Most people recognize Asus from its laptops and a smattering of Android tablets, but outside the United States, it also sells a lot of phones – 10 million to date, in fact. Its ZenFone smartphone lineup promises solid performance and a well-rounded feature set at an affordable price, and the ZenFone...

Outstanding value; Powerful hardware; Pleasing 1080p screen; Decent battery life

Pretty large; even for a phone with a 5.5-inch display; Bland design; Average camera; Software bloat

When it comes to smartphones, what drives your choices? If looks and materials are important to you, the bulky, plastic-shielded Asus Zenfone 2 won't make your shortlist. But if all the stuff under the hood counts for more points, then the gigantic, hulking shape of the device won't matter to you as...

Snappy and rare high-end Intel processors and plenty of RAM; Handy gestures can launch specific apps from standby; Fully customizable skin; Ultra-cheap, considering what you get; Comes with 5GB of free cloud storage forever, and 100GB of Google Drive storage free for two years

Large bezels, poor choice of materials, and too large of a body; So much plastic! Heavy, hard to work with one hand; Capacitive buttons are not illuminated; Comes with a ton of redundant apps that are a chore to get rid of

I can't believe the Asus ZenFone 2 costs $299. In terms of sheer power per dollar, it's unmatched. The ZenFone 2 has everything and the kitchen sink: 64GB of storage plus a memory card slot, two SIM slots, enough RAM to flip between several large games at once, and a surprisingly good camera.

Amazingly fast and powerful for the price; Good camera; Dual SIMs; Lots of memory

Big and heavy; Dim screen; Heavy Android skin; Too much bloatware

The rate at which the industry is pumping out smartphones these days is staggering. Even more impressive is the rate at which truly outstanding phones are shipping, even from names that weren't significant just a few years ago.

This is a great phone the draw on the battery is the android os, when do you ever see that its always the screen. 1080 p, yes on mobile I have proof 100 mbps, never seen a Samsung or iphone do that.

1080p; 100mbps on mobile; faster browsing internet; great phone

Removable battery only con

World domination was surely on the mind of at least one top exec over at Asus headquarters, when the crew gathered to outline the Zenfone 2 game plan. The smartphone will be sold globally, and the stores in a few lucky countries already have their shelves well stocked.

5.5-inch IPS capacity touchscreen with 1080p resolution and 403ppi density; Gorilla Glass 3 protection; Intel Atom Z3560 chipset with a 1.8GHz quad-core processor; PowerVR G6430 GPU; 2GB of RAM; 16GB of storage and a microSD slot for further expansion; Dual-SIM; Dual Call capability; LTE Cat.4; NFC,...

No 2160p video recording; Non-removable battery despite the removable back cover; Rather large and hefty; Zenfone 2 has a confusing naming convention - not only are there several of them; but ZE551ML comes in two hardware versions

Can a $300 smartphone stand up with the best Android devices out there from heavyweights like Samsung, LG, and HTC? That's what Asus is trying to answer with the ZenFone 2. It's not alone either - a whole host of smaller smartphone manufacturers are trying the same thing this year.

Appealing low price; Fast; lag-free performance; Asus' software allows deep customization

Disgusting amount of bloatware; Camera falls apart outside of ideal conditions; Generic design with bad button layout

Launched last year, the ZenFone 5 was intended to be a smartphone with great cost/benefit ratio. In that, it was successful. Now, ASUS launches this new device, the ZenFone 2, which is very superior to its predecessor, not even being a replacement or a competitor in market.

Great cost/benefit ratio; Big screen with Full HD resolution; Sturdy; Great design; Excellent performance; 5 MP front camera; 13 Mp rear camera; Supports microSD memory card; Support for two SIM cards; Supports 4G LTE; Supports NFC; Fast battery charge

Could be thinner; Does not record movies at 60 fps or at 4K

"The next billion people." Google used that term several times during its recent developer conference, and maintains that Android's future is the future of computing, connecting the poor and disenfranchised….

Excellent price to performance ratio; Good screen quality; Dual-SIM useful for travellers; Lots of camera settings; including a good manual mode; Fast and stable; Good battery life; Exhaustive North American LTE network support

An absurd amount of bloatware pre-installed; Camera quality is inconsistent and often poor; Large and heavy frame

The ZenFone 2 is equipped with a 13MP PixelMaster 2.0 rear camera and a 5MP front camera. These numbers are pretty average, but such numbers do not really do it justice. In use, the auto-focusing of the rear camera is faster than most; up to half the time it takes for most other phone cameras...

Great value for good performance; Decent camera; Quick Charging

Average battery life; Non-removable battery; Power button is awkwardly positioned