Asus Zenfone 3 Deluxe review

The Asus Zenfone 3 release date is imminent after launching in countries like India first on August 17. That technically makes it the first phone with a Snapdragon 821 processor. It's combined with another specs rarity: 6GB of RAM. Here's how it performs so far.

Zenfone 3 Deluxe represents a major upgrade to Asus' spelling-challenged smartphone series with a component design and specs you won't find on any other Android today.

The phone is making a name for itself with 6GB of RAM. All but one (theOnePlus 3) of the best phones in 2016 so far top out at just 4GB of RAM. You should be able to open more apps on its 5.7-inch display without slowdown.

Yes, the ZTE Axon 7 has a 6GB of RAM variant, but it wasn't shown off at its Beijing launch event next to its still-very-promising 4GB version. I could test theAsus Zenfone 3 at Computex 2016.

6GB of RAM and ready to go

It also debuts the Snapdragon 821 processor, starts with 64GB of internal storage (going up to 256GB) and includes a 23MP camera, all of which are impressive numbers on paper. It'll just miss Android Nougat, but does runAndroid 6.0 Marshmallow. Note: the Snapdragon 820 will still be around for a cheaper price.

But do these Asus Zenfone 3 Deluxe specs compute into anything meaningful? The Taiwanese release date is set for the end of July, while the US release date isn't for several weeks, according to Asus. So I went hands on with the forthcoming phone while in Taipei, Taiwan to determine more in the meantime.

Design

The Asus Zenfone 3 Deluxe is being touted as the world's first full-metal unibody phone with an invisible antenna design, and that's technically true.

It beats Apple's iPhone 7, rumored to be anti-antenna lines too, by three months, and the new LG G5 has a gap meant for modular add-ons; it isn't really unibody. Samsung Galaxy S7 is made of glass.

That leaves the Zenfone 3 Deluxe to steal some thunder with a sleek look of its own. I like the full-metal body and the seamless unibody design, and the invisible antenna lines are a nice perk.

What's more important to me than any of that, though, is the fact that the phone does away with the plastic that made last year's Zenfone 2 design downright unlikable. I dug the specs and the software customization, but it felt cheap. Like, not even good plastic. This new design begins to right that wrong.

It measures 156.4 x 77.4 x 7.5 mm, which doesn't make it as thin as the Nexus 6P (7.3mm thin), but it's close and, when testing it, it felt better than the thicker, non-Deluxe Zenfone 3 (7.7mm thin).

The power button and volume rocker are now on the right side (instead on of the back), but there's an oddly shaped rectangular fingerprint sensor on back. You don't actually press it in. There's still capacitive soft buttons for home, back and recent on the front, going against the trend of using purely on-screen buttons. I tend to like my buttons always being at the ready like this and not sometimes vanishing at the worst possible moments.

A slight camera bump and top-mounted headphone jack

I had a big problem with Zenfone 2's top-mounted power button, which I described as "squishy." I'm happy to report than while the Zenfone 3 Deluxe side-mounted buttons feel a bit shallow, they're at least clicky. This is all the more important now because the Deluxe camera can be launched by hitting the volume down button twice when the phone is asleep.

Like a lot of phones in 2016, it pivots to USB Type-C, sticks with one speaker (but of course promises stellar audio, according to the company's marketing efforts) and comes in three colors: Titanium Gray, Glacier Silver and Sand Gold.

Display

Asus Zenfone 3 Deluxe has a spacious 5.7-inch screen that competes with theSamsung Galaxy Note 5 in size. Even more relevant, I fully expect the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 to be the same size, too.

Its large Super AMOLED panel takes on a 79% screen-to-body ratio. That means less bezel on the sides and more screen space to work with. The capacitive buttons on the bottom do eat into significant screen space.

A better screen, but still 1080p

Under the Computex lighting, it also appears to be brighter, fixing be biggest issue I had with the Zenfone 2. Taking last year's phone outside snap photos was a headache due to its dull screen; I couldn't see what I was shooting and just hoping the photos turned out okay (they didn't, last year's camera was also mediocre).

