Asus Zenfone 3 Deluxe officially first Snapdragon 821 phone

Over at the Asus Taiwan and Hong Kong launch earlier today, the tech maker unveiled a bit of a surprise in the form of the world’s first Snapdragon 821 smartphone.

Asus already offered the Zenfone 3 Deluxe with a solid specification, but today unveiled the phone with an upgrade from Snapdragon 820 to Snapdragon 821. The updated chip runs at 2.4Ghz in the Zenfone 3 and benefits from 6GB RAM, faster Adreno 530 GPU, dual SIM support and a whopping 256GB memory.

Gizchina News of the week

Join GizChina on Telegram

While the Deluxe get’s the chipset upgrade, Asus will still be offering the Snapdragon 820 in more affordable versions of the Zenfone 3 which includes a 4GB RAM model with 32GB storage of a 6GB version with 64GB memory (all three phones also get SD card support for 128GB SD cards).

Each Zenfone 3 also gets the same Corning Gorilla Glass 4 Super AMOLED display, NFC, 3000mAh battery, and 23 mega-pixel main camera with F2.0 aperture.

Disclaimer: We may be compensated by some of the companies whose products we talk about, but our articles and reviews are always our honest opinions. For more details, you can check out our editorial guidelines and learn about how we use affiliate links.

About the author
Andi

July 12, 2016
Savings commenced for purchasing this phone. Asus please price this well. Not more than $400 please.
This is my next phone. But battery life… Don’t know what to say about that yet. Reviews will tell us how good or bad the battery life will be. I hope for the best though.
- realjjj
  July 12, 2016
  This phione was announced at Computex, starts at 500$ with SD820, 4GB+32GB in Taiwan although at launch Asus claimed the 6GB+64GB version is 500$ – not the first time their pricing doesn’t match what they announce at launch.
  At this price,pretty much anything that comes with a decent screen is a better choice. 5.7 inch 1080p PenTile is not something you want in anything over 100$.
  - Ionut Johnny
    July 12, 2016
    That sucks but it wouldn’t make any difference because of the amoled screen?
    I would really wanted the zenfone 3 deluxe, 820 version, what do you think about the camera?
    Do you think there is something better out there or will be released soon, I don’t care about how much I pay but about camera and display.
    Thanks realjjj.
    - MattD
      July 12, 2016
      At that price, you can easily go for a phone from “majors” that dropped price online :-/
      - Muhammad Yasir
        July 14, 2016
    - realjjj
      July 12, 2016
      Don’t have any clue about the cam ,not sure anyone reviewed the device yet. The ZenFone 2 didn’t produce great results but that might have been the ISP not the camera module or Asus’s fault. We’ll have to wait and see.
      For the display let me quote AT from their OP3 review (5.5 inch 1080p AMOLED so a bit smaller than this 5.7 inch).http://www.anandtech.com/show/10411/the-oneplus-3-review/4
      “According to comments made by OnePlus, a 1080p display was chosen as it provides superior battery life, and because resolutions above 1080p are not useful outside of VR. I have to respectfully disagree with both points, especially because this is a PenTile AMOLED display. It has been well demonstrated that good battery life is achievable not just with 1440p AMOLED smartphones, but with 1440p LCD smartphones. While I do feel 1080p is a good resolution to choose for a 5.5″ RGB LCD panel, it is simply not adequate for a PenTile AMOLED display.
      When you consider the effective resolution of red and blue on the OnePlus 3, you’re really dealing with a display that is roughly equivalent to the iPhone 6s in chroma resolution, except on a 5.5″ display instead of a 4.7″ one. The resolution for green is equivalent to a 1080p display, and subpixel rendering is what allows you to make the claim that it’s still a 1080p display, but for everything except pure green your effective resolution is going to be lower. In addition to that, the uneven size and spacing of the subpixels, along with their
      diamond pattern, makes them less than optimal for rendering the latin alphabet which contains many vertical lines. This kind of screen door effect has long been noticed on PenTile displays, and for the most part the push for 1440p AMOLED panels has mitigated those complaints.
      On the OnePlus 3 it’s pretty obvious that text is rendered less
      clearly than the iPhone 6s, which has a pixel density of only 326ppi, well below that of flagship Android devices. With the OnePlus One and OnePlus 2 for comparison it’s completely obvious that the OnePlus 3 has a lower effective resolution, with text exhibiting distracting artifacts, and solid patterns that are red, blue, or white having a crosshatch pattern that simply isn’t visible on OnePlus’s older smartphones. I completely agreed with OnePlus’s choice of 1080p on their past smartphones, but saying that there’s no benefit to going higher on a PenTile AMOLED display is simply false, and there’s no getting around the fact that the OnePlus 3 has a lower effective resolution than its predecessors.”
      Ofc what is enough for you and how much $ is that worth, is entirely up to you.
      As for what you should get, i am not all that focused on camera perf so haven’t really spent time on learning how the few affordable SD820 based devices perform there.- LeEco, Xiaomi, ZUK, AXON, OP 3 and whatever else i forgot to mention. Xiaomi and LeEco should also have SD821 based phones soon.
      If you are reluctant to buy a China phone, there could be a Nexus soon and Google is getting better at camera quality while the pricing won’t be as great as China phones but has to be at least competitive with this Asus.

