Assus zenphones

[royarcher]

I'm not sure if this is the appropriate forum for my question but I am sure thiggins or someone else will delete it if I'm out of line.I'm after a new phone that supports both Android auto and mirracasting and the only one that I can find is the Assus zenphone 5 or 6 .my question can anyone tell me if they are good phones.I don't mind paying a small fortune for one but I would dearly like some options on them first thanks in advance

 

[TNCS]

Had Zenfone3 Zoom (ZE553KL), Miracast works fine, never test the android auto though. And due to software limitation of 2.4GHz Wifi band only, Miracast some times lag if you cast and stream at the same time. Asus phone tend to find some nice niche and value in the market, however being a non mainstream vendor you have to suck up the usual potential compromise such as lack of poor aftersale support, buggy/EOL firmware update, lack of 3rd party ROMs, etc.

The phone built quality is okay by itself, however it not a 'strong and solid' build where it can sustain some heavy abuse of use such as dropping at a rough surface (what happened to my ZE553KL). The ZenUI ROM is relatively clean compare to your typical Samsung and Huawei, camera is good for it price range and it stops pretty much at that. If you aren't really a 'root' and know what I'm doing in Android person with a heavy daily drive, I'll not recommend Asus as a phone choice.

 

[royarcher]

Had Zenfone3 Zoom (ZE553KL), Miracast works fine, never test the android auto though. And due to software limitation of 2.4GHz Wifi band only, Miracast some times lag if you cast and stream at the same time. Asus phone tend to find some nice niche and value in the market, however being a non mainstream vendor you have to suck up the usual potential compromise such as lack of poor aftersale support, buggy/EOL firmware update, lack of 3rd party ROMs, etc.

The phone built quality is okay by itself, however it not a 'strong and solid' build where it can sustain some heavy abuse of use such as dropping at a rough surface (what happened to my ZE553KL). The ZenUI ROM is relatively clean compare to your typical Samsung and Huawei, camera is good for it price range and it stops pretty much at that. If you aren't really a 'root' and know what I'm doing in Android person with a heavy daily drive, I'll not recommend Asus as a phone choice.

Yes I think it know what you mean. I got a good price on a zenfone 5 z which runs on OS 8 Oreo out of the box but supposed to be updateable to 10 so naturally I assume that it would just go through all the updates as your setting it up but no it didn't . I think I need to download the firmware on the Asus website and flash the new software. Apart from that I like it so far it's so much faster than my old Nokia 5 and the Miracast connects much faster as well . I don't think I am going to bother flashing it though I will wait until they push the updates through

 

[TNCS]

If you have unlocked your bootloader, auto update will stop function regardless what you set. Not sure on the newer phones, but at Zenfone 3, some of the update is incremental, which means you have to have specific version before updating to the latest (yes, I know, huge Gigs of incremental updates...). Tip of advise though, if you do intend to update the firmware, as Asus has pulled off many of it software off the PlayStore hence you no longer can even update basic critical components such as launcher, camera app via PlayStore. Check the Asus ZenFourm for user feedback and see if many user complain over a specific issue, than you know, that particular firmware release has issue. Since it not possible to roll back, and it not easy to recover firmware on Asus... Just my two cents.

 

[royarcher]

Thanks for the the heads up I have decided not to worry about updates unless Asus pushes them through I only really want it to make and receive calls and as I'm a courier driver I have times when I May need to sit in my van for an hour or so then I like to be able to Miracast it to my vans multi media unit and watch something. It does all that so I will let sleeping dogs lay ,so to speak PS I am thankful that you mentioned the bootloader thought I actually was toying with the idea yesterday of updating via the Asus website but I couldn't even work out which is the right firmware