Asus released the newest versions of it’s celebrated Zenfone flagship line, the Asus Zenfone 4 Selfie Pro. I’ve tried (& reviewed) earlier versions of the Zenfone family in the past, I’ve found it to be a nice phone, especially the camera. However, the Zenfone 4 Selfie Pro, as the name suggest is even more about getting the perfect selfie, day or night, indoors or out.
The Basics
The Zenfone 4 Selfie Pro is one of the only phones to feature a dual front camera (one regular & one wide angle). The phone is powered by Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 625 octa-core processor with 4GB RAM/ 64GB ROM (expandable to 2TB) & runs on Android 7.1.1 Nougat OS. Zenfone 4 Selfie Pro’s main front camera has a wide f1.8 aperture lens, provides fantastic images.. Also, its electronic image stabilization (EIS) that eliminates annoying shakes and gives smooth & fine videos, while shooting selfie videos with this sleek and beautifully build smartphone. It’s not end her, its second camera is a 120° super wide that helps you to capture more of the world around you and it is great for big group selfies too. It also has a unique Hybrid dual SIM functionality- you can choose two use it with either two SIM cards or one SIM card and one microSD card. It also has an impressive 3000 mAh li-ion quick charge battery that ensures you don’t run out of power often & your phone is always ready to perform with you.
As a blogger, most of the content I create is visual, I do have to take photos & video every day to post on instagram, facebook, twitter, this blog, youtube… you get what I’m trying to say! Sometimes it’s not always feasible to carry my main camera with me. so I tend to rely a lot on my phone. To put this phone to the test, I’ve been using it for the past three weeks, during which time I explored a few new parts of the city & even took a road trip.
Design
The Asus Zenfone 4 Selfie Pro is sleek & chic. It has a muted gold matte body & is quite comfortable & ergonomic to hold & operate, even one handed. It has a bright 5.5inch full HD AMOLED display which is great to watch videos or see the true colours in every picture.
The Zenfone 4 Selfie Pro Camera Experience
The Zenfone 4 Selfie Pro has three cameras in total – there’s one rear camera & the dual front camera. The rear camera is 16 megapixel & one of the highlights of it is the phase detection autofocus that works super quickly & performs great, even in low light.
Obviously the main feature of this phone is going to be the dual selfie camera. So I’m going to focus more of this post on that. The main selfie camera features a Sony IMX362 dual pixel image sensor with DuoPixel™ camera technology to capture gorgeous, 24MP shots with the main camera and ensures excellent low light performance for bright and vivid selfies in any situation. It also features a secondary 120° FOV camera that lets you shoot super wide angle selfies that helps you capture more people or more of your surroundings.
While you can take great selfies on the auto mode (just open up the camera & shoot, like the one I’ve shared above), there are also many different modes to help enhance the camera’s capabilities & get more out of your selfies.
Beauty Mode
The front & back cameras have a beauty mode that softens & smooths skin & makes you look flawless. You can even control the intensity of this setting. The best part is that it even works for video recording & livestreams!
Portrait Mode
This allows you to get the high depth of field effect, or aesthetically blur the background for photos or selfies, which makes your phone selfies look like they were taken with a professional camera. Portrait mode works with both the front & back cameras.
Front Camera – Regular v/s Wide
Switching between the regular & wide front camera is seamless. The 120° super wide angle camera just lets you get more in the frame. It’s best used for group selfies or to capture more of your background, I love it even when I’m alone but in front of an interesting building.
The Best Selfie Phone
Today, there are quite a few cameras on the Indian market that claim to be good at taking selfies like the Oppo F3 Plus & Vivo V5 series.
While all three phones offer 4K Ultra HD video recording on their back cameras, the Asus Zenfone 4 Selfie Pro is the only one to offer it on the back camera too. The Zenfone 4 Selfie Pro also has the wide aperture front camera (f1.8 vs the others which have f2)
The Zenfone 4 Selfie Pro is not just about selfies either… the back camera pro mode offers a max exposure time of 32 seconds for artistic long exposures, something that neither of the other two phones have.
The Asus Zenfone 4 Selfie Pro is priced on league with the Vivo V5 & significantly cheaper than the Oppo F3 Plus, but when their features are stacked up next to each other, there’s no doubt on which one is superior & gives you a better bang for your buck!
You can buy this smartphone exclusively Flipkart.com.
In Conclusion
There’s a lot to really like about this phone. It delivers on it’s promise to be a Selfie Pro yet doesn’t disappoint on other areas like the looks, display, back camera & battery life. I think it’s a great smartphone for the price that can handle just about anything.
The images in this post have been resized for quicker load times but have otherwise not been edited in any way.
