartphone in 2018, the corners of the phone are rounded.
Asus claims that the display has 450nit of maximum brightness with a contrast ratio of 1500:1. In terms of design, the phone is not exactly bezel-less as the screen-to-body ratio is just 77%. The phone has thin bezels on top and bottom but it looks slick and modern as it doesn’t feature a notch unlike many smartphones these days. A 3.5mm headphone jack is still present on the Zenfone Max Pro M1 but it lacks a Type-C USB port. The phone also houses a metallic back with a dual camera and fingerprint sensor on the rear side.
Talking about the camera, the phone comes with a 13MP+5MP dual camera setup on the rear side. The 13MP is the main camera and the 5MP is the secondary camera used for the depth effect. On the front, there is an 8MP shooter with its own flash. Talking about the software, this is the first Asus phone to ship with stock Android 8.1. Asus has left behind its heavily customized ZenUI on top of Android for this phone.
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The device is available in two colours – Midnight black and Grey. The phone also offers two RAM variants — 3GB with 32GB storage and 4GB with 64GB storage. The Asus Zenfone Max Pro M1 also offers a dedicated MicroSD Card slot for further storage expansion. Beside these two variants, Asus offers another variant of the smartphone with 6GB of RAM and 64GB of storage which features a 16MP+5MP rear camera and a 16MP front shooter.
Verdict: Asus Zenfone Max Pro M1
The phone is simple and spectacular in itself! Asus is paying a lot of attention to the pricing of the Asus Zenfone Max Pro M1 and is positioning itself squarely as a Xiaomi killer in India. There is, sadly, no official information about the availability of the phone here in Nepal. The phone houses a lot of great specs which will go head to head against the Redmi Note 5/Pro. The Zenfone, however, has an upper hand in the battery size housing a massive 5000mAh battery. The stock Android experience is also another sweet deal that the phone offers! What are your thoughts on the new Redmi Note 5/ Pro killer? Let us know in the comment section down below.
