Not even a year after its predecessor was released, the ASUS Zenfone Max Pro M2 is already hitting the shelves this Christmas season. ASUS heralded its arrival with teasers, piquing the curiosity of their fans. Today we’ve taken the M2 on a quick spin to see what makes the M2 a better version of the Max.

Design & Construction

Aesthetically speaking, there are a lot of noticeable changes in terms of design. The M2 sports a notch and a highly reflective polycarbonate back panel: far from the M1’s smudge-proof back and notch-less display. Its overall look feels more premium. There is a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor and it still uses the same Micro USB charging port as the M1. So far, there’s only one color variant available for the Max Pro M2, which is an indeterminate shade of blue that has a cool reflective effect.

Display

The Max Pro M2 has a 6-inch LCD touchscreen with a 1080 x 2340 px screen resolution and a pixel density of 420ppi. This means that the display can produce crystal clear images and sharp text. It also has a 19.5:9 aspect ratio, perfect for shooting stories on Instagram and Facebook.

Colors produced by the M2’s display are a little bit on the warm side, and it has a Night Light mode which turns the screen into an amber-like hue to help users read better under dim lighting.

Camera

One of the key selling points of the Max Pro M2 is its AI-powered dual rear camera. Just like the Zenfone 5Z, its AI enhancements are already present when you’re in Auto Mode. In the local camera app alone, there are noticeable upgrades from the M1. For example, there’s now a Pro Mode that allows you to manually adjust the settings for color balance, exposure value, shutter speed, and focus. It has a 13MP+5MP dual rear camera and a 13MP front camera for taking amazing selfies with.

 

Performance

The Max series boasts two key highlights: better performance, and better battery life. When it comes to performance, the M2 is powered by a Snapdragon 660 chipset with an Adreno 512 GPU. This means the M2 can run a sizeable amount of games, except for those with heavy graphics requirements. I tried running Hello Neighbor and the device only managed to run the opening cutscene before the game crashed entirely. However, with other games such as Mobile Legends and Tacticool (which has adjustable fps settings), the Max Pro M2 performed well. The 4GB RAM allows you to do a bit of multitasking, though I wouldn’t advice running another game in the background as it causes the device to slow down.

Other features such as the fingerprint sensor works significantly better and is much more reliable than its predecessor. There’s also a face detection feature that you can use to unlock the device and I’m really impressed a how quickly it enrolls and recognizes face data.

Finally, the M2’s battery capacity is just simply amazing. At normal use, the Max Pro M2 can last up to two whole days! And even after pulling long hours of gaming, the M2 still has enough charge left for other tasks. Another plus for this phone is its quick charge feature: despite its 5,000mAh battery, it only takes a little under two hours to get from 0% to 100%.

All in all, the ASUS Zenfone Max Pro M2 is one powerful device. Given its strides in terms of specs and performance, it really is a step-up from the Max Pro M1. There’s no word yet regarding its pricing, so stay tuned here in Pinoy Tech Blog for updates!

ASUS Launches the Zenfone Max Pro M2 Today