Introduction
The ZenFone Lite L1 and the ZenFone Max M1 are two of Asus' latest smartphones that also happen to be the cheapest the brand has to offer. These are entry-level smartphones usually for first time buyers, with the Lite L1 being the more affordable of the two and the Max M1 being similar but with a few extra features and bling for the more discerning customer with slightly deeper pockets.
The two phones are quite similar, however. They both have the same chipset, the same display, and the same camera on the back but the Max does come with a few extra features such as a larger battery, more memory, fingerprint sensor and an improved camera on the front.
Asus Zenfone Max M1 ZB556KL specs:
- Design: Polycarbonate
- Display: 5.45-inch, 1440x720 IPS LCD, 18:9 295 PPI, 2.5D glass
- Rear Camera: 13MP, f2.0 PDAF, 1080p30 video, LED flash
- Front Camera: 8MP f2.0, LED flash
- Chipset: Qualcomm Snapdragon 430, 1.4GHz octa-core Cortex-A53, Adreno 505
- Memory: 3GB LPDDR3, 32GB eMCP, microSD support (up to 256GB)
- Connectivity: Dual SIM, Wi-Fi 802.11n, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS/GLONASS
- Battery: 4000mAh, 10W charging
- Misc: Fingerprint sensor, face unlock, FM radio
Asus ZenFone Lite L1 ZA551KL specs:
- Design: Polycarbonate
- Display: 5.45-inch, 1440x720 IPS LCD, 18:9 295 PPI
- Rear Camera: 13MP, f2.0 PDAF, 1080p30 video, LED flash
- Front Camera: 5MP f2.4, LED flash
- Chipset: Qualcomm Snapdragon 430, 1.4GHz octa-core Cortex-A53, Adreno 505
- Memory: 2GB LPDDR3, 16GB eMCP, microSD support (up to 256GB)
- Connectivity: Dual SIM, Wi-Fi 802.11n, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS/GLONASS
- Battery: 3000mAh, 10W charging
- Misc: Face unlock, FM radio
While nothing about the specs is meant to get your pulse racing, these phones are designed to offer a respectable smartphone experience for those on a tight budget. They compete head-on with the Xiaomi Redmi 6A and Redmi 6, which currently rule the segment.
We spent some time with the phones to see if they are worth your money.
Design
One of the major differences between the Lite and the Max is the design.
The Max is the fancier of the two. It has a nicer metallic paint finish with smooth curved corners. On the front, the curved glass blends smoothly into the curved sides. The back camera is cleverly designed to look like it has a dual camera system, even though it doesn't. The power button on the side has a spun metal finish.
ZenFone Max M1
The Lite doesn't exactly look bad but it definitely doesn't look as nice as the Max. The paint has a dull finish but the most noticeable thing is the flat glass on the front that neither looks nor feels nice.
ZenFone Lite L1
Both phones are built reasonably well. They are entirely made out of plastic but they don't feel cheap. They are also very light - particularly the Lite - which could be a consideration for some.
Overall, these are fairly well-designed and well-made phones, but you definitely get a much better overall package with the Max.
Display
Both phones have an identical 5.45-inch, 1440x720, 18:9 IPS LCD. As mentioned before, the Max has a curved 2.5D glass while the Lite has a standard flat glass but both are reasonably scratch resistant and have an oleophobic coating.
Image quality on both displays is pretty good for the price. The colors look good and the sharpness is adequate. The displays also get pretty bright and have good visibility and viewing angles.
Overall, the display on these phones is pretty good and doesn't leave much room to complain.
Software
Both phones have identical software installed. Both come with the Asus ZenUI running on top of Android 8.0 Oreo.
ZenUI Launcher
The ZenUI experience here is similar in most ways to that on more expensive phones. The general UI looks identical but you don't quite get all the apps and features. This, in a way, turns out to be an advantage, as Asus does have a tendency to go overboard with features with its flagship phones.
ZenUI Settings
The Max and Lite, however, do get more than adequate number of features and customization options to keep most users happy. As a plus side, the phones come with only three third party apps out of the box (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp) and all three apps could be uninstalled on our review devices, which usually isn't the case with Asus phones. In other words, we're glad how lean this phone is.
ZenUI Features
The overall software experience on these phones was generally really good. Asus arguably doesn't quite have the best-looking UI out there but in terms of usability and functionality, you have pretty much everything you need here and it works well. It's not quite as feature-rich as MIUI, where Xiaomi does a lot of customization, including some local ones, but as mentioned before, this could turn out to be a feature to some who prefer a simpler UI experience free of unnecessary features and bloatware.
Performance
Both the ZenFone Max M1 and ZenFone Lite L1 come with identical Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 chipset with 1.4GHz octa-core Cortex-A43 CPU and Adreno 505 GPU. They do differ in terms of memory, with the Max packing 3GB RAM and 32GB storage while the Lite having 2GB RAM and 16GB storage. Both phones have expandable storage with a separate, third slot for the microSD that doesn't require you to sacrifice your second SIM.
