Asus smartphones are indeed not known for their cameras, with a majority of them being budget to mid-range. The Zenfone range provides decent image quality but do not stand a chance against flagship devices coming from Samsung, Sony or Apple.

Asus Zenfone Zoom is a phone known for its zoom capability and it surely dominates the market on this factor. Though it's a metal build Zenfone 2 at its core, even on the camera front (unless you use the optical zoom), the lens arrangement has surely got many smartphone makers' mind churning.

Tough and unique build; Intelligent lens arrangement; Fast and full time AF on video rec; 128GB on board storage

Heavy and pricey; Average battery backup

Your phone has been lying to you. Every time you zoom in to catch that perfect shot of that expensive hamburger, you're not actually zooming in. The software in your phone is really just cropping the image and blowing it up like Patricia Arquette in CSI: Cyber.

The ASUS ZenFone Zoom is an Android smartphone that comes with a camera that's capable of 3x optical zoom. Check out how it fares when it comes to figurine photography!

I cringe every time I watch someone pinch-to-zoom on their smartphone's screen right before snapping a photo. The seemingly simple act of zooming in on an object, despite what the screen on the phone displays at the time, almost guarantees the end result will be a pixelated, garbled mess of a photo.

The Asus ZenFone Zoom is the first phone with an optical zoom lens that doesn't protrude out of the phone, a mighty impressive accomplishment. But don't start tossing money at Asus just yet.

Asus' ZenFone Zoom breaks new ground with a built-in optical zoom camera that doesn't stick out or appear to move; Photos taken are generally great, but worse in low light

The phone software peppers you with ads by default; Camera performance feels sluggish

At a glance, you may assume the phone we're testing here is one you've seen before -- a Nokia clone perhaps? Despite having a similar circular camera fixture on the handset's back side, suggesting a strong focus on photography, this is actually a newly released phone produced by ASUS.

True to its name, the Zenfone Zoom lives up to the name of being an optical zoom camera smartphone. The zoom works very well and is definitely the best innovation so far from ASUS. But having said that the area where Zenfone Zoom fails to impress is the pricing.

We want to reward daring design. We want to celebrate when companies take risks. The ZenFone Zoom is an incredible feat of camera design, but the crown jewel feature of this phone in many ways compromises the camera that the zoom lens is supposed to enhance.

+Practical build quality with premium materials; +Camera-centric ergonomics; +Innovative camera zoom design

Samsung's K Zoom, Oppo's N1 and Lenono's Vibe Shot are some of the more recent attempts to provide better user experience and improved image quality. With so many choices out there now, can Asus' newly launched ZenFone Zoom do any better?