[ZenFone 2 General] kanagawaben:
There have been a lot of changes in ZenUI over the time (about 9 months?) since the ZF2's launch, although rather disappointingly it is still based on 5.0 Lollipop. So I was wondering what you guys make of it in its current iteration? Personally, I am in two minds about the stock ASUS firmware and tend to flash back and forth between stock and CM rom. Focusing mainly on the stock ROM, and not thinking too much about visual design, which is a very subjective matter, here are my pros and cons:

Pros: Camera performance is good for the price and much better than with CM/CM-based roms. The latest version of the pixelmaster app is improved, and gives a lot of functionality (the manual mode is especially nice and now better integrated). While not all useful, there are a number of included ASUS apps that I find useful. For me, I make use of the SuperNote app, I find the ASUS email app much better than the gmail app, the Remote Link app is useful with a PC, I like having Splendid to adjust the display, the Weather app is handy, and I like the PhotoCollage app. Although I don't use it much, it is good having FM Radio functionality (always good to have a radio when you live in an area with earthquakes like I do), something you lose with custom ROMs. I think battery life is OK using stock firmware. A lot of flagship device reviewers quote 3 to 4 hours SOT in a day's use as being pretty good, and I easily exceed that on my Z008 with stock rom and most features turned on or maxed. I have a few qualms about the Zen launcher visually, but that is very subjective as I said. In terms of functionality it brings a hell of a lot to the table - touch gestures such as DTTS/DTTW and swipe down functionality, lots of launcher options such as app lock, homescreen lock, folder customisations, app drawer options, wallpaper settings options, the choice of one or two-layer style, scroll effects, themes and so on. The ASUS settings and quick-settings also offer some good extra functionality. The ASUS cover functionality is also nice if you have a view flip cover. While it is a shame that we are still stuck with 5.0, it is at least good that ASUS have started to roll Google's monthly security updates into their own updates.

Cons: Probably my biggest bug bear is RAM management. Not sure if this is an effect of 5.0's memory leaks, but my 2GB RAM model often has under 300MB free, compared to 600-900 on CM. Usually this doesn't affect performance and the UI is smooth, but sometimes it does seem to get jammed up. Disabling apps or denying apps in Auto-Start manager doesn't seem to have any effect on this. While it has improved a lot, I still have some problems with app connectivity when the device is sleeping. For example, regardless of my wifi settings and power-saver settings, TuneIn radio streams buffer or completely stop after a few seconds when the screen goes off. On CM I do not encounter this problem. (Edit: actually the tune in problem seems to have now gone away). USB connectivity with my Pioneer car stereo was also broken, I think by the PC Link suite CD Rom function. This is very annoying (and I would be very grateful if anyone has a solution to this problem). And one last one, though not a big issue - the Zen UI is, in my opinion, wasteful of space and the default DPI setting (320 on Z008) is too high and can't be changed easily and flawlessly.

What does everybody else think? Anything to add or anything you don't agree with me about? Let's discuss.