ASUS has been rolling out ZenUI 5.0 to a number of smartphones in the past few weeks, and it's time for the ASUS Zenfone 4 Max to get it as well. When the Zenfone 4 Max launched at the end of last year, it came out with Android 7.0 Nougat, getting updated to ZenUI 4.0 shortly after. At the time, Android Oreo had just launched with many other devices coming out with it already installed. The ASUS Zenfone 4 Max is admittedly a lower-end device, but it still perplexed users. The ZenUI 5.0 update with Android 8.1 Oreo is beginning to roll out to it now.
The ASUS Zenfone 4 Max is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 430-powered smartphone, featuring a 720p IPS LCD display and 3GB of RAM. It's not a bad device, but it's a more budget-oriented smartphone than most of ASUS' other offerings. It's common for such budget devices to go without a major update in their lifetime, so to have it upgraded to Android Oreo a year after it released is pretty good going from ASUS.
Along with core Android Oreo features such as picture-in-picture mode, notification channels, background app optimizations, and notification snoozing, you'll also get ZenUI 5.0 features too. ZenUI 5.0 comes with features like a redesigned Settings, wallpaper slideshow on the lock screen, Smart Screen On, Suggested Apps (predicts the app you are likely to use based on contexts), Scheduled Charging, OptiFlex 3.0 for RAM/app optimizations, Game Genie (helps you perform actions like live-streaming and muting alerts), Twin Apps, Face Unlock, and more.
The update (version number 15.2016.1809.412) is rolling out currently for the ASUS Zenfone 4 Max, and you should get it on your device in the coming days. If you really want to upgrade now, the official announcement post below includes a link to a guide on how to flash the update manually.