Received a review unit from ASUS Malaysia last week and here’s a quick unboxing video of the ASUS ZenFone 4 Max Pro;

What’s included?
• ASUS ZenFone 4 Max Pro

• microUSB Cable

• Earphone

• Power Brick 5V/2A

• microUSB Dongle

• TPU Soft Case

• Quick Start & User Manual

• Qualcomm Snapdragon 430

• 5.5-inch 720p HD Display 

• 3GB of RAM

• 32GB Onboard Storage (Expandable 256GB)

• 16-megapixel f/2.0 + 5-megapixel f/2.2 Wide Angle Dual Camera System

• 16-megapixel f/2.0 with Softlight LED Flash

• Dual SIM and Dedicated microSD Card Slot

• 5,000 mAh Battery

• ASUS ZenUI 4.0 based Android 7.1 Nougat

• RM 1,099

Despite it packed with 5,000 mAh battery the device is only carrying 8.9mm thickness profile. Same like last year ZenFone 3 Max, it has a full metal body built with the iconic rounded frame design. 

ZenFone 4 Max Pro sports a 5.5-inch 720p display and protected with Corning Gorilla Glass. The display’s output is bright and has great viewing angle. It may not be the sharpest display out there but it’s a fair trade-off for all the juice you saved on lower resolution display. Afterall the different of HD and FHD are very minimum for a 5.5-inch display size.

The fingerprint scanner is located on the front capacitive home button placed alongside with back and recent keys. The unlocks with the fingerprint from standby is quick and accurate. 

On the top front is the 16-megapixel camera along with softlight LED flash.

On the rear of the ZenFone 4 Max Pro is welcomed with the dual camera setup featuring a 16-megapixel standard zoom camera and a 5-megapixel 120-degree wide angle lens camera. 

ASUS did keep the 3.5mm audio jack and settled for an older microUSB port for charging.

The device gets a triple card tray where we can have dual SIM card at the same time storage expansion via microSD card slot.

The ZenFone 4 Max Pro may not have an almighty powerhouse, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 wasn’t that shabby either. It got an AnTuTu score of 43,467 and perform fairly smooth on Asphalt 8: Airborne and Modern Combat 5.

The ZenFone 4 Max Pro is weak in this department, fortunately, it features a secondary GoPro-like wide-angle lens to compensate the miss-out. There weren’t many smartphones out there offers such package.

I do appreciate wide angle shoot where it gave a different viewing perspective in a photo and video.

The camera quality was just decent only and it tends to get noisy when shooting in low lighting environment.

Here are some camera samples were taken with the ASUS ZenFone 4 Max Pro;
(all the photos were not post edited/touch up and uploaded to Flickr straight from the ASUS ZenFone 4 Max Pro)

Click on the image for high-resolution viewing

Low light test on the rear camera


Low light test on the rear camera

Low light test on the rear camera


16-megapixel standard lens


5-megapixel wide angle lens


16-megapixel standard lens


5-megapixel wide angle lens


16-megapixel standard lens


5-megapixel wide angle lens


Taken with front camera

As for the front shooter, ASUS decided to include an LED flash similar to the ZenFone 4 Selfie Pro and its lifesaver in dark lightning situation for selfie-taking. I find the selfie-taking is rather good and sharp. For those who love live streaming regardless YouTube, Facebook or Instagram, it works like charm with the preloaded ASUS BeautyLive where you get beautified live.

The 5,000 mAh battery able to last more than two full days of heavy usage and personally I manage to clock almost 7 hours of SOT of 2 days usage. I had to cut down the daily charging practice ever since I switched over to the ZenFone 4 Max Pro. Beside the large battery, it’s also contributed by the low power consumption processor and 720p resolution display.

The ASUS ZenFone 4 Max Pro is also capable to perform reverse charging aka turned into powerbank with the provided microUSB OTG dongle. It can charge other devices with the power output of 5V/1A which is sufficient to charge most of the modern USB-powered devices.

Well, one major drawback is the lengthy charging time which it can take over three hours to completely charge a total flat ZenFone 4 Max. I got no issue on this as most of the time I would charge it overnight before I head to bed.

Is This The Ideal Mobile?

Overall the ASUS ZenFone 4 Max is a solid phone that offers crazy long battery life without sacrificing weight and thickness of the device. Not only you get endurance battery life, it also included a bonus wide angle lens for perfect landscape framing shots. It’s time to do more and charge less.

The ASUS ZenFone 4 Max Pro is retailing at RM 1,099 and while I’m writing this review some e-commerce platform is offering it for less than RM 1,000.

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