The Asus Zenfone Zoom has arrived. This phone is special. It has a 3 x optical zoom lens which operates without any moving external parts. The whole mechanism is internal. See video below. 

So what’s inside the box? The photos below show the contents of the box. I like the fact it comes with a lanyard that attaches securely to the phone. You also get a pair of headphones, quick start guide, UK adapter and micro USB cable. 

  
The key specifications are –

The other specifications –

– Display – 5.5-inch 1080p Full HD, 403ppi, IPS LCD
– Corning Gorilla Glass 4
– Processor – 64-bit 2.5GHz Quad-core Intel Atom Z3590 CPU
– Graphics – PowerVR G6430 GPU
– RAM – 4GB LPDDR3
– Internal Storage – 64GB eMCC Flash or 128GB eMCP Flash
– External Storage – microSD (up to 128GB)
– Cameras – Rear – 13MP Panasonic SmartFSI sensor with a 10-element Hoya 3x optical zoom lens, aperture ranges from f/2.7 to f/4.8
– 5MP front-facing camera
– Software – Android 5.1 with ASUS ZenUI
– Connectivity Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/b/ac
– Bluetooth 4.0+ EDR
– NFC
– micro-USB
– Battery – 3000mAh non-removable Li-Polymer – comes with a rapid charger
– Dimensions – 158.9 x 78.84 x 11.95mm
– Weight – 185g
– Build – aluminium body with a removable leather back cover for accessing the micro SD and Micro SIM slots

So you’re wondering what the picture quality is like. Below are the first shots of the camera. The below photo is taken in HDR mode.  Edit – Curse! These were literally the very first shots below, and later on when back home I realised in the camera app settings the picture quality was set on medium, not high. The difference on the high setting is noticeably better.

  
Let’s zoom in optically 3 times. We now see this. 

  
As the above shot is optically zoomed in it is still possible to crop the photo and still get a crispy crop. 

There are a multitude of shooting modes including manual which allows for a 32 second shutter time. 

Night mode takes a really dark scene and brightens it up a lot. This was pitch black practically. I have used the night mode on several shots last night and was impressed with the results. 

  
Don’t worry my review will examine the camera in more depth. I will also be preparing a 3 way camera shootout with the iPhone 6S Plus and LG V10. 

So starting up the Asus Zenfone Zoom for the first time takes you through a number of sign in pages including redeeming 100gb of Google Drive storage, free for 2 years. About 20 apps needed updating plus another 25 of Asus own apps/ZenUI apps. A 63mb firmware update was available which was for stability updates. After everything had updated I had 55gb free of the 64gb storage. The Asus Zenfone Zoom also has a micro SD card slot. This phone has plenty of space of saving video and photos.

The Asus skin appears to be incredibly customisable. Icons can be resized on the fly and more. I have downloaded and installed a more cleaner theme so far. I ran AnTuTu which produces a score of 59,160.

In terms of design, the Zenfone Zoom is well built and looks great. As a camera phone it has a dedicated 2 stage physical camera button, which also launches the camera. There is another physical button for recording just video. The volume keys act as zoom buttons.

I must admit there is a lot to learn on this phone as Asus provide plenty of extras. The camera app is extensive too with many modes including manual as mentioned above.

So my plan is to test this more throughly at the weekend and next week start posting more thoughts. This should work out quite nicely, as I should be receiving the LG V10 UK version around Tuesday or Wednesday.