LAS VEGAS—The new Asus Zenfone Max Plus M1 is built in the newly mainstream 18:9 form factor, and its dual cameras are something you don't generally see on a phone under $250, making it one of the most compelling phones we've seen here at CES so far.

The Zenfone Max M1's metal chassis is part of what makes it look so good for a $229 device. It sports a 2,160-by-1,080, tall-and-narrow 5.7-inch display, and feels cool and metallic in the hand. Eyeing it, I thought it looked a little grainy, but that could just be the wallpaper selections.

At this price point, you're not going to get a flagship processor; the Max M1 runs a Mediatek chip with LTE Cat 6 and Android 7.0. But it's surprisingly full featured; it has 3GB RAM, a huge 4150mAh battery, a fingerprint scanner on the back, and face unlock technology. The unit we checked out had 4GB of RAM, but that's not the first time we've seen an Asus phone on a show floor that wasn't quite the retail model.

Also, I love the dual rear cameras. The front camera is 16 megapixels, and on the back, there's a 16-megapixel main camera and an 8-megapixel wide-angle camera. You'd typically have to pay $100 more to get this particular kind of dual-camera setup.

I don't have all that much to say about the hands-on experience with this phone, except that it felt more premium than it is thanks to the metal body, the dual cameras, and the form factor. We'll see when we get it into our labs whether the CPU drags things down, although I suspect it won't as long as you're not running heavy games.

The phone will be available next month, and it will be compatible with AT&T and T-Mobile.