Asus Zenfone Selfie - new firmware WW_21.40.0.2081_20170325

The Asus Zenfone Selfie gets a new update WW_21.40.0.2081_20170325 today. No changelog was provided and any announcement on the official Asus forums.

Screenshot of previous firmware.

New firmware.

Asus Zenfone Selfie - Getting into Recovery Mode

Sometimes you have to get into Recovery Mode on the Asus Zenfone Selfie to do a factory data reset, wipe cache partition or manually install an update. Here's how.

First, turn off your phone. Then press and hold the 'volume down' button and 'power' button together. As soon as the Asus logo appears, you can release the 'power' button. Hold the 'volume down' button for another 3 seconds and let go. You should be in Recovery Mode now.

Asus Zenfone Selfie (ZD551KL) - Introduction

Just got the Asus Zenfone Selfie from an online store (Lazada Malaysia) for RM836( approximately 200USD ). I'd say it has pretty good specification for the price.

The box.

What's in the box? Charging adapter, micro-USB cable, manual and phone.

 UK three-pin plug piece

Slide in the UK three-pin plug on the adapter.

Attachment complete.

Adapter 5V/2A.

 Capacitive buttons.

Front facing camera, dual LED flash and ear-piece.

Back: Rear facing camera, dual LED flash, laser autofocus and volume rocker. 

Loud speaker and micro USB port.

Back cover.

3000 mAh battery.

Asus Zenfone Selfie.

Let's take a look at the specifications.

CPU and GPU

In the heart of the Zenfone Selfie is a Snapdragon 615 SoC or so it seems. Qualcomm's website shows that the Zenfone Selfie uses the newer Snapdragon 616. On the other hand, Asus official websites state that Snapdragon 615 is being used. The screenshot below shows that the phone is clocked at 1.5GHz and 1.11GHz on low power cores.

RAM

3GB RAM is plenty and more than sufficient for most Android tasks. After uninstalling(or disabling) some Google and Asus apps, I was able to get around 1.5 to 1.6 GB of free RAM. Fortunately, Asus gave the option to disable most of it's pre-installed apps.

Camera

I'm quite pleased with the image quality results on both the rear and front facing camera. Will add more information and post up some image samples soon.

Asus RT-N14UHP unboxing

Got this ASUS RT-N14UHP wireless router about 2 weeks ago. Let's see what's inside the box.

The box.

Some information printed on the box.

Inside the box: Router, adapter, 3x  9dBi antennas, quick start guide, warranty card, network cable (CAT5e).

Quick start guide.

The ASUS RT-N14UHP wireless router.

Air vents on the sides.

Behind the router ( from left to right); Reset hole button, power button,  power port for AC adapter, USB2.0 port, WPS button, WAN port and 4x 10/100 LAN ports.

Bottom side of router.

9dBi antennas.

Power adapter.

RT-N14UHP with 9dBi antennas .

The RT-N14UHP uses the Broadcom BCM5358UB0 clocked at 530mhz. There is 16MB of flash memory and 64MB of RAM. It has an additional power amplifier chip.

My own experience

This router is really stable and so far I don't need to power off or reboot the router. There are a minimum of 8 devices(tablets, notebook, smartphones, PCs) connected at any time and no connection drop issues so far. Coverage is pretty good but don't expect it to work miracles if you are on a two-storey house/building.