I'll have to test it outdoors in a full Zenfone 3 review soon, but the brightness seems to have been ratchet up thanks to the new AMOLED display.

Clearly still a prototype, as you'll read I was reminded of on the next page

What remains, though, is the same is 1080p resolution. You won't find a pixel-dense quad HD (aka 2K) panel like the Android rivals that Asus is trying its best to mimic. That new Snapdragon 821 processor sports 4K displays, but this one is far from that spec.

I'm okay with Full HD 1080p displays on phones of this size, but the company does appear to be working on an Asus VR headset.

As I experienced with the Huawei VR headset, 1080p can be problematic when the screen is sitting two inches from your face.

The Asus Zenfone 3 Deluxe specs, not the screen, are what really pop. On paper, it matches and exceeds almost all of the phones we've tested - again, on paper.

Its 6GB of RAM is supposed to give you more breathing room to open apps and multitask without slowdown. Whether or not that happens is going to depend on how efficient it is at running the Asus-themed Android 6.0 Marshmallowoperating system and the Android Nougat update, whenever that comes about.

The Zenfone 3 is also future-proofed with the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 processor. It's a step up from every major Android phone right now (LG G5, HTC 10 and the US version of the Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge).

Running a quick GeekBench 3 benchmark test at Computex while it had the older Snapdragon 820 chip *(and before getting shooed away and told this is just a prototype), the phone was able to hit a multi-core score of 5,420. That beats the US Samsung Galaxy S7 (5,398) score I logged when it first came out.

Snuck this one in

That's still slower than the international Galaxy S7 (6,500) that is equipped with Samsung's Exynos processor, but there's a chance Asus can make those final numbers better by the time the Zenfone 3 Deluxe launches, especially with theSnapdragon 821 onboard now.

I should note that the performance of the other new Zenfones won't be better. Both the Zenfone 3 and massively sized Zenfone 3 Ultra have Snapdragon 600 series CPUs.

Camera

Asus is paying more attention to the camera with its two larger Zenfone 3 phones.

It cranks up the megapixels with a 23MP Sony IMX318 sensor for a camera that it dubs "PixelMaster 3.0." Sounds more like a bad 90s screen name for a pompous camera guru.

That translates to a f/2.0 lens that takes 0.03 seconds to autofocus. There's optical image stabilization onboard for shaky hands and a dual tone LED flash for night shots.

Don't let the high megapixel count fool you. The Samsung Galaxy S7 camera is the best in the biz right now and it's only 12MP. It's all about the quality of the sensor and post-processing, especially when it comes to low-light photos.

The Zenfone 3 can surely top the average murky-looking photos out of theZenfone 2, and I can't wait to see if it belongs in the 2016 class of really great Android phone cameras that beat the iPhone. I'll be sure to give it a full photo test outside of Computex soon.

Battery life

It'll be interesting to see how the better specs of the Zenfone 3 affect the battery life when we get this phone in for a full review.

USB Type-C with QuickCharge 3.0

Right now, we know that the battery capacity is 3,000mAh and utilizes Quick Charge 3.0 for faster recharging.

Like megapixels, the battery life number can be deceiving, so it'll take a few days of testing to see whether or not it meets the needs of power users over a full day's time.

It doesn't match the 4,600mAh battery of the 6.8-inch Asus Zenfone 3 Ultra, or have its reverse charging feature to power your other accessories with juice, but that phone is just a ridiculous monster that not everyone can manage. Asus Zenfone 3 Deluxe the faster performing, more reasonably sized variant.

Early verdict

The Asus Zenfone 3 Deluxe is the grown up version of the cheap Zenfone 2 I reviewed and easily broke a year ago. It's now ready to play with the adults at the best Android phones table occupied by Samsung, LG and HTC.

