Asus Zenfone 5

There was a time I never even CONSIDERED paying over £100 for a phone. The very idea was ridiculous to me. Then my Blackberry started sticking and annoying me - I had it 'free' on contract so I didn't pay for it upfront. So I looked around, and researched A LOT of phones. Having had a great experience with my Asus tablet I eventually decided to go for a Zenfone 5, as 4G is no extra charge with my mobile provider. It only cost me £189.99 although you can get it for less if you're prepared to wait a bit longer. But the most important point here is that this phone has the same spec as phones costing AT LEAST £300 from the main brands. These include a 1.2Ghz Qualcomm Quad Core CPU, 2Gb RAM, Corning Gorilla Glass 3 screen, IPS HD display, 16gb RAM built-in and an SD card slot supporting cards up to 64gb, 8mp rear cam and 2mp front cam, and a weight of 145g, which feels very nice and light.

Admittedly, from your usual size of phone, a 5" screen phone takes some getting used to. But once I did it's a pleasure to use. The screen is so responsive and has never struggled a single time in what's now over 2 months of solid use by me for all kinds of loading up and switching between apps. Noticed no judder whatsoever. The images and text are razor sharp. And the viewing angles are extremely impressive. Also worthy of note is the fact that the phone has built-in image adjustment - as opposed to most cameras where you have to download a separate app to work on your camera photos.

Asus also claim to have used some kind of "anti-fingerprint coating" and at first of course I watched their video and thought "pff yeh right whatever". But considering the fact it was over a MONTH before I even had to so much as half wipe my screen off, I'm starting to think they're on to something here.

Of course, most sites reviewing this have referred to the battery life. I get about a day and a half out of it on normal use. But name me one smartphone these days that lasts for much more than that when you do all the things you normally do on one of these things. It's a moot point. Besides which, the phone charges back up VERY fast. Someone at work informed me that just using my Asus charger to charge their phone (a different brand) charged it much faster than their own charger.

Asus are very much the underdog - this is clear from the fact that I cannot find any mobile phone network carrying these phones as contract phones. But being the underdog means that you try that much harder. Asus seem to have a habit of providing you excellent spec for about half the price of the big players. And no, this is not because "their technology sucks". There isn't some magical higher grade Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU the big brands have access too. The same with the RAM.

It makes absolutely no sense to me to pay £300 on up for the same kind of spec that my lovely phone has when I can save my hard earned cash and go for this. Try one for yourself and you might very well see my point.