Performance on the Max M1 is pretty respectable. The power from the quad-core CPU kept things moving along at a decent pace and the phone rarely felt slow or unusable. Quite the opposite, in fact, the performance was quite good for the price and those upgrading from a basic feature phone or buying a smartphone for the first time should be perfectly happy with it.
The Lite L1 isn't quite as good. Although the CPU performance is identical, the low RAM does mean the phone frequently runs out of memory for multitasking and has to keep flushing apps from memory. This does tend to slow things down, such as opening and closing apps.
Neither phone is particularly suited for gaming. We suppose you could play some games at their lowest setting but we would recommend spending a bit more if gaming performance is important to you.
The audio performance is adequate on both phones but neither is stellar. The speakers get plenty loud but sound a bit thin and tinny. Both phones also have a headphone jack but don't come with any in the packaging.
GeekBench 4.1 (multi-core)
Higher is better
- Realme 1
5741 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 AI Dual Camera
4918 - Xiaomi Redmi 5
4018 - Realme 2
3881 - Xiaomi Redmi 6
3639
2450
2434
GeekBench 4.1 (single-core)
Higher is better
- Realme 1
1511 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 AI Dual Camera
1329 - Xiaomi Redmi 6
820 - Xiaomi Redmi 6A
819 - Realme 2
790 - Xiaomi Redmi 5
766 - ASUS ZenFone Max (M1) (ZB556KL)
667
AnTuTu 7
Higher is better
- Realme 1
138524 - Nokia 5.1 Plus
119428 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 AI Dual Camera
115195 - Realme 2
75434 - Xiaomi Redmi 6
75182 - Xiaomi Redmi 6A
61660 - ASUS ZenFone Max (M1) (ZB556KL)
57845
GFX 3.0 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)
Higher is better
- Realme 1
20 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 AI Dual Camera
16 - Nokia 5.1 Plus
16 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (S625)
9.9 - Xiaomi Redmi 6
9.6 - Xiaomi Redmi 5
9.4 - Realme 2
9.3 - ASUS ZenFone Max (M1) (ZB556KL)
7 - Xiaomi Redmi 6A
6.3
GFX 3.0 Manhattan (onscreen)
Higher is better
- Nokia 5.1 Plus
29 - Realme 1
20 - Xiaomi Redmi 5
18 - Xiaomi Redmi 6
17 - Realme 2
16 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 AI Dual Camera
15 - ASUS ZenFone Max (M1) (ZB556KL)
14 - Xiaomi Redmi 6A
12 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (S625)
9.7
Basemark X
Higher is better
- Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 AI Dual Camera
14799 - Nokia 5.1 Plus
13873 - Realme 1
10880 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (S625)
10446 - Xiaomi Redmi 5
9953 - Xiaomi Redmi 6
8036 - ASUS ZenFone Max (M1) (ZB556KL)
7606 - Realme 2
6703 - Xiaomi Redmi 6A
5193
Basemark OS 2.0
Higher is better
- Realme 1
1940 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 AI Dual Camera
1925 - Nokia 5.1 Plus
1868 - Xiaomi Redmi 5
1222 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (S625)
1050 - Realme 2
1039 - Xiaomi Redmi 6
957 - ASUS ZenFone Max (M1) (ZB556KL)
895 - Xiaomi Redmi 6A
837
Camera
Both the Max M1 and the Lite L1 have the same camera, a 13MP single sensor with f/2.0 lens and phase detection autofocus. It can also do 1080p video recording.
The camera app is a very basic version of what we see in more expensive Asus phones. There are very few options here, largely limited to an HDR mode, beauty mode, panorama and time lapse. Apart from that, you won't find much here. Some of the buttons continue to be small and fiddly, something we noticed on other recent Asus phones as well. These phones have relatively smaller displays so these buttons get smaller and fiddlier to use.
Camera app
In terms of image quality, there really isn't much to write home about. Images are dark and have bland colors and low contrast. The details are soft and the image has a fair bit of noise in the shadows despite the aggressive noise reduction. The dynamic range is also predictably poor. And things only get worse in low light.
Image quality: HDR Off • HDR On
The HDR mode does help perk up the images with increased color saturation and contrast, not to mention wider dynamic range. We'd recommend leaving it on if it didn't take so long to process the image after capturing.
Similarly, we don't have much to say about the video recording quality. It's there if you need it but not worth using.
While it's necessary to remember that these are, after all, budget smartphones - especially the Lite L1 - the camera quality is still unimpressive by 2018 standards.
Competition
The main rivals to the Max M1 and the Lite L1 are the Xiaomi Redmi 6 and the Redmi 6A, respectively.
Compared to the ZenFones, the Xiaomi phones do have much better cameras. However, the ZenFones take the lead when it comes to performance, with both devices offering respectable performance while the Redmis, especially the Redmi 6A, which is borderline unusable, being notably inferior.
In every other area, however, it's a tossup between the four phones and their respective competitors. It really comes down to which things you value more - performance or camera.
Verdict
Both the ZenFone Max M1 and the ZenFone Lite L1 are solid budget offerings from Asus. We appreciated the design, the display and the performance that was on offer, especially at these cutthroat prices.
What we didn't quite like was the camera quality. That is a big downside for these phones but apart from that, these are really good phones for the price.
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