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Introduction
The ZenFone Max M2 is the latest mid-range Android smartphone from ASUS. It is the successor to last year's Max M1 and the younger sibling of this year's Max M2 Pro, which we already took a look at in a separate review.
The Max M2 follows more or less in the footsteps of its predecessor. It's a simple, no-nonsense device that is designed to focus on a handful of key things, such as performance, camera, and battery life, rather than something extravagant. Well, as extravagant as one can be in this price range.
Even the software is just stock Android, something also found on its predecessor. This makes it just easy to pick up and start using instead of having to get used to any weird idiosyncrasies of a custom software layer on top of Android.
ASUS ZenFone Max M2 key specs
- Body: 2.5D curved glass front, plastic sides, metal back
- Display: 6.26-inch, 1520x720 resolution (269PPI), IPS LCD, notched
- Chipset: Qualcomm Snapdragon 632 (4x 1.8GHz Kryo 250 Gold + 1.8GHz Kryo 250 Silver, Adreno 506)
- Memory: 32GB/64GB eMCP, 3GB/4GB LPDDR3X
- Software: Android 8.1.0 Oreo
- Rear camera: 13MP f1.8, 2MP depth sensor, 4K 30 video, LED flash
- Front camera: 8MP f2.0, 1080p 30 video, LED flash
- Battery: 4000mAh, 10W charging
- Connectivity: Dual SIM, 4G VoLTE, 802.11n single-band Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.2, GPS/GLONASS, microUSB, headphone jack
- Misc: Fingerprint sensor, face recognition, FM radio
Compared to last year's model, we do see some regressions in terms of specifications. The display is now just HD instead of Full HD, the processor is a bit slower, and the battery is 20% smaller. In a way then, the Max M2 Pro is more like the successor to the Max M1, while the Max M2 is more of a scaled down version for a lower price bracket.
This is a bit disappointing, as the Max M2 is not cheaper than last year's M1, which is still on sale. This leaves one to wonder why even bother with the M2 then. That is the question we will try to answer today.
Disclaimer: You might notice that this review is shorter than usual and doesn't include some of our usual tests. The reason is it has been prepared and written far away from our office and test lab. Still, we think we've captured the essence of the phone in the same precise, informative and detailed way that's become our trademark. Enjoy the good read!
Design
The design of the Max M2 is different from the Max M1, although not remarkably so.
The main difference is on the front, where the new Max M2 has much smaller bezels, including a thinner chin and a notch at the top. This does make it look a bit more modern but whether it looks better or not is entirely subjective.
From every other side, the two phones are nearly identical. The few minor differences that exist include a slightly redesigned speaker grille at the bottom and the headphone being moved to the top of the phone.
Aesthetically, the Max M2 looks alright. It's very understated and simple without any of the fancy glass back or two-tone finish of its rivals. Some may see this as a benefit while others might find it a bit boring.
Front • Rear
Despite the budget pricing, however, the phone is built very well, with no flex or creaking in the body and a firm, uniform feel throughout. It's also fairly slim and light, more so than last year's model that had a larger battery.
Ergonomically, the phone is decent. The power button on the side falls within easy reach although the volume buttons are a bit of a stretch. Similarly, the fingerprint sensor on the back is placed just a tad bit too high so you have to shift your grip between using the sensor and then using the phone. It's also a fairly large and tall phone, so not for those who like something more compact and manageable.
Right • Left • Top • Bottom
Overall, the ZenFone Max M2 is a reasonably well-designed and well-built phone, although the design does feel a bit stale compared to its rivals or even the more expensive Max Pro M2.
Display
The ZenFone Max M2's 6.26-inch, 1520x720 resolution IPS LCD is decent. It has reasonably accurate colors, once you set the manual white balance control all the way to its warmest setting and also gets extremely bright at about 482 nits. It's also fairly large, which is great for watching videos or playing games.
Unfortunately, it's only 720p resolution, which shouldn't really be a thing in 2019, especially on a phone that isn't exactly entry-level. While the phone does get by in most cases by having a rather large default font size, smaller text and icons are less forgiving.
There are also no notch settings on this phone, much like on the more expensive Max Pro M2. You can't set individual applications to use the full height of the display, which means content gets cut below the notch when the apps go fullscreen.
