DETAILED LEARNING OF THE ASUS ZENFONE MAX PRO M2
The Asus zenfone Max pro M1 was a great success. It stubbornly left behind the Redmi Note 5 Pro, which was released just a few days after it, and became a reliable alternative to the Xiaomi offer. The highlight was not only the fastest mid-range processor at that time or the large 5000 mAh battery, but also the presence of a standard Android, which really kept the Xiaomi Juggernaut at bay. After a successful campaign that took place from April to December, Asus is withdrawing the Max pro M1 in favor of the Zenfone Max pro M2. The phone has been significantly improved in both technical description and design compared to its predecessor. Will the Asus Zenfone Max Pro m2 be able to maintain popularity in the middle price segment, which now has more features than ever before? Let’s find out.
Design
The Asus zenfone Max pro M2 is identical to its predecessor and at the same time differs from it. This is a difference, since the Max pro M2 uses a resin-based coating that is slightly glossy and has reflective properties. It’s similar, because all the elements, such as the rear-view camera and the fingerprint sensor, are arranged as last time. The front of the display has a recess, and the glasses have become even thinner than before.
Zenfone Zenfone Max pro M2 looks much better than the previous Zenfone Max pro M1 model, made in a vanilla-metal style. The metal cover is reinforced by a shiny, light-reflecting polymer shell, which at first glance looks like glass. Although the cover made of polymer makes it a little more durable, it is quite susceptible to scratches, since the device we received for examination is easily scratched in the bag. It will be more difficult to damage the phone, because the screen on the front is reinforced with Gorilla Glass 6. It is also the only phone in the price segment under Gorilla Glass 6 that Gorilla Glass 6 offers.
In addition to the new glossy cover, the cut and the Gorilla Glass 6, the design of the Zenfone Max pro M2 has nothing more to pay attention to. It is too original, but at the same time Asus has made sure that the design is made with a unique taste.
show
One of the few drawbacks of the Asus zenfone Max pro M1 was the low-resolution display. This seems to have been fixed with the brighter and more dynamic 6,26-inch FHD + panel of the Asus zenfone Max pro M2. In our brightness test, it was found that the sound level is 10 lux higher than that of the Zenfone Max pro M1 (560 lux). Although this is not a big difference, the backlight of the panel has improved significantly. It is more uniform for a person, and visibility in the sun is much better thanks to less blurred colors. It also has a minimum brightness of 7 lux, which makes the screen really dim in the dark and does not put much pressure on the eyes.
The Max pro M2 is also one of the leading suppliers in the mid-range Zenfone class. Fortunately, this screen is not too wide, but all our jokes about the notch as a design solution remain. In the screen section there is a front camera, headphones and a set of sensors. The same components could also be placed on a thicker frame above the panel, but Asus had to keep up with the times and use a notch to ensure a higher screen-to-cover ratio.
The phone also supports adaptive brightness and adaptive display, which turn on invisibly when the phone is locked and a new notification appears. In addition, there is a night mode that sets a tangerine shade to protect the eyes at night. A new feature is the Smart Screen function, when you keep the screen on while looking at the screen or holding the phone upright. The front camera is probably used to see if you are looking at the panel, and an accelerometer is used to check if you are holding it straight. However, the activation of this function has a slight effect on the battery life.
The display of the Max pro M2 has been significantly improved, which makes using the phone much more pleasant. The fact that it is also protected by Gorilla Glass 6 makes the coating even softer.
Idea
The Asus Zenfone Max pro M1 competed with the Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Pro according to technical specifications. At that time, the Note 5 Pro was the only device that could be purchased in the lower price range. Within a year, this award went to Realme 2 Pro, which was able to bring the price of the SoC Snapdragon 660 to a level below $ 15, 000. As for the Asus zenfone Max pro M2, this is the phone that Asus should surpass, and as expected, both phones have similar technical specifications. In addition, the Max pro M2 is equipped with a powerful mid-range Snapdragon 660 processor and has RAM options up to 6 GB. True, the storage capacity is limited to 64 GB, but Asus offers a special micro SD card slot, which increases the storage capacity to 512 GB.
The test module we received did not show high performance values. So we had to get the apps out of the way, and even then 3DMark and PCMark could not be started. We managed to get the results for Geekbench and AnTuTu, and they are far beyond those of the Asus zenfone Max pro M1. Here it is worth noting whether the Max pro M2 works better than other phones based on the Snapdragon 660.
To achieve this, the Max pro M2 scored 129,379 points in AnTuTu 7.0, which is superior to all other Snapdragon 660-based phones. In single-core and multi-core tests, the Geekbench Max pro M2 showed values of 1456 and 5362, which is slightly higher than the Realme 2 Pro and Mi A2. However, the Zenfone Max pro M2 could not surpass the Honor 8X in performance, and the Honor range remains the most powerful phone in this price category.
The Asus zenfone Max pro M2 works more smoothly thanks to AOSP. Asus uses an unchanged version of Android Oreo 8.1 in the Max pro M2. This is a little disappointing, since the Android 9 Pie version of AOSP is already available, and the company could immediately ship the phone with the recent version of Android.
It draws attention to the fact that although Android 9 Pie was released more than two months ago and a large number of devices based on Android 9 (old and new) are already on the market, the Zenfone Max pro M1 has not yet received the last update. Asus has announced that the update will be released in February 2019. One of the main reasons to buy an Android phone in stock is the promise of regular updates at the price of the custom features that most third-party user interfaces offer. While Asus continues to update the security system monthly and fix bugs for the Max pro M1, upgrading to a version that was not found raises a lot of questions.
However, the Asus zenfone Max pro M2 is user-friendly. There are no significant delays, at least for the two weeks we have been using them. We have installed the usual work-related apps like Dropbox Paper, Feedly, Netflix, etc., as well as popular social media apps that take up about 50% of storage. Even in this matter, practically no slowdown was observed.
Games like pubg Mobile worked pretty well, albeit with average graphics. They had no image clippings, and the game adapted to the requirements by enlarging the screen. The phone has a smart nxp amplifier that enhances the gaming experience in PubG for mobile devices by highlighting sounds such as footsteps and gunshots so that they can be easily detected. The volume of the only external speaker in the phone is also quite loud.
The Asus zenfone Max pro M1 seems to be one of the few phones in this price range that has a Widevine L1 certificate. You can stream content on Netflix and Amazon Prime Video and watch it in your normal screen resolution.