Eyeing for a smartphone that can keep up your lifestyle either you belong to the young crowd or young at heart? The good thing with ASUS or any smartphone brand in general, they build smartphones with user’s “needs” in mind, thus, ASUZ ZenFone Live L1 is an output with their research and development. In its category, Zenfone Live L1 sports a bigger screen, longer battery life, hands free security access, 13MP Camera and a triple-slot sim-memory tray supporting up to 2TB microSD.


Powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 425 Mobile platform, ZenFone 5 is responsive at user’s demand and expected graphics rendering. Priced at 5,995 Pesos for the 2GB/16GB variant and 4,995 Pesos for the Android Go variant 1GB/16GB.

5.5 Inches Full View 18:9 Display in 5 Inches Body
A bigger and brighter 5.5 inches full view 18:9 display almost ditching the bezel frame allowing more screen size. Aside from being lightweight, it provides better gripping. Eyes off from your TV or laptop as the 18:9 display provides wider, cleared and brighter movie viewing experience on the go.



13MP Rear Camera
Up to F2.0 wide aperture and phase-detection autofocus gives the users the full control to capture what’s attracts the eyes into an image saved to Live L1. Multiple Camera modes and filters such as Beauty, Panorama and Time Lapse modes enable new perspective in your daily imaging consumption.



ASUS ZenFone Live L1 Camera Portrait Mode: Sample Straight out of Camera shots


In portrait mode, you are adding depth to how your subject appear on the photo against the other essential characters in the frame. To compare with more higher category ASUS portrait mode features, ASUS ZenFone Live L1 doesn't have user adjustment on the deepness of the subject. I'm talking about ASUS Zenfone 5 where there's setting of how the user wants the deepness should render in the photo. Check this ASUS Zenfone review for more details.



One Tray Stowing three modules hardware feature
Well this hardware design is somewhat efficient and clean, where you seat your external memory (up to 2TB microSD) and two Sims into one spacious tray for a clean hardware topography but this just means when you want to try to eject your external memory, it also means downtime for your SIMs since all of them will be unseated from the phone. But I think this drawback is something that everyone can live with.



ZenUI 5 Intelligent Feature
What leads from these group of features is Face detect or Unlock. What more gives convenience when you can unlock your phone or launch a feature hands free. Zenfone Live L1 lets you unlock your device quickly, safely with great resources up to hundred millions of face images for recognition correctness. Also applicable to unlock App and launch them when correct face is validated.

Final Say, ASUS ZenFone Live L1 is available in the following variants:

• ZenFone Live L1 in 2GB/16GB priced at 5,995 Pesos
• ZenFone Live L1 Android Go in 1GB/16GB priced at 4,995 Pesos

The aggressive and demanding nature of the mid-range market paved the way to the birth of intelligent and reasonably-priced Smartphones such as ASUS Zenfone 5. Our final say for this Phone is, highly recommended to those who loves balanced between price point and features. It meets the thin line for mobile gaming and mobile photography at its price range. One thing I'll note is, generally mobile photography has limitations so don't expect that it will get par with other camera that are built for photography. For example, the mirror less or hybrid cameras, or better versions DSLRs. But at its kind and range, ASUS Zenfone 5 easily stands out from the pack with its curated features and capabilities.

Now that we conclude our test with Zenfone 5, we will give some samples and works taken using this great mid-range Smartphone ASUS Zenfone 5 built-in features. We will ran down some of the camera features tested in our limited time and real-world samples with SOOC quality and minimal-to-no-editing output.

Dual Lens System Real-Time Portrait feature renders a bokeh effect. Straight our of Camera (SOOC) shot

The Bokeh Effect
The bokeh effect is a technique in photography to emphasize your subject with controlled amount of depth of field in the background or foreground achievable with special glasses or lens. With The ZenFone 5 you can achieve this pro-looking photo enhanced with a blurred background effect in real time. It uses both rear lenses simultaneously to add even more precise depth perception to make subjects stand out even more. Real-time Portrait is utilizes the advanced AI algorithm to calculate the outline of subjects accurately to make portraits appear more natural. The AI technology can also detect depth information, and lets users choose between six layers of background blurring intensity and gradient blur effect. What we like with ASUS Zenfone 5 "Bokeh" feature is the dynamic option for the depth of field settings, the user can actually dictate the depth value according to the output the user wants.

In the sample Portrait shot above, taken in Parisian Macao and in the background is the Eiffel Tower replica, you are capturing a different perspective of your travel or outdoor photos, here the bokeh effect send a soft impression at the background but still you can recognize that it's the tower at the background of your subject. The foreground which is the subject is a underexposed but can be process a little bit to correct the exposure.

Time Lapse Shooting
We are able to test the the Time Lapse Camera feature of ASUS Zenfone 5 and it is one of the features that we like most. Aside from the light file size that it has compared to taking full video, you are also creating content on a different perspective for your friends to appreciate. In this mode, the phone automatically shoots frames at preset intervals which are then compiled into a stop-motion-like video. Here's a time lapse video sample taken with ASUS Zenfone 5 in Macau. The location is in Taipa Food Street and the weather is gloomy-to-scattered rain showers. I setup the camera attached to a tripod in front of a souvenir shop in Taipa and started capturing using Time Lapse in-camera feature of Zenfone 5 to the passing crowd and the pouring rain. We were not disappointed with the output and appreciated the convenience this feature has to offer. See the Time Lapse sample below, exported through InShot Android video editor. This video sample is also posted at our YouTube channel.



