At its “Zenvolution” media press conference at Computex Taiwan 2016, ASUS unleashed its new ZenFone line-up – ZenFone 3, ZenFone 3 Deluxe and ZenFone 3 Ultra. Following the highly successful and expansive ZenFone 2 family, the ZenFone 3 series comes packed with enormous power and new premium build.
ZenFone 3
First up, comes the base model ZenFone 3 which boasts a 5.5-inch Full HD display. The most glaring difference in the internal hardware is the absence of an Intel chip. This time round, the powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 takes to task, mated with up to 4GB of RAM and 64GB of onboard storage.
ASUS always touts its PixelMaster cameras on its smartphones, and the ZenFone 3 is not different. In comes a 16MP primary shooter, with an 8MP unit on the front.
A large 3,000mAh battery that charges up via USB Type-C keeps the device juiced all day.
The flagship device finally gets a fingerprint reader, mounted on the back.
ZenFone 3 Deluxe
Moving up a notch is the ZenFone 3 Deluxe. The bigger, more powerful sibling packs a 5.7-inch Full HD Super AMOLED display. It boasts a super powerful Snapdragon 820 processor with a whopping 6GB of RAM and 128GB of UFS 2.0 built-in storage. 6GB of RAM? Yes, much wow.
The ZenFone 3 Deluxe doesn’t skimp on the camera front either. IT gets a massive 23MP main shooter with PixelMaster 3.0 technology that’s claimed to take great low light shots (haven’t we heard that before?). It also boasts a new autofocus system called TriTech AF that combines laser autofocus, PDAF and continuous AF for snappy focusing speeds of only 0.03 seconds. Like the ZenFone Zoom, the camera is protected by Sapphire Crystal glass. It also has a 4-axis OIS and a 3-axis EIS.
Let’s hope the camera lives up to its specs. Will reserve my comment until a proper hands-on with it.
It’s pretty good-looking with an all metal body. It shows off a large 79% screen-to-body ratio and an ultra-thin 1.3mm bezel. That’s not all, it also has a thin 4.2mm profile at its thinnest edge.
Finally a flagship that looks and feels like one.
ZenFone 3 Ultra
Taking the phablet game to the extreme, the ZenFone 3 Ultra is ASUS’ answer to Lenovo’s PHAB Plus. It sports a similar-sized 6.8-inch Full HD display and also packs some fancy hardware. There’s a 23MP rear camera with TriTech autofocus (0.03s), massive 4,600mAH battery that supports Quick Charge 3.0 (and a Powerbank mode), Qualcomm 652 processor and a whopping 4GB of RAM. It also boasts the world’s first 4K TV-grade image processor.
Positioned as a media consumption device, it comes with dual-stereo speakers, Hi-Res Audio and DTS headphones.
Pricing and availability
The ZenFone 3 family are priced as below:
- ZenFone 3 – US$249/MYR1,024
- ZenFone 3 Deluxe – US$499/MYR2,052
- ZenFone 3 Ultra – US$479/MYR1,970
No word on local availability yet.
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