Assefa Hanson
July 12, 2016
- Ionut Johnny
  July 12, 2016
Michael Ogbonnaya
July 12, 2016
Savings commenced for purchasing this phone. Asus please price this well. Not more than $400 please.
This is my next phone. But battery life… Don’t know what to say about that yet. Reviews will tell us how good or bad the battery life will be. I hope for the best though.
- realjjj
  July 12, 2016
  This phione was announced at Computex, starts at 500$ with SD820, 4GB+32GB in Taiwan although at launch Asus claimed the 6GB+64GB version is 500$ – not the first time their pricing doesn’t match what they announce at launch, we’ll see how they price it elsewhere.
  At this price,pretty much anything that comes with a decent screen is a better choice. 5.7 inch 1080p PenTile is not something you want in anything over 100$ as the subpixel density is like a 720p and at 5.7 inch that would suck.
- Ionut Johnny
  July 12, 2016
  That sucks but it wouldn’t make any difference because of the amoled screen?
  I would really wanted the zenfone 3 deluxe, 820 version, what do you think about the camera?
  Do you think there is something better out there or will be released soon, I don’t care about how much I pay but about camera and display.
  Thanks realjjj.
- MattD
  July 12, 2016
  At that price, you can easily go for a phone from “majors” that dropped price online :-/
- realjjj
  July 13, 2016
  Don’t have any clue about the cam ,not sure anyone reviewed the device yet. The ZenFone 2 didn’t produce great results but that might have been the ISP not the camera module or Asus’s fault. We’ll have to wait and see. Asus is capable of learning so chances are this one is better.
  For the display let me quote AT from their OP3 review (5.5 inch 1080p AMOLED so a bit smaller than this 5.7 inch).http://www.anandtech.com/show/10411/the-oneplus-3-review/4
  “According to comments made by OnePlus, a 1080p display was chosen as it provides superior battery life, and because resolutions above 1080p are not useful outside of VR. I have to respectfully disagree with both points, especially because this is a PenTile AMOLED display. It has been well demonstrated that good battery life is achievable not just with 1440p AMOLED smartphones, but with 1440p LCD smartphones. While I do feel 1080p is a good resolution to choose for a 5.5″ RGB LCD panel, it is simply not adequate for a PenTile AMOLED display.
  When you consider the effective resolution of red and blue on the OnePlus 3, you’re really dealing with a display that is roughly equivalent to the iPhone 6s in chroma resolution, except on a 5.5″ display instead of a 4.7″ one. The resolution for green is equivalent to a 1080p display, and subpixel rendering is what allows you to make the claim that it’s still a 1080p display, but for everything except pure green your effective resolution is going to be lower. In addition to that, the uneven size and spacing of the subpixels, along with their
  diamond pattern, makes them less than optimal for rendering the latin alphabet which contains many vertical lines. This kind of screen door effect has long been noticed on PenTile displays, and for the most part the push for 1440p AMOLED panels has mitigated those complaints.
  On the OnePlus 3 it’s pretty obvious that text is rendered less
  clearly than the iPhone 6s, which has a pixel density of only 326ppi, well below that of flagship Android devices. With the OnePlus One and OnePlus 2 for comparison it’s completely obvious that the OnePlus 3 has a lower effective resolution, with text exhibiting distracting artifacts, and solid patterns that are red, blue, or white having a crosshatch pattern that simply isn’t visible on OnePlus’s older smartphones. I completely agreed with OnePlus’s choice of 1080p on their past smartphones, but saying that there’s no benefit to going higher on a PenTile AMOLED display is simply false, and there’s no getting around the fact that the OnePlus 3 has a lower effective resolution than its predecessors.”
  Ofc what is enough for you and how much $ is that worth, is entirely up to you.
  As for what you should get, i am not all that focused on camera perf so haven’t really spent time on learning how the few affordable SD820 based devices perform there.- LeEco, Xiaomi, ZUK, AXON, OP 3 and whatever else i forgot to mention. Xiaomi and LeEco should also have SD821 based phones soon.
  If you are reluctant to buy a China phone, there could be a Nexus soon and Google is getting better at camera quality while the pricing won’t be as great as China phones but has to be at least competitive with this Asus.
  Ofc if money is no object the Samsung Note 7 could be interesting. There were rumors that they’ll use 1440p RGB OLED and that would be great.Ofc they also have great cams and there might be some other interesting bits but it won’t be cheap .
  You won’t find many China phones here but if you care about camera perf it’s a good resource to have (just in case you didn’t already knew the site)
- Guest
  July 14, 2016
Assefa Hanson
July 12, 2016
- Ionut Johnny
  July 12, 2016

