Honestly enough, I never tried live streaming myself on any social media platform. Never found any occasion to do so, or if there was an occasion, it never came to my mind. Although, before Facebook or Instagram, I had opportunity to go live for my YouTube channel. I would have loved to do that given the number of subscribers, but still I didn’t. That makes me really wonder, whether people go live on social media platforms that often! I have indeed seen a few facebookers going live, but not in big numbers. Having said that, I still find it a cool idea to have a smartphone dedicated to live streaming. ASUS has been leader in many technological innovations and now it claims that its Zenfone Live is the first phone to have live beautification technology.
So, the idea of phone depends on how willing are you to go live streaming. But then, will you go for a phone for just live streaming on social media platforms? It can be an added advantage but can it be the main driving force for your decision to buy a phone?
Given that one needs to live stream itself quite often- what would be the requirements! A good connectivity which doesn’t breaks the streaming or freezes it, good microphones that can relate the sound as desired and of course a good camera that captures you beautifully. All these three things are also necessities of modern smartphones. But for this phone ASUS has specifically worked upon last function the most. In this regard, ASUS has sensed that a live streaming most means broadcasting oneself and one hindrance to that is the apprehension about how one would look on the camera. That’s the reason for ASUS to work upon the live beautification technology which can control the way you look on live streaming. That means that you can control the fairness or sharpness of your features.
Still not reviewing the phone as yet to get a unit for the full review. Just discussing here the features of the phone. ASUS claims that ZenFone Live’s front-facing camera is made for snapping sharper, clearer selfies. The sensor has extra-large, 1.4μm pixels that improve sensitivity to light by up to 200 percent compared to smartphones with standard smaller pixels. ZenFone Live also has a soft-light LED flash that illuminates true skin tones, and it’s equipped with a wide-angle lens with an 82° field of view — so users are able to frame, capture details in wide angle and broadcast it to the world.
ZenFone Live also has a 13MP rear camera with f/2.0-aperture, five-prism rear lens, and benefits from ASUS PixelMaster’s industry-leading low-light technology to increase light sensitivity by up to 400 percent. It also enhances noise reduction and boosts color contrast by up to 400 percent. It supports up to 12 different camera modes, including real-time Beautification, Low Light and Super Resolution modes, to captures beautiful, high-resolution photos.
To ensure that the user’s voice is always heard, ZenFone Live has a pair of highly sensitive MEMS microphones that are expertly tuned and precisely positioned to reduce noise. This careful arrangement means that speech pickup is crystal clear, so users are able enjoy live-streamed social-media fun in total clarity — whether the backdrop is a busy street, a noisy bar, or the hustle and bustle of a shopping mall.
ZenFone Live features a powerful speaker with a five-magnet design and metal voice coil to produce loud and clear audio with supreme quality in every scenario. This speaker is powered by a smart amplifier that increases audio resolution and loudness while ensuring that the speaker is not damaged.
ZenFone Live also features DTS Headphone:X™, a revolutionary surround-sound technology that synthesizes a full 7.1-channel virtual surround-sound experience, making all content sound better over headphones. With this unique combination, ZenFone Live produces delivers audio that’s up to 67 percent louder than the previous generation, while also extending low-frequency reproduction by up to 17 percent and reducing distortion by up to 15 percent.
BeautyLive app introduces the world to real-time beautification, allowing users to create and maintain the perfect look when going live on their favorite social-networking sites.
BeautyLive combines smart software algorithms and hardware acceleration to automatically smooth skin and remove blemishes, and it integrates seamlessly with Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. The result is the ability to craft and broadcast instant glamor that keeps the user looking as beautiful as they want to be throughout every live-streaming session. The BeautyLive feature works with both front and rear camera.
ZenFone Live’s brilliant 5 inch IPS HD display shines brightly through strong glass that is precision-milled at the edges to create a gentle, 2.5D curve. The natural, ergonomic feel of the glass flows around to the back, for comfort that matches the fine style. ZenFone Live also has an impressive 75 percent screen-to-body ratio, for more screen and less bulk.
The ZenFone Live features a premium build quality with sandblasted metallic finish that feels as great as it looks.
To enable all these features in a decent phone apparatus Zenfone Live has got Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ Quad-Core Processor with Adreno 305 GPU. On storage front it has 2GB RAM, 16GB ROM (MicroSD support up to 128GB SDXC) and 100GB of Google Drive space for 2 years. AT 2650 mAh, the battery might be a bit turn-off, but than there has to be some compromise.
It has got multiple connectivity options- Dual SIM Dual standby (2G/3G/4G); Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Wi-Fi-Direct, Miracast, hotspot, Bluetooth V 4.0; LTE Cat. 4 and GPS/AGPS/GLONASS.
Like it or hate it, but ASUS’ standard ZenUI app is there to boost up many performances. Phone comes with Android 6.0 with ZenUI 3.0. And, all this comes for mere 9,999 INR for the starting model!
So! Wanna Go Live!! I will certainly like to go live next time I am travelling, but still not sure whether I would need the BeautyLive App!!