Fake IPS screens on ASUS devices?

[Rodrigo Yoshida]

I recently bought an ASUS zenfone 5 because I needed a dual SIM smartphone without spending too much money, but still getting a good device.


The zenfone has good specs, 5 inch 720p IPS screen, Intel dual core processor that performs pretty similar to some quad core ARM processors, 2gb RAM, 16gb storage and runs Android 4.4 and ASUS also promised to update it to Android 5.0 Lollipop. It is definitely not a high end smartphone, but it does the job.


I was happy with it, but the screen quality really disappointed me. Since ASUS says it has an IPS screen I guessed it would have good viewing angles and color accuracy like I see in many devices, even cheap ones like Moto G, but it was not the case. I usually show a lot of photos and videos to many people and some of them cannot see it clearly if they look from a different angle.


It should not happen with an IPS display, actually it behaves like a cheap LCD display found in those really simple smartphones. I made a video to demonstrate what happens. It is in Portuguese but I think you can get the point by just watching it.


So, what happened? Are they using cheaper screens, fake IPS displays? Is there a simpler IPS model that behaves like that?


Video link:

 

[mikedt]

This is a budget phone from Asus, sells for equivalent of about $100 in China. Looks like they've used a cheaper type of screen, which don't have the wide viewing angle of the more expensive types.

 

[Rodrigo Yoshida]

This is a budget phone from Asus, sells for equivalent of about $100 in China. Looks like they've used a cheaper type of screen, which don't have the wide viewing angle of the more expensive types.

The Moto G and others are budget phones with IPS displays too and they all are much better than my zenfone. Other zenfone on the web are saying theirs are not bad like mine, so I assume it does not happen to all zenfones.