Ondra Cutak
July 13, 2016
Instead of unveiling phones and then updating its specc they should release it already. Its already almost 2 months after they unveiled it at computex. Everyone should be like Samsung/OnePlus .. unveil the phone and start selling it right away. This is so stupid. Samsung had Snap 820 phone @April why its taking so long for others to release this chipset?
- balcobomber25
  July 13, 2016
  Samsung Mobile is 10x the size of Asus Mobile. They have buying and production power other companies could only dream of.
  - Ondra Cutak
    July 13, 2016
    Yea you are right but the thing is that why they are “launching” such device when they arent able to push it to the market in 2 months? Its just stupid and as you can see device wasnt even finished when they changed the specs yesterday.
    - balcobomber25
      July 13, 2016
      - Ondra Cutak
        July 14, 2016
        In my opinion its just crap marketing. You are luring people for something that you dont even have in hands for sell. Everyone could do that. I was waiting for Zenfone 3 Deluxe for so long that I bough OPO3 if they said that they will release the phone I dont know lets say 1.8.2016 I would wait but unveling something and not telling release date and let customer wait is just stupid.
        
        balcobomber25
        July 14, 2016
        A lot of factors go into a hard release date such as component availability/price, production costs, marketing (some like to have a build up period), operational costs, patent disputes, certifications etc etc etc. It’s not always easy to say we will release the phone on X date.
        Ondra Cutak
        July 14, 2016
        Component availability isnt the thing in this case and other things that you mentioned Asus isnt the smallest one on the market if you check other mobile phone manufacturers.. also there are so many Snap 820 phones that you cant even count .. S7/OPO3/Max2/Z2/Mi5/Axon7/M10.. Im 100% sure that Samsung will release Note 7 before Asus his Zenfail 3. I completely lost hope in that brand.. my previous phone was Zenfone 2 and there isnt update to Android 6 yet with so many bugs. I wanted to give it a shot trying one last time with Zenfone 3 but bah they failed again with the release. Maybe its not easy to say we will release this on X date but its still better to not show the prototype on Computex and do reveal show right before actual release date. Not even talking about global release date for my county (Czech republic) that will happen at the end of 2016 according to ASUS CZ facebook maybe Samsung will release S8 faster.
        balcobomber25
        July 14, 2016
        You know component availability isn’t the case or you are assuming it based on other phone releases? Unless you have hard facts that say it isn’t you don’t know and neither do I. Just because X company released a SD820 phone it doesn’t mean Y company can also release one just as fast. Samsung will buy 100X as many components as Asus or any other company will. Samsung also uses a lot of components produced by Samsung in Samsung factories (displays, memory, ssd, even screws). Even the SD820 itself was produced in a Samsung factory. They have buying and production power that is unmatched in this industry. They are one of the only manufacturers in the world that doesn’t use an OEM to produce their phones, Asus uses Foxconn (so does Sony, Xiaomi, Apple and several others). They can do everything on their own schedule with little from outside of the Samsung brand to affect that schedule.
        I am not defending Asus in any way I just have a lot of experience of the inner workings of the smartphone industry both as a consumer and work. It’s not as simple to release a phone as some people think. For some phones it can take months to get approved by all the regulatory agencies for each country they release in. The phone could be 100% finished but for various reasons they can’t get the certification to sell it. Some phones are engaging in ongoing patent disputes or they filed a request to use a patent from another company and are waiting for that to be approved. There’s hundreds of factors that can affect a phones availability that the public never knows about. A lot of smaller brands will announce their phone at a trade show and launch it months later. It’s not right but it is done by a lot more than just Asus.