Overall, the display on the Max M2 isn't too bad but isn't high enough resolution for a panel this big.
Software
The ZenFone Max M2 comes with stock Android 8.1 Oreo. Our review unit was still running the October 1 security patch, which means ASUS is now four months behind on simply the security patches, let alone Android 9 Pie, which is still M.I.A. This isn't Android One, so there are no guarantees of timely software updates, or getting updates at all. While ASUS does release an update every now and then, it's the lack of timeliness and consistency that's the issue.
Software-wise, there really isn't a lot to talk about. If you've ever used stock Android Oreo in the past, you already know what to expect. To ASUS's credit, even though this isn't Android One, the company has left the OS build more or less untouched. There are some custom features, such as the double tap to turn off and wake the display, and a mode that keeps the screen on while you're looking at it but apart from that the UI is unapologetically stock Android. For those who appreciate it, this would be the perfect device.
Launcher
Having said that, while the UI is clean, it's also littered with minor issues everywhere. The battery percentage icon still gets truncated at the bottom. This was an issue we pointed out in our Max Pro M2 review back in December and exists even on the Max M2. There are also other issues, such as the icons in the status bar all being weirdly different sizes. One time the Bluetooth icon decided to stay on even after Bluetooth was disabled and the phone had to be restarted to get rid of it. The UI still doesn't look good when you reduce the size from the settings, and some apps develop weird alignment issues, such as the Camera. All of this just points to lack of attention to detail and polish in the UI, which coupled with the slow update cycle means you will be stuck with these issues for months before seeing a fix. Assuming they actually notice any of it.
UI screenshots
Speaking of bloatware, while there isn't a ton of it on the device, ASUS does force Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram on you. As you'd expect, you cannot uninstall these apps. Considering the privacy allegations surrounding the company, we think it would be wise if ASUS looked for other partners for its side income. Shipping your phone with Facebook bloatware is not a good look for any company in 2019.
Performance
The ZenFone Max M2 is the first device we have tested that runs on the new Snapdragon 632 chipset. Performance-wise, the phone is decent, but it is slower than both the more expensive Max Pro M2 and last year's Max M1.
Fortunately, this difference isn't hugely noticeable in everyday use, at least now when the phone is fairly new. Over time, the more powerful devices should feel noticeably better with more demanding apps but it will be a while before that's an issue.
Gaming performance was adequate. Playing a few rounds of PUBG at the lowest graphical setting resulted in a perfectly playable experience. It's no ROG Phone but for the sort of games people usually play it has enough power.
The phone does fall short when it comes to multimedia performance. Although the display is pretty large, the low resolution makes videos appear a bit soft. The loudspeaker quality is also not great, with about 50% volume sounding decent but beyond that, it becomes a bit unpleasant. Fortunately, the phone does still have a standard headphone jack so you can just plug those in without needing a dongle. Or you can use a Bluetooth headset and the phone does support aptX, aptX HD and LDAC.
On a side note, the phone does support the appropriate Widevine DRM for HD playback in video streaming apps. However, Netflix does not yet support HD playback on this device and at the end of the day, regardless of what DRM version you support, it depends upon the streaming service to enable HD playback on your particular phone's model.
