Remember the Zenfone 5z launched back in 2018 with SD845 and the first phone with a full-fledged notch (sort of)? I’m sure most don’t even know a device like this existed as Asus has never been a prevalent player and is often shy from making appearances by not launching phones.
For those who know, the Asus Zenfone 5z has aged so well that it has been making headlines (at least on this website) but all for negative and obscure reasons. The owners of the phone have been facing so many issues in the past but yet everything goes under the radar.
We have covered the issues related to Zenfone 5z not charging last year and turns out many users found it helpful, with that said, this phone is not free from random problems arising from time to time.
As the brand itself neither promotes itself in general as a smartphone brand nor launches a dozen phones in a year like Xiaomi and Realme. This makes the people to never even consider Asus phones (if any in India apart from ROG Phone series) and thus they end up selling a measly amount every year. This factors into the media coverage too and at the end of the day, not many cover Asus phones in the long term because the logic is simple, when there isn’t much audience that’s interested in those devices, there’s no point in covering those.
Wide Angle camera not working on Zenfone 5z
This time the issue which has been clearly slipping under the radar is that several Zenfone 5z users are complaining that the wide angle camera refuses to work despite all the basic troubleshooting steps like clearing data & cache of camera app, restarting the phone, checking with other camera apps like Google camera (GCam) and even formatting the phone.
The exact problem with the ultra wide angle camera on Zenfone 5z is that, when switching to that particular camera, it just stucks in the transition and the screen blacks out.
Attaching pics of complaints of users on Asus ZenTalk forums and Facebook
When that happens, the camera app is rendered completely useless, can’t switch back to main camera, nor change settings just a black screen with the UI stuck. The only option is to swipe away the camera app from recents and launch it again to at least click a pic with the main 12MP camera.
If you’re lucky enough, it’ll work fine but that too once in a while only. This particular issue has been popping up on many Zenfone 5z phones and users are definitely frustrated about it.
The Wide Angle camera is not working since yesterday. The phone didn’t fall or anything.
A Zenfone 5z user on ZenTalk Forums Source
It’s also not working after device reset or in safe mode.
My wide angle has stopped working all of a sudden and yet I don’t care much of going to service center coz in 6-7 months I am anyway changing my phone.
Another concern for wide angle camera on 5z Source
Solution for Zenfone 5z wide angle camera not working
If it were a one-time issue where once in a while a user’s phone gets damaged due to accidentally dropping it or even by chance happens to be a faulty unit, but that’s certainly not the case here. Over the past few months, several users have complained of the same exact issue which gives more inclination towards something at fault with the quality checks of the hardware or a software glitch/bug which is preventing to switch to the wide angle camera.
So unlike the SIM detection failure issue on Zenfone 5z, this one doesn’t really have a clear-cut fix.
With the complaints of users pouring in day by day despite that Asus seems to not address the issue apart from conveying the legendary solution – “Please visit your nearest Asus service center”. The brand just won’t consider and digging out the problem, which is well bound to happen considering the phone is 3 year old now which also no longer receives software updates.
So all in all, there’s no concise solution at the moment and I doubt there ever will be. Of course, you can try your luck and visit the service center and if they could do the camera module replacement free of cost or at a discounted price which is unlikely.
I would certainly recommend not to spend on a device such old until and unless the wide angle is your ultimate priority as the camera module does cost a lot in any case.
If you’re facing the exact or similar problem of wide angle not working on Zenfone 5z, do let us know in the comments.