Ondra Cutak
July 13, 2016
Instead of unveiling phones and then updating its specc they should release it already. Its already almost 2 months after they unveiled it at computex. Everyone should be like Samsung/OnePlus .. unveil the phone and start selling it right away. This is so stupid. Samsung had Snap 820 phone @April why its taking so long for others to release this chipset?
- balcobomber25
  July 13, 2016
  Samsung Mobile is 10x the size of Asus Mobile. They have buying and production power other companies could only dream of.
- Ondra Cutak
  July 13, 2016
  Yea you are right but the thing is that why they are “launching” such device when they arent able to push it to the market in 2 months? Its just stupid and as you can see device wasnt even finished when they changed the specs yesterday.
- balcobomber25
  July 13, 2016
  A lot of companies do it this way. They usually announce a product at one of the big trade shows like CES or MWC and then launch it a few months later. As for Asus they didn’t change the specs they originally announced those are still available, they just added a more powerful version with more storage space.
- Ondra Cutak
  July 14, 2016
  In my opinion its just crap marketing. You are luring people for something that you dont even have in hands for sell. Everyone could do that. I was waiting for Zenfone 3 Deluxe for so long that I bough OPO3 if they said that they will release the phone I dont know lets say 1.8.2016 I would wait but unveling something and not telling release date and let customer wait is just stupid.
- balcobomber25
  July 14, 2016
  A lot of factors go into a hard release date such as component availability/price, production costs, marketing (some like to have a build up period), operational costs, patent disputes, certifications etc etc etc. It’s not always easy to say we will release the phone on X date.
- Ondra Cutak
  July 14, 2016
  Component availability isnt the thing in this case and other things that you mentioned Asus isnt the smallest one on the market if you check other mobile phone manufacturers.. also there are so many Snap 820 phones that you cant even count .. S7/OPO3/Max2/Z2/Mi5/Axon7/M10.. Im 100% sure that Samsung will release Note 7 before Asus his Zenfail 3. I completely lost hope in that brand.. my previous phone was Zenfone 2 and there isnt update to Android 6 yet with so many bugs. I wanted to give it a shot trying one last time with Zenfone 3 but bah they failed again with the release. Maybe its not easy to say we will release this on X date but its still better to not show the prototype on Computex and do reveal show right before actual release date. Not even talking about global release date for my county (Czech republic) that will happen at the end of 2016 according to ASUS CZ facebook maybe Samsung will release S8 faster.
- balcobomber25
  July 14, 2016
  You know component availability isn’t the case or you are assuming it based on other phone releases? Unless you have hard facts that say it isn’t you don’t know and neither do I. Just because X company released a SD820 phone it doesn’t mean Y company can also release one just as fast. Samsung will buy 100X as many components as Asus or any other company will. Samsung also uses a lot of components produced by Samsung in Samsung factories (displays, memory, ssd, even screws). Even the SD820 itself was produced in a Samsung factory. They have buying and production power that is unmatched in this industry. They are one of the only manufacturers in the world that doesn’t use an OEM to produce their phones, Asus uses Foxconn (so does Sony, Xiaomi, Apple and several others). They can do everything on their own schedule with little from outside of the Samsung brand to affect that schedule.
  I am not defending Asus in any way I just have a lot of experience of the inner workings of the smartphone industry both as a consumer and work. It’s not as simple to release a phone as some people think. For some phones it can take months to get approved by all the regulatory agencies for each country they release in. The phone could be 100% finished but for various reasons they can’t get the certification to sell it. Some phones are engaging in ongoing patent disputes or they filed a request to use a patent from another company and are waiting for that to be approved. There’s hundreds of factors that can affect a phones availability that the public never knows about. A lot of smaller brands will announce their phone at a trade show and launch it months later. It’s not right but it is done by a lot more than just Asus.

fido futte
July 13, 2016
They ofcause first announce to see if they should start produce it – no need to produce if nobuddy want to buy it – that should be obvius for evrybody
NextHype
July 13, 2016
The only viable question at this point is : will it go over 150k in AnTuTu v6 ? xD
- balcobomber25
  July 13, 2016
fido futte
July 13, 2016
They ofcause first announce to see if they should start produce it – no need to produce if nobuddy want to buy it – that should be obvius for evrybody
NextHype
July 13, 2016
The only viable question at this point is : will it go over 150k in AnTuTu v6 ? xD
- balcobomber25
  July 13, 2016
Muhammad Yasir
July 14, 2016

Gizchina News of the week

Andi

Today in Home