It feels good in the hand, unlike the Zenfone 2

It's a complete turnaround on the design, with an antenna-less full metal unibody, better feeling buttons and good bezel to screen ratio. The 5.7-inch AMOLED display looks bright, at least at Computex indoors.

There's still a lot to test when it comes to the Zenfone 3. Do the Snapdragon 821 and 6GB of RAm really make a difference? Does this help or hurt its battery life? And how do the display brightness and camera hold up outside?

All of your burning Zenfone 3 questions will be answered closer to the phone launch date, when the hardware is finalized and testing it with Geekbeck 3 benchmarks won't get you shooed away from the Asus booth.

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Workstation Specialists WS-M151 review

The mobile workstation market has evolved significantly over the last decade, as computer parts have become more commoditised and consumer components turned out to be as powerful and feature-laden as their professional counterparts.

This explains why the likes of SGI, DEC and Sun Microsystems faltered and eventually disappeared completely. It also explains recent developments in this market: unless you are Lenovo, Dell or HP, there's next to no chance that you can develop a true mobile workstation from scratch.

Instead, what is becoming increasingly common is that one base unit (commonly known as the chassis) is given a dual personality. A gaming laptop can be transformed into a workstation simply by swapping the graphics subsystem and beefing up the support and after-sales.

This is what MSI has successfully done; others, such as Schenker, Overclockers, Novatech, Scan and PC Specialist have used products from a massive Taiwanese laptop vendor called Clevo. In the US, Sager, AVADirect and Cyberpower are some of the better-known companies that use Clevo's kit.

Workstation Specialists, whose WS-M151 workstation we're checking out today, doesn't even try to hide the fact that it doesn't actually build the workstation.

You will even find the Clevo branding on the base of the laptop, together with the model number (P751DM) which corresponds to the XMG U506, a model from one competitor.

Indeed, there is no Workstation Specialists logo on the top of this laptop, only a small sticker on the palm rest.

The model (WS-M151) that was sent to us costs a cool £2,152 including VAT and delivery which is about the same price as the PC Specialist Octane II Pro, a notebook which sports a 17.3-inch display.

This offering is configured with a 15.6-inch full HD screen (a 4K model is available), a Core i7-6700K processor (no Xeon options are offered), 32GB of RAM (maximum is 64GB), a 512GB Samsung SM961 PCIe NVMe SSD, a 1TB HGST hard disk drive (7200RPM, 32MB cache) and an Nvidia Quadro M3000M graphics card with 4GB GDDR5, all handled by Windows 7 Pro (with a free upgrade path to Windows 10 Pro).

The SSD sported impressive numbers with rated read/write speeds of 3.2 and 1.7GBps respectively. Workstation Specialists judiciously bundled a three-year warranty (on parts and labour) with next business day engineer response.

Sadly, it is a return-to-base warranty which is standard with non-tier-1 workstation vendors and requires you to ship back the laptop. Not ideal when you are on a tight deadline and require your work machine ASAP.

This is probably the only weak point, and the obvious penalty for not being a global company with a massive tech support team. But then again, having such a workforce costs money which explains why buying a workstation from a tier-1 vendor costs more for the same configuration.

As with all Clevo models we've reviewed in the past, this one is as underwhelming as it can be. It boasts a bland chassis with a soft rubber finish and a power supply unit that weighs a ton – but that is both expected and preferred.

The massive PSU is justified by the power requirements of the GPU and the CPU, while the rubber finish suits a professional environment: subdued and self-effacing.

The constantly spinning fan underlines the fact that the device is powered by a desktop processor. The K in the 6700K model number means that this is an unlocked CPU that is clocked at 4GHz with a tiny 200MHz turbo boost.

Such high CPU speeds – especially with four cores, even on a 14nm manufacturing process – translate into a rather high TDP (91W). This explains why the fans spin so loudly even when at rest and why the keyboard and the base of the workstation were relatively warm.

