If you were to take a glance at Asus’ descriptions of its recently released Zenfone Zoom S you’ll find an armamentarium of camera and photography terms. That’s because Asus is entering everything on the device’s camera offerings. It’s also got a huge 5,000mAh battery, decent specs and a solid build, but as is obvious from the very name, this is a camera phone.

The Zenfone Zoom S isn’t a good looking phone, if only it weren’t for the fact that every other phone looks similar now. All smooth metal on the back (either in black, silver or gold) and 2.5D curved glass on the front, with antenna lines styled to glint at the top and bottom. What is most prominent on the back is, of course, the whole camera assembly. You’ll only notice the Asus logo and fingerprint sensor later.

Men don’t seem to find this phone either chunky or heavy, but if you have small hands, you might. The weight comes from the 5,000mAh battery which can keep the phone going for well over a day and leave you feeling secure that binging on photographs won’t leave you with no battery life with which to call an Uber at the end of it. So naturally, it’s easy to remember that the phone could have been much heavier with that battery and feel thankful that it isn’t. It is, however, a little slippery because of the weight plus smoothness and I’d recommend a case despite the very sturdy feel.

How I wish camera oriented phones would make the back out of some grippy textured material so that you’re always sure you won’t drop it while flipping it out, switching from portrait to landscape, and so on.

But on to the camera, or should one say cameras, since it’s a dual 12MP set of lenses for the primary shooter. Dual cameras have become major phone fashion now, but everyone is implementing them a little differently. The main camera has an f/1.7 aperture, which isn’t very common yet on even more expensive phones.

What emerges from the host of specs and features and obfuscating terminology is that you can touch a dedicated virtual button to optical zoom 2x on a subject. It’s the kind of implementation that is also on the iPhone 7 and mostly works pretty well. In good light, you can read the fine print on a medicine bottle, for example. After you’ve reached the limit of the 2.3x optical zoom, digital zoom can take over, but you will obviously have to watch for softness and pixelation. The camera has optical image stabilisation so you have some leeway to take clear shots.

The other thing you get is that much sought after depth of field effect - the blurred background using the Portrait mode. In good light this too works very well, including detecting the edges of objects clearly. In low light, the cameras try to keep the noise down and succeed.

Close up photography is pretty good as are the results from the selfie camera. The camera app is filled to the brim with options, settings, modes and more options. It’s a little bit much, actually, but perhaps better than missing out on settings that would then draw complaints.

The whole lot does, however, cry out for slightly simpler arrangements, somehow. This is also true of the overall phone itself. It’s so full of settings that it would overwhelm a less savvy user. One kind of long-press on the home button pops up options to do with themes and wallpapers, another kind of long-press leads to the Google Assistant... There’s a Google launcher style feed when you swipe from left and home screens strewn with apps, some of which you didn’t ask for and can’t uninstall, plus an army of them in the app drawer.

Icons are sort of clunky and large even though you can customise endlessly if you select from a store full of themes and packs. There are dozens of settings and gestures, some of them quite useful (touch fingerprint sensor to take a photo) but all needing high involvement and exploration.

Asus has long needed to tone it down but doesn’t seem to be doing so. On the other hand, with everyone going stock Android, what will there be to tell one phone from another?

The Zenfone Zoom S works on the stable Snapdragon 625 with 4GB RAM and 64GB storage. A hybrid SIM set-up lets you use two SIMs or a SIM and micro-SD card. The 5.5-inch AMOLED display is nice and vivid and allows for colour profile adjustments. It’s speaker is pretty loud. The phone runs on Android Nougat 7.1.1 and is quite efficient with only marginal warming up.

For its price, the Zenfone Zoom S is quite a bargain given the camera and the features it offers.

Price: Rs 26,999

Pros: Capable camera with lots of features, great price

Cons: Slightly chunky, very busy bloated interface

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