ASUS Zenfone 5 Lite (A502CG) Review

Last month ASUS announced a new Lite version of Zenfone 5 (code named A502CG)  in Philippines and then they launched this version in India as well. The Zenfone 5 Lite is a stripped down variant of Zenfone 5 and comes with a 5 inch qHD display (960 X 540) compared to HD on the original Zenfone 5. Apart from this, the phone also comes with 1.2Ghz Intel Atom Dual core processor (Z2520) when compared to 1.6Ghz Intel Atom Z2560 on Zenfone 5. While the battery capacity has been increased to 2500mAh, the RAM is now 1GB, down from 2GB on the Zenfone 5. The phone also comes with 8MP rear camera and a 0.3MP front camera. The phone comes with Android 4.4 KitKat out of the box.

Here is the detailed review of Zenfone 5 Lite.

Related Reading: ASUS Zenfone 5 Lite (A502CG) Unboxing

Design and Build

The first thing you notice about the Zenfone 5 Lite variant is the design and it is exactly similar to the Zenfone 5. It is pretty compact and give a premium feel even though it has a 5 inch display. The back panel has a matte finish and the cover is removable and you can insert the dual SIM cards. The battery is not user replaceable like the Moto G. The power and volume keys on the right side have chrome finish. The 3.5mm audio jack sit on the top while the micro USB charging slot is at the bottom.

The rear panel houses the 8MP camera with LED flash along with the speakers at the bottom. One major change with Zenfone 5 Lite is the weight which is now increased to 160gms probably because of the bigger battery. The device does feel a bit heavy for its size.

The front panel has camera, sensors, earpiece and below the 5 inch HD (1280 X720p) display, you have the three touch button. There is also a pattern below the touch keys similar to Zenfone 5.  Overall, the build quality and fit and finish of the device is really good and ASUS has done a commendable job.

Display:

The Zenfone 5 features a 5-inch IPS qHD (960 X 540 Pixels) screen with Corning Gorilla Glass 3 for protection. The screen has 220ppi pixel density, but unlike the Zenfone 5, you can clearly see some amount of pixelation due to lower resolution. Nevertheless it is a decent display in this price point. It lacks the color depth of Moto G’s HD display. The display is reflective, hence you might find issues using the phone in bright sunlight, but you can also increase the brightness levels. The viewing angles are decent on the device.

Software and Performance:

Zenfone 5 Lite runs on Android 4.4 KitKat out of the box and ASUS has the Zen UI on top of Android. Zen UI is really useful and comes with good set of options and also a beautiful notification center which is actually usable. The notification center and the quick launch icons are well arranged and you can even customize them. ASUS has already announced that Lollipop update would be rolled out soon for all the Zenfones, so we expect this phone also to receive it next year.

You can sort the apps based on the ones you have downloaded and also the frequently used ones. It also offers options to lock apps so that other users do not have the option to access apps unless you enter the password. There is also option to hide apps.

In the settings, there are quite a lot of ASUS customized options and Power Saver along with the ability to view the apps which are using the battery. The Power save mode allows you to get better out of the battery life based on your preferences.

The phone comes with 8GB of internal storage and out of the 8GB, 4.4GB is available to the user. The internal storage can be expanded to 32GB via micro SD card and you can also move apps to SD card. This is useful if you have installed too many games on the device.

The device is powered by an Intel Dual Core processor with 1GB of RAM. ASUS has reduced the clock speed on Zenfone 5 Lite to 1,2 Ghz when compared to 1.6Ghz on Zenfone 5. Even though it comes with only 1GB RAM, the overall performance is really smooth and there are no lags when using the Zen UI. The call quality of the device is pretty good and we did not have any dropped calls. The Zen UI also allows you to record calls automatically which is something not offered on too many phones.

The gaming performance of the device is also pretty decent and the 5 inch qHD display is pretty decent for gaming. We had issues playing some games like Real Racing 3 which is an issue on almost all Zenfones probably something to do with Zen UI.

Camera:

The camera on the device is the same PixelMaster 8MP shooter with LED flash found on Zenfone 5, the front facing camera has been lowered to a 0.3MP from 2MP. The interface of the camera is pretty good and totally different from what you see on most Android phones. There are quite a lot of settings available on the camera UI including filters and also shooting modes.

The camera settings also offers a variety of customizations before you take the shots. The camera app  also offers settings for shutter, focus, brightness, image size, ISO, white balance, colour effects, timer, geo-tagging, shutter sound, and storage.

We tested the camera of Zenfone 5 Lite in carious conditions and found the camera to be pretty decent. While the day light photos came pretty good, the colors were a little dull. Apart from this one issue we noticed is that when sunlight directly falls on the camera lens, it tend to change the colors of the photos. The low light photos were not that great and when taken with low light mode, the capture was well lit, but there was too much noise in the photos. But having said that it was pretty good when compared to the competition.

The phone can also record videos in 1080p and the quality was again pretty good. Here are some of the samples from the camera.

Battery Life:

One good thing ASUS has done with Zenfone 5 Lite is that they have increased the battery capacity to 2500 from 2110 on the original Zenfone 5. This is a good move especially when the battery performance on the Zenfone 5 was not impressive. The battery life on Zenfone 5 Lite was pretty decent and better than Zenfone 5 and this was clearly evident from the higher capacity battery. So with this battery you can now easily get a day of usage under normal use.

Verdict:

The Zenfone 5 Lite (A502CG) with 1GB RAM and qHD display is priced Rs 8999, just 1k lower than the Zenfone 5. While ASUS has done a great job with the performance even with the 1GB RAM, we would definitely suggest to pick the Zenfone 5 instead of the Lite variant if you want a better display and more RAM. The only good aspect of the Lite variant is the higher battery capacity. Unless you are on a really tight budget, pick the Zenfone 5 instead of the Lite version.