Beyond the battery, the ZenFone Max Plus (M1) also packs a 5.7-inch, 2160x1080 display with an 18:9 aspect ratio, along with an octa-core MediaTek chipset, 3GB of RAM and 32GB of onboard storage. Around back you'll find a fingerprint sensor and, above that, a dual camera that combines a standard 16-megapixel sensor with an 8-megapixel wide-angle camera with a 120-degree field of view. For those keeping track, that's very similar to the setup used by the LG G5 a while back. Even better, both the main and front-facing camera (which also shoots 16-megapixel stills) have f/2.0 apertures to help suck up as much light as possible for landscape shots and selfies. Squeeze all of that into a handsome, if slightly generic-looking, metal body and that's the ZenFone Max Plus (M1).

So far the Max Plus feels like one hell of a value smartphone, but not everything here is ideal. Most notably, it runs an older Android 7.0 Nougat build painted over by ASUS' hit-or-miss ZenUI. That it runs software over a year old is pretty problematic; we've reached out to ASUS to see why exactly the ZenFone Max Plus (M1) is stuck in this position. Despite the Nougat situation and the inherent oddness of its name, we're still glad to see the ZenFone Max Plus (M1) wrapping up a few flagship features into a sleek-looking body. Stick around -- we're going to go track one down soon for a little hands-on time.

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