ZenFone 2 Review - Watch Before Buy: I did not like the Asus ZenFone 2 at first. It looks chunky and feels cheap, and the user interface reminds me of all the annoying ways companies take advantage of Android’s open nature.
But after some time with it, the ZenFone 2 eventually grew on me. I used its Themes app to customize the interface. I took some pretty neat low-light photos of my cat wistfully looking out the window. I played through many levels of Peggle Blast before I ran out of lives. It wasn’t so bad after all.
I haven’t used a budget phone in a while—not since I took the Moto E out for a spin back in February. I did not expect that the ZenFone 2 would grow on me as much as it did, but in the end it won me over. Its hardware is powerful enough to do almost everything a flagship phone could do, and its camera abilities are capable enough for posting to Instagram. After a period of time, however, I started to experience some of the limitations of Asus’s inexpensive device. For everything it does as well as a pricier, high-end device, there’s still bits of the ZenFone 2 that come out and remind you that it’s still just a middle-of-the-road kind of Android phone.