GeekBench 4.1 (multi-core)
Higher is better
- Realme U1
6004 - Realme 2 Pro
5531 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 7
5411 - ASUS ZenFone Max Pro M2
5169 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 6 Pro
4933 - ASUS ZenFone Max M2
4744 - Xiaomi Mi A2
4625 - Xiaomi Mi A2 Lite (Redmi 6 Pro)
4388 - Realme 2
3881 - ASUS ZenFone Max (M1) (ZB556KL)
2434
GeekBench 4.1 (single-core)
Higher is better
- Xiaomi Redmi Note 7
1650 - Xiaomi Mi A2
1617 - Realme U1
1567 - ASUS ZenFone Max Pro M2
1465 - Realme 2 Pro
1462 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 6 Pro
1342 - ASUS ZenFone Max M2
1257 - Xiaomi Mi A2 Lite (Redmi 6 Pro)
881 - Realme 2
790 - ASUS ZenFone Max (M1) (ZB556KL)
667
AnTuTu 7
Higher is better
- Realme U1
144436 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 7
139075 - Realme 2 Pro
132958 - Xiaomi Mi A2
130927 - ASUS ZenFone Max Pro M2
124039 - Nokia 5.1 Plus
119428 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 6 Pro
115605 - ASUS ZenFone Max M2
103243 - Xiaomi Mi A2 Lite (Redmi 6 Pro)
77964 - Realme 2
75434 - ASUS ZenFone Max (M1) (ZB556KL)
57845
GFX 3.0 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)
Higher is better
- Xiaomi Redmi Note 7
22 - Realme U1
22 - Xiaomi Mi A2
22 - Realme 2 Pro
21 - ASUS ZenFone Max Pro M2
20 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 6 Pro
16 - Nokia 5.1 Plus
16 - ASUS ZenFone Max M2
10 - Xiaomi Mi A2 Lite (Redmi 6 Pro)
9.9 - Realme 2
9.3 - ASUS ZenFone Max (M1) (ZB556KL)
7
GFX 3.0 Manhattan (onscreen)
Higher is better
- Nokia 5.1 Plus
29 - Xiaomi Mi A2
21 - Realme U1
20 - ASUS ZenFone Max Pro M2
19 - ASUS ZenFone Max M2
19 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 7
19 - Realme 2 Pro
18 - Realme 2
16 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 6 Pro
15 - ASUS ZenFone Max (M1) (ZB556KL)
14 - Xiaomi Mi A2 Lite (Redmi 6 Pro)
9.4
GFX 3.1 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)
Higher is better
- Xiaomi Redmi Note 7
15
15
14
13
13
10
9.6
6.9
6.5
6.1
4.6
GFX 3.1 Manhattan (onscreen)
Higher is better
- Nokia 5.1 Plus
20 - ASUS ZenFone Max M2
14 - Xiaomi Mi A2
14 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 7
13 - ASUS ZenFone Max Pro M2
12 - Realme 2
12 - Realme 2 Pro
12 - Realme U1
12 - ASUS ZenFone Max (M1) (ZB556KL)
9.9 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 6 Pro
9.7 - Xiaomi Mi A2 Lite (Redmi 6 Pro)
6.1
Basemark X
Higher is better
- Xiaomi Mi A2
21378 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 7
21201 - ASUS ZenFone Max Pro M2
19320 - Realme U1
17290 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 6 Pro
15025 - Realme 2 Pro
14576 - Nokia 5.1 Plus
13873 - ASUS ZenFone Max M2
11449 - ASUS ZenFone Max (M1) (ZB556KL)
7606 - Realme 2
6703
Basemark OS 2.0
Higher is better
- Realme U1
2307 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 7
2260 - Xiaomi Mi A2
2240 - ASUS ZenFone Max Pro M2
1993 - Realme 2 Pro
1911 - Nokia 5.1 Plus
1868 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 6 Pro
1812 - ASUS ZenFone Max M2
1708 - Realme 2
1039 - ASUS ZenFone Max (M1) (ZB556KL)
895
3DMark SSE 3.1 Unlimited
Higher is better
- Xiaomi Redmi Note 7
1409 - Xiaomi Mi A2
1380 - Realme 2 Pro
1291 - Realme U1
1133 - ASUS ZenFone Max M2
579 - Realme 2
497
Camera
The ZenFone Max M2 has a 13MP f1.8 rear camera with a 2MP depth sensor and an 8MP f2.0 front camera. The cameras are different compared to both the Max M1 models as well as the Max Pro M2 model.
Starting with the camera app, the Max M2 comes with a very basic version of the app that you get on other ASUS phones. It's similar to the one on the Max Pro M2 and better than what we had on the Max M1 but these stock Android devices from ASUS always get these different, worse camera apps even though there's nothing stopping ASUS from putting their standard ZenUI app on these devices, or at least putting some effort into these apps.
Camera app
It's not that this camera app is lacking some crucial feature, but it's the way it's designed is what makes it look like an Android camera app from five years ago. Even then some phones had a better-designed app. And if the dated menus and iconography wasn't an issue, there are some glaring problems like the autofocus indicator appearing in the center of the screen. But the viewfinder is not in the center of the screen, which means the AF indicator appears on the right side of the frame, which looks comically bad.
