Eyeing for a smartphone that can keep up your lifestyle either you belong to the young crowd or young at heart? The good thing with ASUS or any smartphone brand in general, they build smartphones with user’s “needs” in mind, thus, ASUZ ZenFone Live L1 is an output with their research and development. In its category, Zenfone Live L1 sports a bigger screen, longer battery life, hands free security access, 13MP Camera and a triple-slot sim-memory tray supporting up to 2TB microSD.


Powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 425 Mobile platform, ZenFone 5 is responsive at user’s demand and expected graphics rendering. Priced at 5,995 Pesos for the 2GB/16GB variant and 4,995 Pesos for the Android Go variant 1GB/16GB.

5.5 Inches Full View 18:9 Display in 5 Inches Body
A bigger and brighter 5.5 inches full view 18:9 display almost ditching the bezel frame allowing more screen size. Aside from being lightweight, it provides better gripping. Eyes off from your TV or laptop as the 18:9 display provides wider, cleared and brighter movie viewing experience on the go.



13MP Rear Camera
Up to F2.0 wide aperture and phase-detection autofocus gives the users the full control to capture what’s attracts the eyes into an image saved to Live L1. Multiple Camera modes and filters such as Beauty, Panorama and Time Lapse modes enable new perspective in your daily imaging consumption.



ASUS ZenFone Live L1 Camera Portrait Mode: Sample Straight out of Camera shots


In portrait mode, you are adding depth to how your subject appear on the photo against the other essential characters in the frame. To compare with more higher category ASUS portrait mode features, ASUS ZenFone Live L1 doesn't have user adjustment on the deepness of the subject. I'm talking about ASUS Zenfone 5 where there's setting of how the user wants the deepness should render in the photo. Check this ASUS Zenfone review for more details.



One Tray Stowing three modules hardware feature
Well this hardware design is somewhat efficient and clean, where you seat your external memory (up to 2TB microSD) and two Sims into one spacious tray for a clean hardware topography but this just means when you want to try to eject your external memory, it also means downtime for your SIMs since all of them will be unseated from the phone. But I think this drawback is something that everyone can live with.



ZenUI 5 Intelligent Feature
What leads from these group of features is Face detect or Unlock. What more gives convenience when you can unlock your phone or launch a feature hands free. Zenfone Live L1 lets you unlock your device quickly, safely with great resources up to hundred millions of face images for recognition correctness. Also applicable to unlock App and launch them when correct face is validated.

Final Say, ASUS ZenFone Live L1 is available in the following variants:

• ZenFone Live L1 in 2GB/16GB priced at 5,995 Pesos
• ZenFone Live L1 Android Go in 1GB/16GB priced at 4,995 Pesos

The 2019 Hair and Nails Fashion Show CEBU Edition is set on April 24, 2019 at Bai Hotel Cebu organized for everyone who appreciates beauty and artistry. It's a Wednesday of beauty and talent with beauty brands such as  Blue Sky Nail Polish products and in cooperation with HMB trading and Magic Keratin Plus. Salon Owners, Hair Stylist and Nail Experts can  take advantage of this one-of-a-kind event that's happening at the Queen City of the South.


Catch also Beauty and Style advocate Fanny Serrano to grace the Hair and Nails Fashion Show. For the attendees, there will be workshops and training related to Hair and Nails where certificates are at stake. Contact Pinky Colina at 0922-837-5282 or 0908 652 5768 for inquiries. See you!

2019 Hair and Nails Fashion Show CEBU Edition posted at Cebu Events Blog

Massage is Not just a Luxury, its' a way to a healthier and happier Life. Getting a massage is now very accessible by anyone. The massage and spa tourism also makes way in great improvement as things around us becomes more complicated and techy. One who advocates and continue to create great experience in the massage and spa landscape is Cheeva Spa Massage and Nail Arts.


Cheeva Spa Massage and Nail Art is located at F, Cabahug Street corner Pres Quezon Street, Mabolo, Cebu City. The location is very accessible from any direction although at rush hours may tend to get occupied but near to Cebu City business parks.


Cheeva Spa offers several options for your personal massage preference. You can choose among their packages which differs on time spent pampering your body and/or foot. Some of the variety are Aromatherapy Oil Massage where you may select from Jasmine, Coconut, Rose, Lavender and Hilot oil menu.


