Asus Zenfone 3S Max Review: A Massive Battery Phone for Hours of Uninterrupted Entertainment

Asus fuels the big battery smartphone market with its another massive battery phone Zenfone 3S Max. It's another smartphone of Zenfone series with Max power capability of 5000 mAh.

Looks similar but not really

In the first look, you may be confused between 3S Max and previous Zenfone 3 Max device as it shares lots of design aesthetics, but has various tweaks as well. The front is completely covered with glass, but this time it gets a fingreprint scanner at the front apart from back as like previous devices. Also, you gonna miss three capacitive touch buttons placed below the screen, these get placed on the screen. So the bottom bezel is still on the same size hosting fingerprint scanner.

First Look Video

The phone has 5.2-inch IPS screen with 720X1280p resolution which is lower than Lenovo K6 note, Honor 6X and Coolpad cool1, all three having 1080p. Though, it has the lower resolution yet produces great colors. The screen is vivid and bright so you can enjoy games, movies and other tasks with ease. Even in direct sunlight, you can use the phone without any issue, but what really bothers me was the glass, which is reflective as well as works as a magnet to fingerprints and smudges.

The metallic shell is painted with gold color with sand finish adding rich feel and look to the device. Thankfully, it won't capture smudges and scratches.

PixleMaster camera to capture detailed images

At the rear, it hosts 13 MP PixleMaster camera with several modes and settings. We captured several images and video to check its performance. In daylight conditions, it was able to click quality photos with lots of details and rich colors. In low light conditions, images come with grains, though LED flash helped to capture decent photos.

Asus Zenfone 3S Max Review: Super Resolution Mode

Asus Zenfone 3S Max Review: HDR Mode

Asus Zenfone 3S Max Review: Pro Mode

Using different modes, as like super resolution, HDR, beautification etc. it brings more details to the images. For photography enthusiasts, it has pro mode as well, you can customize the camera ISO, Focus and many other things to click images as per your preference.

The front 8 MP camera is great for selfies and groufies. It has beautification mode as well as several other effects that will really please selfie lovers.

Play games, have fun

The mobile is powered by octa-core processor clocking at 1.5 GHz, 3 GB RAM and Mali T-860MP2 GPU. It runs on latest Android 7.0 (Nougat) with the customized Asus ZenUI 3.0 which we saw in previous devices Zenfone 3 Max and Laser.

The phone can easily handle daily tasks and graphics-intensive games. We used the device for more than three weeks and stuffed it with several apps and games to test its real world performance. We browsed the internet, captured images and played games like Asphalt 8, NFS, etc. There was not any visible lag in performance. Even, while switched between games, we didn't notice any delay.

The speakers are placed on the bottom which is quite loud to enjoy music, games and movies with your friends and family. The sound quality is crisp with balanced bass and treble.

Powerful battery to last longer

The main attraction of the phone is the battery, it is powered by 5000 mAh battery which we saw in Asus Zenfone Max. In moderate usage, it lasted for more than two days. And while playing intensive games watching movies etc. it lasted for one day on one full charge. In our video loop test, it lasted for 6 hours and 44 minutes while playing video over YouTube with full brightness and sound. It is the best battery phone which we have reviewed in this price category.