Asus Zenfone Lite L1 Android Pie (9.0) update and multi touch issue: No official word so far

One of the sale boosting practices followed more or less by OEMs in smartphone market is price drop. Obviously when a new device is launched, user interest is on a different level altogether. What new features and tech advancements the phone comes boxed with and at what price interests all.

But its a phase and the buzz fades out a couple of months later. When a devices’s market begins to stagnate, phone manufacturers try to renew the interest by offering price cuts.

The intention is to bring a spike in phone sales before its tech becomes obsolete in the frequently evolving smartphone market.

One such phone manufacturer that frequently slashes the price of their smartphones is ASUS.

Just recently their last year’s budget smartphone ZenFone Lite L1 and mid ranger ZenFone Max Pro M1 hit the headlines when Taiwanese OEM dropped the device prices from INR5,999 ($86) to INR4,999 ($72) and INR7,499 ($108) to INR6,999 ($101) in India.

The repriced phones are now available exclusively at the e-commerce platform Flipkart.

While ASUS is making efforts to revive buyers interest in their low-end device ZenFone Lite L1, those who already have the phone have been cribbing about an issue for months, but it still awaits a fix. So lets talk about ZenFone Lite L1’s that particular problem in today’s section.

Multi touch issues

For a quick refresher, ZenFone Lite L1 (ZA551KL) is ASUS’ pocket friendly phone that was released in October, 2018. It is powered by Snapdragon 430 SoC, features a 5.45-inches display and 13 MP rear camera and runs Android 8.0 Oreo out of the box.

Coming back to the problem, since past few months, a humongous number of device owners have been chiming about multi touch broken. Going by reports posted across the company’s official forum, multi touch just stops working while playing games.

No, the problem is not a new one. It’s worth stressing this ‘multi touch not working while playing games’ issue has been reported since the device’s launch. But over past few months, complaints have proliferated. ZenTalk forums’ ZenFone Lite L1 section is filled with multi-touch–related reports.

Here’s what some of the users have to say:

All asus lite L1 users facing multi touch issue you need to fix this issue its an software issue and don’t tell us to visit service centre. MULTI TOUCH is big issue if you are not going to fix this then tell us. And before releasing any update first you test software then release. Your software engineer are failures. Appoint good software engineer who can make atleast bugless software. If you are not possible to fix software issue then go to XDA developers they will help you to fix bugs and they are good software engineer than yours.

It’s a software issue … Every user faces it especially while gaming. I had uninstalled all games and didn’t faced it for almost 3-4 weeks. But now I installed game again and Again multi touch issue

Something similar has been posted on Twitter as well:

Although majority multi touch-related complaints are reported while playing games like PUBG, users sometimes face the same issue otherwise as well. Here’s what some complainants said:

There is a serious Multi touch issue happens while playing games like PUBG or other, sometimes at scrolling also .

A couple of users have even shared video clips that clearly showcase the problem behavior. Some affected users blame the device’s poor RAM management for this creating the multi touch problem.

Coming to what has the company said and done so far regarding the problem in question, one of the ZenTalk forums moderator has been actively addressing all these complaints.

After bringing ZenFone Lite L1’s multi touch issue to dev team’s notice, just last month, the same moderator informed that users will have to visit the service center for getting the problem diagnosed.

After highlighting the multi touch issue, the feedback from the developers was received as to go to the service center. Service center will be able to look into this issue keenly.

But that didn’t stop users from complaining. More and more users began chiming about the issue, that too along with video proofs of the problem behavior. And probably this compelled the forums moderator to get in touch with the dev team once again. Just yesterday, the same moderator said:

We have highlighted this issue one more time to our team.

We hope this time the developers take a closer look and figure out the root cause behind multi touch issues that are troubling a lot ZenFone Lite L1 users since long. Fingers crossed.

Wait, we aren’t done yet.

What about Android Pie?

A lot of ZenFone Lite L1 users have been curious and inquiring about when will their device get the next FOTA and Android 9.0 Pie. One such user recently took to the company’s official help forum saying:

Asus what is wrong with you. Forget the Pie , Its the month of May and Lite L1 is still running on February security patch. NO Bugs fixed till date and all you say is that we don’t have any official confirmation regarding next fota update. I need to know when will the next update be released and what bug fixes and system improvements will it have.

While reverting back to the user, the same forums moderator said, there’s no precise about information about Andoid Pie or the next FOTA.

As for now we do not have any official confirmation on the next FOTA release date and android P.

Here’s the moderator’s complete statement:

Sad, but that’s how it currently stands. In case you’ve been eyeing on the next FOTA or Pie, wait is all you can do. Rest assured, we are keeping a close watch on all developments related to the multi touch issue as well as updates on Lite L1 and will let you know as and when anything comes to our sight.

P.S. Those of you interested in more ASUS-related news and stories can head here.

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