The biggest criticism of the camera app by far is how slow it is to react to everything. Tap any button to change something and there's a half second delay before the phone realizes you did something and reacts to it. For a while, it feels as if the phone didn't react to your touch at all, and that, too, happens every once in a while, but other times it just feels that way as the phone eventually comes around and does what you asked it to.
The bottom line with this app is that it is in dire need of a redesign or at least performance optimization.
In terms of image quality, the rear camera on the Max M2 is above-average. The color accuracy is good, with natural looking colors and a good white balance. The autofocus is fast and works reliably well. And the images shot indoors come out perfectly usable.
Camera samples
However, the camera has a disastrously bad dynamic range and routinely blows out highlights in the frame to the point where many objects just become invisible. The saving grace, however, is the HDR mode, which works really well to recover highlights and also fill in shadow detail. However, the HDR images do lack some of the vibrancy of normally shot images so it's not the best idea to leave it on all the time, no matter how tempting it might be.
HDR Off • HDR On
The camera also has a night mode that does nothing apart from draining even more color from the image and making it largely unusable.
Night mode Off • Night mode On
The portrait mode works surprisingly well with objects and the overall results come out quite well. In the picture with the elephant, you can see it even managed to blur out the spaces between the pillars at the bottom correctly. You get a little slider before shooting to adjust the depth of field. The shots you see here were shot at the default medium level but you could dial it up or down as you please. There's no way to adjust it after the image has been shot, however.
Portrait mode Off • Portrait mode On
The phone is capable of recording 4K video at 30fps. You can also record in 1080p at the same frame rate and the reason you'd want to do that is that the electronic stabilization does not work in 4K. The camera app also has the option to mute audio, which is a feature we wish more phones had.
The 4K video quality would have been good if there wasn't so much stuttering throughout the video, making it completely unwatchable. The 1080p video is perfectly smooth in comparison, although it's obviously not as sharp. The image stabilization also crops a big chunk out of the video, making the frame rather small but it does work quite well so we'd still recommend leaving it on. Until ASUS manages to fix the 4K mode, this is pretty much just a good 1080p camera.
Battery Life
The ZenFone Max M2 has a 4000mAh battery. The battery is smaller than last year's model as well as the more expensive Max Pro M2, both of which have 5000mAh batteries.
Having said that, 4000mAh is nothing to scoff at and coupled with a largely efficient chipset, you are still looking at a day and a half of use as long as you don't do something too demanding, like play games all day on your phone. Battery life on this phone really isn't an issue and both standby time and usage times are excellent.
The only problem is that the phone does not ship with a fast charger, nor does it support fast charging. This means you are stuck with charging it at 10W, which can take a while to charge a 4000mAh battery. A full charge will take you around two and a half hours, which isn't bad especially since you'll likely be charging it overnight. But if you're in a hurry, a quick top-up is out of the question.
Oh, and the phone still has a microUSB connector.
Verdict
The ZenFone Max M2 is a respectable mid-range smartphone. It's well-built, has a large and bright display, clean and easy to use software, decent performance, and excellent battery life.
However, the design is a bit stale compared to its rivals, the 720p resolution for the display is inadequate, the software needs more polish and regular updates and there's no fast charging support.
Coming back to the comparison with last year's Max M1, the Max M2 falls a bit short in some areas, such as having a slightly slower processor and a significantly smaller battery. Some people may also prefer the fact that Max M1 does not have a notch, which isn't a universally liked feature.
The fact that the base model of both these devices costs the same in some markets like India makes it hard to recommend the new M2 over the M1, at least as long as the M1 is still on sale. And then there's the Max Pro M2, which does a lot of things better than both these phones and isn't considerably more expensive.
This lands the M2 in a bit of a tough spot. Our recommendation would be to go for the M1 for now or just spend a bit more and get the Pro M2, which is definitely worth the premium.
Pros
- Good build quality
- Large, bright display
- Great battery life
- Stock Android experience
Cons
- Mediocre camera
- Weak loudspeaker
- Unpolished software with irregular updates
- No fast charging
- microUSB connector
- Boring design
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