More Body and Foot Massages variety from Cheeva Spa includes a Hot Stone Massage, Herbal Compress Massage, Foot Reflex Massage, Foot Scrub and Face Relaxation. Herbal Compress is a technique carrying potential health benefits, some of them are deep relaxation, relieves stress and fatigue, improves blood circulation and stimulates internal organs.


Hot stone massage is also another technique offered in Cheeva Spa that takes advantage of heated stones. These warm stones will be pressed against on specific body locations allowing deeper pressure as the therapist proceed with the massage sequence.


Cheeva Spa Packages also  includes a VIP Private Room ideal for couples where you'll have your own comfort room and shower room in your massage rooms. Packages fitted for couples include Full Spirit, Body & Soul and Blooming Life, the difference of the three are the different combinations of techniques and packages combined.


For reservations, you can call Cheeva Spa Massage at 032 517 5421.


Cheeva Spa Massage and Nail Art is also home to quality and trendy Nail Arts and Nail Spa with services includes UV Gel Colour, UV Gel Nail Art, Extension Nail, Manicure/Pedicure with soak off Gel Colour and Nail Cleaning.

Cheeva Spa Massage and Nail Arts Cebu posted at Cebu Events Blog

The aggressive and demanding nature of the mid-range market paved the way to the birth of intelligent and reasonably-priced Smartphones such as ASUS Zenfone 5. Our final say for this Phone is, highly recommended to those who loves balanced between price point and features. It meets the thin line for mobile gaming and mobile photography at its price range. One thing I'll note is, generally mobile photography has limitations so don't expect that it will get par with other camera that are built for photography. For example, the mirror less or hybrid cameras, or better versions DSLRs. But at its kind and range, ASUS Zenfone 5 easily stands out from the pack with its curated features and capabilities.

Now that we conclude our test with Zenfone 5, we will give some samples and works taken using this great mid-range Smartphone ASUS Zenfone 5 built-in features. We will ran down some of the camera features tested in our limited time and real-world samples with SOOC quality and minimal-to-no-editing output.

Dual Lens System Real-Time Portrait feature renders a bokeh effect. Straight our of Camera (SOOC) shot

The Bokeh Effect
The bokeh effect is a technique in photography to emphasize your subject with controlled amount of depth of field in the background or foreground achievable with special glasses or lens. With The ZenFone 5 you can achieve this pro-looking photo enhanced with a blurred background effect in real time. It uses both rear lenses simultaneously to add even more precise depth perception to make subjects stand out even more. Real-time Portrait is utilizes the advanced AI algorithm to calculate the outline of subjects accurately to make portraits appear more natural. The AI technology can also detect depth information, and lets users choose between six layers of background blurring intensity and gradient blur effect. What we like with ASUS Zenfone 5 "Bokeh" feature is the dynamic option for the depth of field settings, the user can actually dictate the depth value according to the output the user wants.

In the sample Portrait shot above, taken in Parisian Macao and in the background is the Eiffel Tower replica, you are capturing a different perspective of your travel or outdoor photos, here the bokeh effect send a soft impression at the background but still you can recognize that it's the tower at the background of your subject. The foreground which is the subject is a underexposed but can be process a little bit to correct the exposure.

Time Lapse Shooting
We are able to test the the Time Lapse Camera feature of ASUS Zenfone 5 and it is one of the features that we like most. Aside from the light file size that it has compared to taking full video, you are also creating content on a different perspective for your friends to appreciate. In this mode, the phone automatically shoots frames at preset intervals which are then compiled into a stop-motion-like video. Here's a time lapse video sample taken with ASUS Zenfone 5 in Macau. The location is in Taipa Food Street and the weather is gloomy-to-scattered rain showers. I setup the camera attached to a tripod in front of a souvenir shop in Taipa and started capturing using Time Lapse in-camera feature of Zenfone 5 to the passing crowd and the pouring rain. We were not disappointed with the output and appreciated the convenience this feature has to offer. See the Time Lapse sample below, exported through InShot Android video editor. This video sample is also posted at our YouTube channel.



Capturing in time lapse mode could be battery draining, but not with Zenfone 5 since it has the ability to shoot extended time-lapse videos in a power saving mode. This mode saves power by lowering the screen brightness and putting the phone into plane mode where its radios are switched off, allowing the shooting of longer time lapse videos. See other example bellow:



In this sample, it captures the motion of the people crossing the street, the vehicles passing, the wind that moves everything and the gloomy weather on that day. Although the whole Eiffel Tower in Parisian Macao was not capture in whole but still its beauty shown in the stop-motion video.

