Asus today at the MWC 2018 in Barcelona announced the ASUS Zenfone 5 series alongside the Asus Zenfone Max (M1), a watered-down version of its all-day lasting Asus Zenfone Max plus (M1). The Asus Zenfone Max (M1) bears some similarities with the Asus Zenfone Max plus (M1) which was first announced back in 2018, but with some glaring differences.
First off, Asus has ditched the MediaTek MT6750T in favor of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 425 or the Snapdragon 430 SoC depending on the variant you are going for. The display and the primary rear camera have also been trimmed down to a 5.5-inch and 13MP compared to the 5.7-inch display and 16MP on the ZenFone Max Plus (M1). While the plus-sized variant runs on Android 7 out of the box, the ZenFone Max (M1) get the latest Android 8.0 Oreo with ZenUI 5.0 on top and has it battery capacity trimmed down to 4000mAh.
The device flaunts a 5.5-inch 1,440×720 18:9 IPS display with up to 400 nits of brightness, reduced bezels and up to 83% screen-to-body ratio.
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Under the hood, you have the Snapdragon 425 or the Snapdragon 430, and unlike the Zenfone Max plus, the Asus Zenfone Max is available only in 3GB RAM and 2GB of storage option, but there are speculations that some markets may get lower-end options.
For photographic purposes, the Asus ZenFone Max (M1) gets a dual-rear camera setup comprising of a 13-megapixel primary sensor coupled with a f/2.0 aperture, dual-LED flash, and PDAF with an 8-megapixel secondary sensor with a 120-degree wide-angle lens, while similar 8-megapixel sensor with a f/2.2 aperture sits above the display, but may vary with markets.
The device has a rear fingerprint sensor, face unlock feature, full set of connectivity options including 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n (dual-band, 2.4GHz and 5GHz), Bluetooth v4.0, GPS/ A-GPS, Micro-USB, a 3.5mm headphone jack and will hit the shelves later in Deepsea Black, Sunlight Gold, and Ruby Red colour options. Asus is yet to detail us on pricing and availability.