The rest of the specification sheet includes: 802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.0, one Gigabit Ethernet port, four USB 3.0 ports, one USB 3.1/Thunderbolt 3 one, a card reader, and at the back, two massive air vents, two full-sized DisplayPort outputs and an HDMI 2.0 port.

It's clear that this laptop was designed first and foremost for the gaming community: the typography on the keys, the glowing lights at the front, the green-coloured strip at the top of the keyboard, plus the fact that it has a backlit keyboard with the WASD keys highlighted (and customisable keys).

Not necessarily a bad thing, more of a heads-up as to why Workstation Specialists opted for that particular design. The keyboard offers nice feedback, perhaps a bit too soft to our tastes but it's very usable.

The touchpad had a bit more friction compared to, say, the XPS 13 from Dell. It has proper large physical buttons with a fingerprint reader stuck in the middle. The matt IPS display is superb with well-rendered, vibrant colours, and it's nice and sharp. Note that there is no optical drive and no option to add one internally.

As for battery life, your mileage will vary but place this machine under a heavy load (a rendering session followed by some gaming) and you will likely drain the laptop's juice in just over an hour, even with a massive 8-cell, 82Whr battery.

There's also a pair of Onkyo-powered speakers and a full HD front-facing camera. The laptop is certified for running Solidworks, Autodesk applications and Siemens' Solid Edge.

As expected, the WS-M151 performed spectacularly well: it scored 7.8 out of 8 on Windows' own System Index, a staggering 4,294 and 13,760 points on Geekbench's single and multicore benchmarks, and 2,005 and 7,217 on CPU-Z's single and multi-thread CPU benchmark.

Benchmarks on Cinebench R15 were even more impressive with an OpenGL score of 141.6 fps and the CPU score hitting 763 cb, the highest we've ever seen.

Early verdict

The Workstation Specialists WS-M151 suffers from the same shortcomings as the PC Specialist Octane II Pro.

The lack of softer features like MIL-STD certification, onsite warranties and colour calibration technology might see bigger corporations balking at the prospect of buying a non-tier-1 workstation.

For others though, this laptop makes a compelling option as long as you can live with the fact that you may be in a bit of a pickle if your laptop gives up the ghost during an urgent assignment.

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Asus ROG Strix GL502 review

In the race for the thinnest gaming laptop, we've seen plenty of contenders from the MSI GS60 Ghost Pro to the Razer Blade. The promise of a gaming notebook that's easier to take anywhere is tempting, however, greater portability has also made some of these machines feel underpowered with limited graphics options.

The Asus ROG Strix GL502, on the other hand, strikes the perfect balance between portability and power. This 15.6-inch laptop might be less than an inch thick but it can be fully loaded with serious high-end graphics, including a Nvidia GTX 980M with 8GB of video memory. Beyond parts and measurement, this gaming laptop delivers on all fronts with style, snappy inputs and a colorful screen.

Design

Asus has slowly been edging its way away from the done-to-death black and red color scheme found on most gaming laptops. Instead of crimson highlights, the GL502 has orange trim accenting its black paint job. It's not a grand departure like the titanium and copper design found on the Asus ROG GX700 and ROG G752, but it's a start.

Though, we almost wish Asus would have stuck to the purely black and red motif, as the keyboard backlighting is still red.

Aside from the new paint job, Asus has seriously upped the profile of this machine with a new look that's in line with the rest of its ROG series. Whereas the Asus ROG G501 closely copied the MacBook Pro look, the GL502 stands on its own with an attractive and aggressive design.

Brushed aluminum screen lids are fairly common on gaming laptops, and so, you'll also find one on this Strix machine. But, the GL502 also features an extra flat edge stamped with the Republic of Gamers tagline.

The rest of the chassis is made out of plastic, which might seem disappointing at first, but it feels solid as any full-metal gaming laptop. What's more, Asus has given the keyboard deck a similar brushed finish to its top lid, while the underside carries a mechanical design etched into the panel.