Other Camera Features
If we've got more time to test the remaining Camera features of Zenfone 5, we could have pick the following shooting modes and present some results or samples here. Anyway, I'll just run them down here for discussion.

Gif Animation Mode
ASUS Zenfone 5 Camera allows users to create a .gif format animation instantly and in less complicated process. Gif format is the early version of motion graphics commonly used on the web. Gif images are simple animations composed of a repeating loop of sequential images. They are super easy and fun to create using the Gif Animation Mode available with Zenfone 5. Simply shoot your subject in this mode and the camera will compile the photo sequence as an animated gif image. It also allows you to modify the speed or even play direction of the animation before saving.

Panorama Mode
This camera feature is somewhat available with most of the smartphones. This is the perfect mode for extremely wide landscapes, Panorama allows users to pan the camera from one side of landscape to another while the camera automatically captures the separate frames and stitches them together to for a wide panoramic photo.

Pro Mode
I seldom use this mode in my entire Zenfone 5 tests maybe it's because of the advance AI feature of this phone where it knows right away in Auto Mode the perfect setting for each scenes that I am trying to capture. Although a scene can be interpreted in many ways, and the phones’ auto or preset modes may not always render the photo you want, thus a comprehensive set of manual controls under its Pro Mode that works with the main rear camera. See below the controls you can manually set at Pro Mode:



Slow Motion
This is one of the camera features that I really wanna try but I just didn't have the perfect scene to use this one. The perfect scenes that could have been captured with this feature is during Food event, Portrait, active/sports scenes or depends on your desired output. ASUS Zenfone 5 let you shoots videos in extremely high frame rate at 120FPS or 60FPS at full HD resolution (1920 X 1080) / 1080P for clear slow motion playback.

To read the Introductory review of the ASUS Zenfone 5 as it used in Food Photography and how its AI capability helped in performing these features seamlessly and smartly, follow this link: Testing ASUS Zenfone 5 Camera AI capabilities in Food Photography

Intelligent Phone ASUS Zenfone 5: Final Say posted at Cebu Events Blog

Beginning March 12, Starbucks customers who purchase either of the NEW Springtime Favourites, Azuki Blossom Cream Frappuccino or Matcha Azuki Blossom Cream Frappuccino can experience Cherry Blossom at their favourite Starbucks stores. You just simply need to scan the QR code that can be found in each cup. After scanning the QR code, you will need to locate the banner with the Cherry Blossom to trigger the Augmented Reality (AR) experience. Upon scanning, you can take selfies under Cherry Trees of falling cherry blossoms. Join in on the Cherry Blossom craze and visit Starbucks to witness spring in full bloom!

Starbucks embraces the changing of the seasons with new Springtime favorites inspired by Cherry Blossom. In Japan, the blooming of cherry blossoms is one of the most anticipated times of the year as it marks the coming of Spring – a time of new beginnings. The breath-taking sight of cherry trees tinted with the pale pink haze symbolizes beauty, life, and renewal.

The Azuki Blossom Cream Frappuccino is as dreamy as a Spring day in Japan with its velvety milk and sweet red bean base, topped with whipped cream, falling petals of white and pink rice blossom petals, and tart dried cranberry bits. A green tea variation, the Matcha Azuki Blossom Cream Frappuccino is also offered which blends the bright flavors of Matcha and sweet red bean. This cherry blossom treat is also sprinkled with pink and white rice petals and cranberry bits on top of whipped cream and red beans.

Starbucks Spring Season Blend is also available for those who want to bring spring’s unique flavors into their cup of coffee at home, it combines four distinct coffees from around the world to deliver a big syrupy body with dark cherry and cedary spice flavors.

Stunning Sakura-themed merchandise is also ripe for the picking in Starbucks stores. With a dainty palette of pink, purple, and gold, the collection depicts two kinds of cherry blossoms, inspired by traditional hand drawings and oil paintings that captures its beauty.


The double-walled mugs with rubber lids in Blossom Pink and in Blossom Gray with Sakura motifs, tumblers like the clear Cold Cup designed with a sprinkling confetti blossom and complemented with a lid and straw, and even adorable Bearista Bear Keychains in pastel pink are also part of the collection.

The 2019 Sakura Card will complete the collection, designed to show the delicateness of the Cherry Blossom’s pale pink petals. The card is available for an initial activation amount of 300 pesos per card. Visit the Starbucks Philippines Facebook Page for more details.

Experience Cherry Blossom at Starbucks posted at Cebu Events Blog