Asus has finally launched a worthy competitor to the Redmi Note 5 in India. The Zenfone Max Pro M1 packs the latest silicon from Qualcomm, the Snapdragon 636 with a massive 5000 mAh battery to boot. Another huge change with the Zenfone Max Pro is that the company has switched to stock Android 8.1 Oreo here instead of using their in-house ZEN UI.
Stock Android improves performance and there's no bloat on this device. This helps in getting more battery-life out of the phone as well. Coming back to specs, the Zenfone Max Pro has a full-screen display as well, 5.99-inches in size with 2160x1080 pixels FHD+ resolution. Given that the front is almost all display, the fingerprint sensor has been moved to the back of the phone.
You also have dual rear cameras here, a 13-megapixel main camera with f/2.2 aperture along with a 5-megapixel secondary camera to capture depth information. There's an 8-megapixel f/2.0 aperture front camera here too. There is also a LED flash on both the front and back. Portrait or Bokeh mode is supported on both cameras as well, however, the front camera uses software to create portrait shots.
Moreover, the Zenfone Max Pro comes with a triple slot. So, you can use two SIM cards and a microSD card at the same time.
All this is tucked in neatly inside an 8.61 mm thin metal body. The back of the phone is made of metal, as is the frame of the device. Plastic is used at the top and bottom to allow for signals to go through and also keep the weight in check. Just to give you a brief, the Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 weighs the same as the Zenfone Max Pro, even though it has a smaller 4000 mAh battery.
Asus is also promising faster updates to the phone, and it will be updated to the next two versions of Android. Along with the phone, you will also get the Asus Max-box, which is sort of an Acoustic box for your phone. You can use it as a stand as well, but its main job is to enhance the audio of the device. It makes the audio richer with a bit more bass and also helps increase loudness. It will be part of the standard package.
The Asus Zenfone Max Pro M1 will come in Meteor Silver and DeepSea Black color options. There are two variants of the phone, 3GB RAM with 32GB inbuilt storage priced at Rs. 10,999 and 4GB RAM with 64GB storage priced at Rs. 12,999. Both phones will be exclusively available on Flipkart starting 3rd May.
Flipkart is also offering complete mobile protection plan at just Rs. 49 which also covers accidental damage. There's no cost EMI option on Credit cards and Bajaj Finserv cards as well. Then you can also avail Rs. 1000 extra over the regular exchange price of your old smartphone.