There's a load of branding here, between the Strix logo cut into the keyboard deck and Republic of Gamers featured prominently on the top and bottom of the laptop, but you can't deny that there isn't a single boring side to this 15-inch beauty.

Beyond looks, the Strix's largely plastic exterior also helps keep weight down to a mere 4.4-pounds (2kg). To put that in perspective, Dell's super slimmed downXPS 15 weighs the same amount with lower-spec parts and a more comparableGigabyte P35X v5 weighs in at 5.29-pounds (2.4kg).

That said, the GL502 can't quite match up with lightweight systems like the 4.25-pound (1.93kg) Razer Blade and the 4.2-pound (1.91kg) MSI GS60 Ghost Pro. It's also isn't the world's thinnest gaming laptop measuring in at 15.35 x 10.47 x 0.92 inches (38.99 x 26.59 x 2.34 cm; W x D x H), but this is largely to make room for a much more efficient cooling system.

Beware of blast

Ultra-thin gaming laptops haven't been the coolest of customers. More often than not, they either get excruciatingly hot, moo like a cow with loud fans or end up throttling components to stop the whole machine from melting itself down. Asus is the first company to make sure its svelte gaming machine is adequately cooled without any of those downsides.

On the rear edge of the GL502, you'll find two thick heatsinks, and they're not just painted orange for show. This large exhaust system pushes out a constant stream of air hot enough it could double as a space heater. Internally the laptop features Asus' new 'dual thermal design,' which runs two separate lines of copper heat pipes and fans to cool the CPU and GPU individually.

Thanks to this efficient cooling system, the GL502 never really gets toasty on your lap, and the fan noise doesn't get too rowdy either. Heck, you might even find a use for all the hot air coming out the back to keep your coffee hot.

The Asus ROG Strix GL502 can be configured with a variety of components. But, with a starting price of $1,249 (about £955, AU$1,641), it definitely isn't a budget buy even if it nets you a 1TB hard drive disk (HDD) and 3GB Nvidia GTX 970M. For a slightly lower price, you can get the highest-end version of the Dell Inspiron 15 7000 or Lenovo Ideapad Y700, but you'll be limited to the Nvidia GTX 960M for graphics.

The configuration you see below will run you $1,449 (about £1,107, AU$1,904), which is a considerable bargain compared to the $2,199 or AU$3,299 (about £1,649) you would pay for a comparable Razer Blade with a 3K screen. Even if you were to pick up the strongest configuration of the GL502, it would still be more affordable than the cheapest Blade at $1,899 (about £1462, AU$.2461), complete with an 8GB Nvidia GTX 980M.

Spec sheet

Here is the Asus ROG Strix GL502 configuration sent to techradar for review:

• CPU: 2.6GHz Intel Core i7-6700HQ (quad-core, 6MB cache, up to 3.5GHz with Turbo Boost)
• Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GTX 970M (6GB GDDR5 RAM), Intel HD Graphics 530
• RAM: 16GB (DDR4, 2,133MHz)
• Screen: 15.6-inch FHD (1,920 x 1,080) with in-plane switching (IPS)
• Storage: 128GB SSD (M.2 SATA3), 1TB HDD (7,200 rpm)
• Ports: 3x USB 3.0, 1x USB 3.1 Type (Gen1), HDMI, mini Display Port, card reader, Ethernet, headset jack
• Connectivity: 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0
• Camera: 720p HD webcam
• Weight: 4.4 pounds
• Size: 15.35 x 10.47 x 0.92 inches (W x D x H)

Performance

The Asus ROG Strix GL502 is a rock star when it comes to Full HD gaming, For the last few weeks, we've been using the 15-inch notebook as our primary Overwatch system, and it's been an absolute joy with Epic settings turned on and a constant 60 frames per second (fps). Even when operating on battery power alone, the laptop maintains a solid 30 fps experience.

