Even though I’m still fully in love with the Samsung Galaxy S6 and hate to put its pretty glass body down on a table for more than a few minutes because I always need to be touching it, something about this newish trend of super cheap phones with decent specs has finally caught my attention. I feel like I need to invest some portion of my life into the bargain bin to see if life can continue without a hiccup. Or maybe it’s that there is too much value to be had out there for me not to experience it.

And with that random thought, enter the ASUS ZenFone 2 into my pocket. Yes, we have one in house!

This is by all means a phone with a bargain bin price and close-to-premium specs. At $199 and $299 (we went with this model), you really can’t beat the value here, which is a package that includes a 5.5-inch HD display, quad-core Intel processor, 4GB RAM, 13MP camera, 64GB storage, Android 5.0, fast charging, and LTE connectivity.

Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll spend some quality time with this phone to see what it is truly made of. Can a phone with this low of a price and this set of specs win me over on any level? I really want to find out, I really do. This type of phone is more than likely going to be a major part of the future of smartphones, so why not familiarize ourselves with it now.

To get the journey started, here is an unboxing and initial impressions video.