Mumbai, Jan 15(AZINS) I've been using the Asus Zenfone Max sparingly, for little over three days now and I am pleasantly surprised. This is the best phone I've used under a Rs 10,000 price tag. It's even better than a lot of phone in higher price ranges.

The first thing I wanted to test was the 5000mAh battery, so I thought it would fun to see how long I could go without charging it. It's been through quite a bit of streaming, web browsing and even a 20 minute conversation with my sister.

I haven't charged it once in three days and it still has about 10 percent left in it. Oh, did I mention that I started this experiment when the phone was only charged to 70%. I guess it lasted this long on account of a bunch of battery saving option Asus offers you from the get-go.

To put things into perspective, I had to charge my iPhone four times in the same amount of time although, the iPhone is my primary phone and I get all my Whatsapp, Social media and email notifications on it.

As much as I liked the phone there were a few problems I had with it. Midway through my experiment, the phone started taking a few seconds for the interface to load up whenever I hit the Unlock/lock button and I also found the phone a tad bit heavy to hold, I guess that's what you have to deal with if you want a juggernaut sized battery.

Well I couldn't do anything about the latter problem but the interface issue was solved by a simple reboot.

Interface-wise the phone is as smooth as butter. I haven't experience any lag (as yet), and it also take photos really quickly. Asus even scrapped the inconvenient rear surface volume button layout for a conventional side panel layout.

My initial experience with it this phone proved to be pretty good, the graphics and interface looks appealing, it has a comfortable screen size and with an elegant finish, it looks like it cost much more than it’s actually worth. But we'll know more after our deep dive review coming up shortly--stay tuned.