Capturing in time lapse mode could be battery draining, but not with Zenfone 5 since it has the ability to shoot extended time-lapse videos in a power saving mode. This mode saves power by lowering the screen brightness and putting the phone into plane mode where its radios are switched off, allowing the shooting of longer time lapse videos. See other example bellow:



In this sample, it captures the motion of the people crossing the street, the vehicles passing, the wind that moves everything and the gloomy weather on that day. Although the whole Eiffel Tower in Parisian Macao was not capture in whole but still its beauty shown in the stop-motion video.

Other Camera Features
If we've got more time to test the remaining Camera features of Zenfone 5, we could have pick the following shooting modes and present some results or samples here. Anyway, I'll just run them down here for discussion.

Gif Animation Mode
ASUS Zenfone 5 Camera allows users to create a .gif format animation instantly and in less complicated process. Gif format is the early version of motion graphics commonly used on the web. Gif images are simple animations composed of a repeating loop of sequential images. They are super easy and fun to create using the Gif Animation Mode available with Zenfone 5. Simply shoot your subject in this mode and the camera will compile the photo sequence as an animated gif image. It also allows you to modify the speed or even play direction of the animation before saving.

Panorama Mode
This camera feature is somewhat available with most of the smartphones. This is the perfect mode for extremely wide landscapes, Panorama allows users to pan the camera from one side of landscape to another while the camera automatically captures the separate frames and stitches them together to for a wide panoramic photo.

Pro Mode
I seldom use this mode in my entire Zenfone 5 tests maybe it's because of the advance AI feature of this phone where it knows right away in Auto Mode the perfect setting for each scenes that I am trying to capture. Although a scene can be interpreted in many ways, and the phones’ auto or preset modes may not always render the photo you want, thus a comprehensive set of manual controls under its Pro Mode that works with the main rear camera. See below the controls you can manually set at Pro Mode:



Slow Motion
This is one of the camera features that I really wanna try but I just didn't have the perfect scene to use this one. The perfect scenes that could have been captured with this feature is during Food event, Portrait, active/sports scenes or depends on your desired output. ASUS Zenfone 5 let you shoots videos in extremely high frame rate at 120FPS or 60FPS at full HD resolution (1920 X 1080) / 1080P for clear slow motion playback.

To read the Introductory review of the ASUS Zenfone 5 as it used in Food Photography and how its AI capability helped in performing these features seamlessly and smartly, follow this link: Testing ASUS Zenfone 5 Camera AI capabilities in Food Photography

Intelligent Phone ASUS Zenfone 5: Final Say posted at Cebu Events Blog

This article will not touch on the greater technical aspect on ASUS Zenfone 5 AI Capabilities, instead I will share my actual Straight-out-of-Camera (SOOC) FOOD photos taken from the Zenfone 5, some experience and slightly citing some of the AI capabilities of Zenfone 5.

To begin, ASUS Zenfone 5 is one of the most intelligent phones ever made by ASUS and in the market. It has the Qualcomm Snapdragon 636 SoC (System on a Chip) mobile platforms inside giving its capabilities of the Artificial Intelligence Engine (AIE) or AI capabilities to execute many micro tasks involved in Artificial Intelligence (AI) computing. In short, this phone is intelligent and able to perform advance tasks using data and reacts to stimulus through its sensors.

I was in a buffet setting at a hotel in Cebu Business Park and about to eat lunch. Before I take anything to eat, I decided to take some pictures on what's in the buffet area. Most of the time, I take only few pictures but this time as I am shooting using an ASUS Zenfone 5 and I like what I see from the pictures that I took. So there I spend nearly 5-10 minutes taking pictures before having something to eat.

See below pictures that I took and look how Zenfone 5 perfectly implemented its AI scene detection where it intelligently adjust and optimize Color temperature and saturation, Contrasts, Brightness, Shutter Speed, and Exposure Time in every scene that I captured. These photos are taken in Auto mode.






The Snapdragon 636 has powerful, 8-core processors based on Qualcomm’s Kryo technology, and are built on highly-advanced 14nm manufacturing processes which gives them extremely good battery performance. Thus, giving it the Artificial Intelligence capabilities that give them the ability to manage the many small human-like decision making processes involved in AI.

ASUS is able to deliver with Zenfone 5 the AI algorithm that works better in the market. It's AI Scene Detection uses a special algorithm known technically as an “AI data model“, it senses the up to 16 scenes or subjects the user is shooting applies the ideal settings that would render the best results.
The camera’s AI data model is created by referencing thousands of stock photos stored on ASUS servers gets refined with each firmware update of the smartphone.

Aside from Food, Zenfone Camera can detect people, dog, cat, sunset, sky, green field, ocean, flower, plant, snow, night view, stage, text, tripod and even QR codes. With these advance information that every Zenfone 5 smartphone is using, no wonder it could quickly decide on its own the most accurate camera setting in taking pictures. Now it's time for sweets!



To end this article, let's try to get acquainted with the Camera used in ASUS Zenfone 5 whose responsible to deliver decent mobile photos.

The ZenFone 5 has three cameras. The rear has two, a 120-degree wide angle, F2.2, 8-megapixel camera that can capture wide landscapes and a light sensitive main camera with the latest, top-of-the-line, 12 megapixel Sony flagship IMX363 sensor that has large 1.4 micron pixels and a wide F1.8 aperture lens. Its front camera is an 8-megapixel, F2.0 selfie camera


The main camera is great for portraits and focusing on isolated subjects, night and low light shots. The wide angle camera is excellent for shooting broad landscapes, in confined areas, just be careful with using wide angle since the extreme eastern and western quadrant of the photo tends to bend, this is expected on wide angle lenses. All are supplemented with a Color Correction Sensor and LED flash.
ASUS Zenfone 5 Camera Food Photography Test posted at Cebu Events Blog