1. Brand. any, as long as whatever customization done is fast

2. Budget. < 1k. Cheaper is more preferred

3. Specs. basically similar to the zenfone 5: 5 inch screen, 16 GB internal storage with expandable (larger memory card support the better. 32 GB not enough for me ), 2 GB RAM.

4. What you need in the phone: most important is better battery life than the zenfone 5. next in line would be camera and gps performance tied at second place. after that is NFC. It's not for android pay, that's not going to come to malaysia any time soon. want to use it for automation at home. and lastly sound volume.

battery life > camera = gps performance > NFC > speaker volume

Whatever Asus did with their lolipop build there's a ton of performance degrade. It's probably lolipop in general, but it seems like it's extra bad with Asus.

Thanks!