Asus Zenfone 2 series hands-on: Second encounter

Zenfone 2 benchmarks and camera samples

We managed to run some benchmarks on the two flavors of the flagship Zenfone 2 ZE551ML. The more powerful version runs on the Intel Atom Z3580 SoC with a quad-core 2.3GHz processor, PowerVR G6430 GPU and 4GB of RAM. The lesser model utilizes the Intel Atom Z3560 chip with a quad-core 1.83GHz processor, PowerVR G6430 GPU and 2GB of RAM.

Check out the results below.

GeekBench 3

Higher is better

• HTC One M9
  3761
• Samsung Galaxy S5
  3120
• Zenfone 2 ZE551ML (Z3580)
  2887
• Sony Xperia Z3
  2860
• Zenfone 2 ZE551ML (Z3560)
  2402
• LG G3
  2370
• LG G2
  2243

AnTuTu 5

Higher is better

• HTC One M9
  51427
• Zenfone 2 ZE551ML (Z3580)
  47254
• Samsung Galaxy S5
  45348
• LG G3
  42038
• Zenfone 2 ZE551ML (Z3560)
  41154
• Sony Xperia Z3
  40393

Basemark OS 2.0

Higher is better

• HTC One M9
  1365
• Zenfone 2 ZE551ML (Z3580)
  1222
• LG G3
  1189
• Samsung Galaxy S5
  1160

Basemark X

Higher is better

• HTC One M9
  19848
• Sony Xperia Z3
  12637
• Zenfone 2 ZE551ML (Z3580)
  12426
• Samsung Galaxy S5
  11798
• LG G2
  11101
• LG G3
  10580

Kraken 1.1

Lower is better

• Zenfone 2 ZE551ML (Z3580)
  5232
• HTC One M9
  5500
• Samsung Galaxy S5
  5968
• Zenfone 2 ZE551ML (Z3560)
  6272
• Sony Xperia Z3
  6355
• LG G3
  7632

And here are some camera samples from the 13MP snapper on the back of the Zenfone 2 ZE551ML. The colors and contrast seems very good, as does the dynamic range, but the resolved detail could have been better. Of course, we have yet to further test the camera across our regular locations.

Zenfone 2 ZE551ML camera samples

Check out these indoors camera samples as well.

Zenfone 2 ZE551ML indoors camera test

And finally here is an HDR photo.

Zenfone 2 HDR picture

Conclusion

It's always exciting to play with new devices even if they've already launched in other parts of the world. We wish Asus' naming convention was a bit more straightforward. These confusing model names are hard enough to keep track of, a situation only aggravated by the fact that Asus offers the flagship Asus Zenfone 2 ZE551ML in two distinct hardware configurations under one and the same model name.

Once you get past that, these are actually quite competitive devices and we are looking forward to putting them through their paces in fully-fledged reviews.