First, I want to say how excited I was for this phone along with all the other Asus products I've bought and maybe that was my trouble. I believed a US variant of an unlocked phone would have little trouble in usage. I've been proven wrong and will be sure to keep this in mind going forward. I will say the quality, the design, and the innovation really pushed me to this phone. I was able to overlook the missing band 71 for T-Mobile knowing that my data signal may suffer a small bit. I know you get questions about when the US variant of this phone will get Volte or wifi calling. I'm hoping to explain a real scenario that occurred to give more weight to the need of these features.
When I initially looked at this phone I probably could have researched further and realized that my area in which I live does not have much for 2g/3g reception and even then most carriers are working to phase it out. In my area, when the Zenfone 6 is forced into those bands it will typically provide a "no coverage/signal" message and only occasionally find 2g/3g for a minute and then back to no service. As you might imagine this makes placing/receiving calls at my home the most difficult experience I've had with a phone. When we have 2 Zenfone 6's and they both drop calls/have bad reception you can imagine a friendly call can quickly go to annoyance. Not only are calls difficult, but most of the time I'm unable to browse data while on call or the call drops, which impacts my job. In one weekend, I not only missed an important call from work, but also my home fire alarm went off and I missed the opportunity to receive an alert call and cancel the false alarm. So imagine my surprise when I'm met with my local fire dept and fire chief to explain to them that there was indeed no fire and how sorry I was to use their time. When I say missed, I mean there is no notification of incoming call, no missed call, nothing unless they leave a voicemail and who really does that anymore? All in all, was it my fault for not researching this phone more and expecting basic volte function? Yes. Was it my possibly faulty smoke detector that alerted the fire dept? Yes. Was it my alarm company that didn't try to call the other line on the account, which was another Zenfone 6? Yes. So what are my options? Luckily I have my original old phone and now will have to move a sim card to it to get the best service available to me every night or just sell the Zenfone 6.
The real frustration with the fire dept situation is the what ifs? Who else could have needed them? Yet they were stuck at my door step for nothing. This all could have been prevented if I just received a simple phone call. I'm hoping that with all this said, Asus will understand that this core feature of volte or even wifi calling will allow this phone to really function despite the minor missing signal bands. I'm hoping to be heard as a consumer and a fan of Asus and get this real situation example to the right people for serious consideration.
