[Asus ZenFone 3 Deluxe Guides, News, & Discussion] Nicksjohnson:
So, I bought my ZenFone 3 Deluxe from Amazon on October 23, with an estimated delivery of Nov 30-Dec 7. On Nov 4th, surprisingly, my phone got delivered:D. Coming from a Note 7 (as a long time galaxy user) I had some hesitations, but overall I am pleased. I have owned it for just about a month now, and I would like to share some of the things I have noticed. I am hoping that some of you have a way to fix some of these, or if nothing else, to find out that I am not the only one having the issues.

First, lets start with the IMEI issue I had. Straight out of the box, I took the phone to the AT&T store and got a new SIM card for it. Right off the bat, it picked up good service on the voice network, but failed to connect to LTE (or any data network for that matter). I checked my APN settings, called AT&T 3 different times, and finally fixed it. The cause was the IMEI was reading as a Motorola V577, which is an old flip phone without the data capability. I could pull up my IMEI as a ZF3D but, for whatever reason, AT&T was pulling it up as the Motorola. On the 3rd call, they finally reconfigured my IMEI and a week later I now have data connection. Not LTE, but 4G+ is better than nothing I guess...:victory:

Next, the most annoying thing, is Bluetooth. I have a few devices. A Samsung Gear S2 watch, an LG headset, and my Honda Accord are my main 3. All the devices I have connected initially pair really easily, so no problem there. I am normally wearing both my watch and headset, and for the most part, both stay connected no problem. The biggest thing for me is when I have both connected, and receive a call, it automatically directs it to my watch-not my headset... to "fix" this in call I have to pretty much disconnect my watch, then go into the headset Bluetooth settings, deselect phone audio, then reselect it. I have gotten to the point now that I just leave the watch connected only for "contact sharing" and the headset stays connected for audio. I have only received one call since doing this, so hopefully that works. Also, hopefully someone has a fix on how to have them both connected at the same time and have the headset take priority. :confused:

The other big deal with Bluetooth is with my car. The ZF3 will not automatically connect to the car, and manually connecting to the car takes about 10 failed attempts each time. With my Note7, as soon as I would start the car it would start the connecting process. Same with my wife's Iphone 6+. The car will even connect to my wife's phone when I start it up in the morning, her phone inside the house, and mine being in the car before backing out of the driveway...again annoying...

Yet another annoying thing, is the texting fail. Normally not a big deal, but when it comes to picture messages, whether group or individual, it's hit or miss. I have a friend with a Galaxy S7 Edge, and his pictures 90% of the time never come through. For the most part everyone else's come through fine, and his pictures come through on everyone else's phones perfectly (we do a lot of group texts...). The messenger app tells me I have a picture, and gives me the refresh button for each picture, but even when pressed, they wont come through. This happens when connected to both WIFI and Data. A not so big deal, but more of a nuisance, is the texting notification. Regardless of if I have no new texts, it says I have 3 new...the bubble never goes away. If I get new texts, it gains numbers (4, 5, 6, etc.) but never gets lower than 3. I have been through each text, checked all of them, refreshed, checked archived messages, and nothing seems to make the number disappear.

Now for the good. The fingerprint sensor is awesome. I absolutely love it. It is BY FAR greater than the Note7, and leaps and bounds greater than my wife's Iphone. The camera is awesome (minus low light, but I knew that from the reviews) and the wide variety of shooting modes is pretty cool as well. The amount of different themes you can choose from is a plus, and the laser ruler is a neat toy, that will probably never get any real use. I will say, I tested the accuracy with a ruler, and it comes within about 1/2 an inch every time.

The accessories I use are the Sparin clear TPU soft case, and the OMOTON 9H hardness tempered glass screen protector. Both of these I got off of Amazon, and both came in a 2 pack. I am pleasantly surprised with both of these items. The screen protector is extremely smooth to the touch, and goes on easily, you can hardly tell its there. The case is good for a cheap TPU case, and it's a lot smaller scale than an Otterbox, which I am used to having on all of my phones within the last 4 years.

Sorry this is a lot of words, hopefully at least some of you read it and find something interesting, or know of a fix for anything. I would definitely appreciate it. :good:

Thanks again everyone.

Nick