Asus Zenfone 3 Max: technical specifications, review
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The content of the article
Asus Zenfone 3 Max. Budget smartphone with a powerful battery
In 2016, the Taiwanese company Asus expanded its popular line of Zenfone smartphones with the Asus Zenfone 3 Max ZC520TL and Asus Zenfone 3 Max ZC553KL. Despite the fact that both phones belonged to the Asus Zenfone 3 Max series, they differed greatly from each other in many characteristics: dimensions, display sizes, processor power, memory capacity, etc.
Our review today will focus on the cheaper Asus Zenfone 3 Max ZC520TL.
Appearance
The Asus Zenfone 3 Max ZC520TL smartphone was available in three universal colors: gray, silver and gold. The width of the device was 73.7 mm, height 149.5 mm, and thickness 8.55 mm. The manufacturer took care to give the device a pleasant, streamlined shape and smooth out any possible corners. Therefore, Asus Zenfone 3 Max turned out to be neat and not bulky.
The weight of the device was 148 g. It might seem heavy for its size, but this was explained by the fact that the device was made of aluminum with small plastic inserts along the edges. At the same time, the high-quality matte coating of the smartphone’s surface made the transition from one material to another imperceptible.
Overall, this model looked quite decent.
Main characteristics and equipment
Display
The Asus Zenfone 3 Max ZC520TL had a 5.2-inch IPS screen with excellent color reproduction, but a modest resolution of 1280x720 pixels. However, the resulting density of 282 ppi was enough for a fairly clear picture.
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Camera
To take pictures with a resolution of up to 4160x3120 pixels and record FullHD video, the mobile device is equipped with one main 13-megapixel camera with LED flash, autofocus, 5-element Largan lens and PixelMaster technology. Thanks to these characteristics, good photos could be taken even in low light.
The capabilities of the 5 megapixel front camera were limited to pictures with a resolution of 2560x1920 pixels.
Specifications
The Asus Zenfone 3 Max ZC520TL ran on the Android 6.0 operating system using proprietary ZenUI software. The latter endowed the device with an improved design and interface with an additional set of functions.
Low-level performance was provided by the main quad-core MediaTek MT6737T 1.4 GHz processor and Mali T720 graphics. This was enough to work with simple and undemanding applications. But the technology would not be able to cope with modern and resource-intensive games.
The amount of memory depended on the version of the smartphone and was: 2 GB or 3 GB for RAM, 16 GB or 32 GB for built-in.
The mobile device contains a number of standard functions:
- Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n
- Bluetooth 4.0+EDR
- GPS/A-GPS
- microSD card support: up to 32 GB, etc.
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Battery
The 4130mAh non-removable lithium battery was the main feature of the Asus Zenfone 3 Max ZC520TL. According to the manufacturer, one charging cycle should have been enough for 720 hours of standby time and 20 hours of talk time.In addition, Asus provided the device with a power bank function, i.e. the phone could be used to charge other devices using the USB OTG adapter that was included in the kit. Not bad characteristics for an inexpensive smartphone.
The only downside is the lack of fast charging.
Overall, the Asus Zenfone 3 Max ZC520TL has established itself as a high-quality device with an optimal set of functions and an affordable price.
