Yesterday, one of our contributors spotted one of the most highly anticipated handsets in the country today – the ASUS ZenFone 2 – and it’s being sold for Php10,430 in of the retailer stores at SM Megamall Cyberzone.
The model of the ZenFone 2 being sold at Sm CyberZone (E2 Power Gadgets to be exact) is the ZE500CL. For those who are not familiar, ASUS has released different variants of ZenFone 2. These models varies slightly from one another in terms of model of Intel processor used, how much RAM is in it, battery capacity, as well as the screen size and resolution.
The ZenFone 2 ZE500CL we spotted, as far as its specs is concerned, is the most modest of all the ZenFone 2 siblings. It sports a 5-inch display with 1280 x 720 resolution and with Corning Gorilla Glass 3 laid on top of it for protection against scratches.
Unlike its more capable brethren, the ZE500CL only rocks a dual-core Intel Atom Z2560 clocked at 1.6GHz with 2GB of RAM. The said processor is similar to the one found inside the crowd-favorite ZenFone 5 (some versions of it at least) and its bigger brother the ZenFone 6.
ASUS ZenFone 2 (ZE500CL) specs:
5-inch IPS LCD display, 1280 x 720 @294ppi
1.6GHz Intel Atom Z2560 dual-core processor
PowerVR SGX544MP2 GPU
2GB RAM
Expandable 16GB internal storage
64GB via microSD
WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
LTE
Bluetooth 4.0 with A2DP and EDR
8MP Autofocus rear camera w/ LED flash
1080p video recording @30fps
2MP front-facing camera
2500mAh battery
Android 5.0 Lollipop
148.1 x 71.5 x 10.9 mm
155 grams
As mentioned earlier, the ASUS ZenFone 2 ZE500CL is being sold at E2 Power Gadgets located at the 4th floor of SM Megamall for Php10,430. Bear in mind though that the ZenFone 2 units being sold there are just parallel imports, therefore does not have an ASUS local warranty.
We were told that the store provides one year service warranty for the handset and seven days replacement for factory defects. The service warranty only covers the labor costs, and consumers will have to shoulder the cost of the components that will be replaced if anything happens to it.
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jabon says:
thank you for sharing your feedback regarding E2 Power Gadgets. Makes me think twice to buy that a phone from that store now.
Eagle Eye says:
Gray Market .. No warranty
Gian says:
I’m warning you about E2 Power Gadgets, Megamall. Their quality control and service is extremely poor. My experience with them brought a lot of stress and hassle. A year ago I bought a Sony phone and it broke down 3 months after. I am well aware that the warranty that came with the phone is only a store warranty (meaning The Sony company is not liable for any damage). It took them another 3 months to work on my phone and at the end they weren’t able to fix my phone informing me to just bring it to Sony’s service center. They weren’t also communicative with the customers. I literally had to go to the store multiple times to inquire about my phone because they never answered to calls. Plus what really irked me was the fact that they “lost” my receipt upon returning my phone and so I had no means to file complaints or perform legal action. I felt like my customer rights were thrown out the window. So to be safe and sure, purchase from an established company rather than buying from stores that sell products for cheaper rates.
Tikyo says:
Yes, true! Though it’s sad to hear how your story ended. Anyway, what I did was to ask for SM Megamall’s help in mediating as I didn’t trust the store in adhering to our agreement. Props to SM here as they were truly all out in assisting and assuring me that the store would stick to our agreement. So if anyone’s in the same situation as I was, don’t hesitate on asking for SM’s help.
Gian says:
Tikyo, it’s a good thing you were able to get a replacement but I know it wasn’t easy. I went through a lot of hurdles and received nothing from their store. The Sony service center reported that my phone’s LCD was damaged which would cost 16K to repair and the E2 store informed me it was the mother board which would cost 3K. So there’s a discrepancy right there. It just reached to a point wherein I got tired of it and everything went to waste. So to avoid this, don’t buy from unauthorized stores.
Tikyo says:
Their customer support is the worst! About a month ago, I bought a phone from them. After a day, I noticed that the whole top border of the LCD had an extra strong backlight to the point that it caused discoloration on the screen when light colors were displayed. Aware of their 7 day replacement policy, I wasn’t worried. Since I was busy I only had the chance to bring the phone on the 4th day. Right there & then their in-house technician declared that it was in fact a defective LCD. However the store insisted on taking the phone for a 5-day observation policy. I agreed as i was confident it was a defective unit and that they’ll replace it. Like what happened to you Gian, they weren’t really “communicative”. They’ll just reply with my texts stating that my unit’s under observation or some other reasons like the head technician had an emergency or whatever so he wasn’t able to check the phone. They never initiated on updating me on the status of my phone. I was always the one contacting them first. On the 5th day, contrary to what their in-house tech initially said, they claimed that the unit was not defective as per observation by their head technician. What!? Of course I disagreed and they stuck to their claim. They suggested that they’ll only replace the unit if i could produce a tech report from the phone manfacturer’s official service center. Hence I did, but not without any obstacle. When I was getting the unit to have it checked they suggested that they’ll have to obtain their own tech report from the service center as well. Crazy! So i told them to have one of their personnel to go with me. Upon checking the unit, the official manufacturer’s service center declared in “no time” that it was indeed a defective lcd backlight. Now, come to the store, they had no choice but to replace the unit. Of course it still wasn’t a breeze. I had to wait for about an hour for the replacement unit to arrive. They claimed that the personnel who got the replacement unit wasn’t replying so they had to send another one, hence the delay. To cap it off, the manager nor the owner never once (from the very start) talked to me and apologized for what they did.
Mogs says:
sana the ZE550ML comes out over here
JAMES says:
Choose Zenfone 5 over this one. Don’t just try to be one of the first Zenfone 2 users. Php3,440.00 doesn’t even equate to an upgrade of LTE + 400mAh battery capacity nowadays. That’s almost another capable droid handset in the local scene.
rain says:
READ: Service Warranty = NO WARRANTY
If you have to pay for the part(s) to be replaced due to defect, then there is really no warranty considering that the labor cost is pretty much minimal. Usually nga libre na ang labor sa mga cellphone repair shops at piyesa na lang ang binabayaran.