With Doom, a much more intense first-person shooter game, I was able to kick the graphical settings up to Ultra and see a steady 60 fps runtime as well. Though there are rumors Nvidia's next generation Pascal graphics are due to come mobile side very soon (as of this writing), the current configuration should still be more than capable to see you through the current swath of games and titles released over the next few years.

Benchmarks

Here's how the Asus ROG Strix GL502 performed in our suite of benchmark tests:

• 3DMark: Cloud Gate: 21,081; Sky Diver: 19,403; Fire Strike: 6,515
• Cinebench CPU: 679 points; Graphics: 105 fps
• GeekBench: 3,623 (single-core); 13,255 (multi-core)
• PCMark 8 (Home Test): 3,358 points
• PCMark 8 Battery Life: 3 hours and 5 minutes
• Battery Life (techradar movie test): 5 hours and 14 minutes
• The Division (1080p, Ultra): 34 fps; (1080p, Low): 86 fps
• GTA V (1080p, Ultra): 29 fps; (1080p, Low): 131 fps

Backing up the claims we just made, our benchmarks show the GL502 consistently keeps up with other Nvidia GTX 970M-powered gaming laptops, like the Aorus X3 v3 and Razer Blade. In more than a few cases – including the most intensive 3D Mark and GTA V benchmark tests – the Strix actually performs much better.

That's not too surprising when you take Asus' much better cooling system into account. It's more than likely that both the Razer and Aorus were buckling under throttling constraints when we ran these challenging benchmark tests.

Battery woes

Like most gaming laptops, the only area in which the Asus GL502 underperforms is long battery life. Lasting for a maximum of 5 hours and 14 minutes while playing Guardians of the Galaxy on loop at 50% brightness, the Strix falls short of the impressive six-hour run time we squeezed out of the Razer Blade. Still, this isn't as bad as the three-hour-or-shorter runs we've seen from other thin gaming laptops.

With regular usage, expect to get between four to nearly six hours of battery life, depending on how hard you're stressing the machine and how high you've set the screen brightness.

Screen and speakers

While battery life is a mild disappointment, the quality of the screen and speakers on the GL502 are impeccable. We've pretty much adored the screen on every Asus device from the ZenBook series to the company's most affordable Chromebook, but the vibrancy of colors seen on the Strix is on a whole other level.

Hues are represented brightly and distinctly on the 15-inch screen, and then a helping splash of rich contrast elevates image quality even higher.

Visuals are only the half of it. The Asus ROG GL502 also sounds excellent, thanks to a pair of surprisingly powerful speakers. Though they might only look like two tiny slivers on the side of the keyboard deck, the tweeters on this system can push out plenty of sound, representing the cacophonous battles in Overwatch handily.

Efficient cooling has been the biggest hurdle for thin gaming laptops to get over. While MSI, Razer, Gigabyte and more have been trying to crack the code, Asus has done a stellar job of shrinking down the 15-inch gaming laptop to a more portable size without sacrificing in any way on power.

We liked

The Asus ROG Strix GL502 is stylish without out being overtly obnoxious about it. Beyond its sharp looks, there aren't many other gaming laptops this thin and light that can be equipped with an 8GB Nvidia GTX 980M. Even with a 6GB Nvidia GTX 970M, this machine more than kills it with Full HD gaming now and for years to come. Plus, there's the super vibrant screen and potent speakers help round out the entertainment experience with this amazing machine.

We disliked

The biggest detraction we can give this 15-inch gaming laptop is battery life, but even then it's not the worst. Five-to-six-hour battery life is middling by general standards, but it won't leave you hanging like other machines that only last for three hours and can't keep you away from the plug.

Final verdict

It's rare for us to be this thoroughly impressed with a gaming laptop. Aside from the minor knock against battery life, there's nothing wrong with Asus ROG Strix GL502. In fact, almost everything else about the machine is stellar from the crisp keyboard, loud speakers, stunning screen and solid Full HD gaming experience. This is one of the best all-around gaming laptops we've ever reviewed, hands down, and we recommend it if you're in the market for a solid mobile PC gaming system.

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