Friends+Design
- Gorgeous, premium design - courtesy a highly polished polycarbonate body that's designed to reflect light in several striking angles - it looks quite classy - unarguably, this is a phone that will draw attention
- Decent build quality
- Asus has curved the sides of the ZenFone Max Pro M2, which makes it comfortable to hold - what is surprising is that the phone does not feel heavy or bulky in spite of its big battery
- The fingerprint scanner positioned at the back centre, is easy to reach.
- Face recognition is also supported, and works well
- One of the issues that's there will all glossy phones is that the phone is prone to show scratches and smudges - chances are you will be keeping the Max Pro M2 in a case - and one case comes included in the retail package as well
Display
- Bright and crisp, full-HD display, with good viewing angles, good color reproduction, and with options to adjust the colour temperature of the display to your liking
- There's Corning Gorilla Glass 6 on the front, which is a first for this price segment
Software
- Asus continues to stick to a stock Android UI on it's budget phones (instead of ZenUI) and that of course helps keep things nice and simple - along with that there's Asus's promise to keep pushing out updates for this device quickly
- There are a few useful customizations like ZenMotion gestures that let you double-tap the screen to wake the device or to put it to sleep, and a Smart Screen On feature that prevents the phone from going into standby while you are looking at it
Performance
- Best-in-class performance with the snappy Snapdragon 660 - giving it one of the best performance to price ratios - it will steamroll through both daily tasks and games without breaking a sweat
Camera
- Decent set of feature-rich dual cameras on the rear - they do especially well with color reproduction and macros - bokeh pictures are decent too
- Low light performance is reasonable too
- Decent video recording quality - video stabilisation is available at 1080p, and the phone does a good job of reducing shakes
- Decent selfie camera too - and the face detection helps the ZenFone Max Pro M2 lock focus accurately when taking a group selfie (there is no portrait mode on the front camera yet, but it will arrive via a software update)
- Overall, the cameras are pretty decent for this price segment - though not the absolute best
Audio
- The bottom-firing speaker is quite loud
Battery
- One of the key USPs of the ZenFone Max Pro M2 is of course the gigantic 5000mAH battery - this is the absolute best-in-class and no other rival brand can match it right now - you will be able to manage 2 days of battery life fairly easily
- Decent charging speed (though fast charging is not officially supported) - with the supplied charger, you will be able to charge it from zero to 50 percent in an hour
Verdict
- Asus has come out with an absolute winner here - there are no 2 ways about it - and the Max Pro M2 will almost definitely be among the most popular phones in this price segment
- When it comes to the competition, there’s the Redmi Note 6 Pro with slightly better cameras, but it has a slower processor, an inferior design, and a smaller battery - there’s also the Realme 2 Pro and Realme U1, and they both have the trendy teardrop notch designs and similarly great performance, but ColorOS is not the best experience - finally, there are some other good options like the Nokia 6.1 plus, the Motorola One Power, and the Honor 8X - but they all fail to match the ZenFone Max Pro M2’s all around capabilities - all in all, the Max Pro M2 is a fantastic option, no matter what way you look at it
