- You don’t have to spend a fortune with high-end devices for a great smartphone experience. The ZenFone Max Pro M1 may not be perfect but the battery life and good software is worth it.
- If you’re looking for a dependable and good budget-friendly phone that doesn’t compromise the key elements, then the M1 is a smart choice for you.
Overview
If you’re looking for a great budget smartphone without losing all the latest features and performance, the ZenFone Max Pro M1 nails the basics. The best thing about this phone is its simplicity and offers one of the most value-for-money deals.
You don’t have to spend a fortune with high-end devices for a great smartphone experience. The ZenFone Max Pro M1 may not be perfect but the battery life and good software is worth it.
Battery
This phone has an insane battery life. The M1 is powered by a 5,000mAh battery that can easily deliver two days’ worth of usage with some room to spare.
The battery might charge slower than other phones so you need to plug it in throughout the night but when this thing lasts, you probably wouldn’t mind the hassle.
Display and Performance
The ASUS ZenFone Max Pro M1 gives you an aluminum mid-frame and a metal alloy back, a vibrant 18:9 panel display, plastic inserts at the top and bottom which house the antenna bands, two SIM card slots and a dedicated slot for a micro SD card,
The 5.99-inch FHD+ (2160 x 1080) panel has vibrant colors with excellent contrast levels which gets sufficiently bright so viewing the screen under sunlight won’t be a drab. The M1 is also ok to hold in one hand and good for watching videos, viewing photos or multitasking. If you also like playing games on your phone, the M1 can handle games well which also makes it a pretty solid deal.
The ASUS ZenFone Max Pro M1 sports a Snapdragon 636 chipset which offers incredible performance without compromising key areas. That is definitely a plus for a budget smartphone.
The M1 doesn’t have the best connectivity hardware since it doesn’t pair with 5GHz networks for Wi-Fi connectivity but it still gets the job done.
The fingerprint scanner is ok but is a bit slower than other sensors and a bit fickle since it does not read the fingerprint sometimes which makes it a drawback but the M1 has a decent face unlock feature which is also nice to have.
The M1 comes with Android 8.1 Oreo out of the box.
Audio
On the up side, the M1 still retains the 3.5mm jack and has a single speaker placed at the bottom right next to the Micro-USB charging port.
The speaker is quite decent but the audio still gets a bit distorted when you crank up the volume.
Camera
The M1 has a dual camera that is arrayed vertically. The phone by itself is already a pretty good catch for a budget phone. But then again, we can’t deny the fact the cameras have become an important feature for people nowadays. The camera on the M1 is pretty decent with proper lighting. However, like most budget cameras, it is not as good and well in low-light and the auto-focus is quite slow.
Final Thoughts
If you’re looking for a dependable and good budget-friendly phone that doesn’t compromise the key elements, then the M1 is a smart choice for you. There’s already so much you can do with this phone and is already such a steal for its price range.
Specs
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5000mAh capacity with fast charging
- Rear fingerprint sensor
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GSM, WCDMA, FDD-LTE, TD-LTE
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Triple slots: Dual SIM & one microSD card
- 5-magnet loudspeaker
- PMIC internal NXP smart amplifier
- Dual microphones with ASUS Noise Reduction Technology
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8MP / 16MP Front Camera
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13MP / 16MP Main Rear Camera
- 5MP Second Rear Camera
- LPDDR4X 3GB / 4GB / 6GB Memory
- CPU:Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 636 Mobile Platform with 14nm, 64-bit Octa-core Processor
(Snapdragon™ 636 performance is 1.54x better than Snapdragon™ 625) - GPU:Qualcomm® Adreno™ 509
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6-inch Full HD+ (2160 by 1080) 18:9 Full View IPS display
- Weight: 180 grams (6.34 ounces)
- Internal storage eMCP 5.1 32GB / 64GB
- MicroSD card Supports up to 2TB
