It is rare, even at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) for a manufacturer to show off seven different devices, yet that is exactly what ASUS did yesterday. They showcased the ASUS PadFone Mini and PadFone X as they makes their way to America, the dual booting Transformer Book Duet laptop/tablet hybrid, a multipanel gaming monitor, and three different phones as part of their new Zenfone line of devices. Three phones with similar names launching at the same time? That might be slightly confusing to casual consumers but business practice aside, how do the Zenfones stack up?
ASUS has not released all the specs for the phones as of press time, but here is what we know so far:
The cheapest of the three models is the Zenfone 4. It, as the name suggests, has a 4 inch screen of yet unknown resolution, a 1.2Ghz Intel Atom Z2520 CPU, a slim design, a 5MP back facing camera and a front facing camera of unknown quality. The Zenfone 4 comes in five different colors and costs $99.
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The middle sibling of the Zenfone family is the Zenfone 5. It features a 5 inch 1280×720 HD screen with increased sensitivity for ASUS’s PenTouch and GloveTouch technologies. The dual core Intel Atom Z2580 2Ghz CPU, an 8MP front facing camera that utilizes ASUS’s new Pixelmaster technology that promises up to 400% brighter photos and videos in low light conditions and a 2MP front facing camera, comes in four colors and costs a mere $149.
Finally, we have the Zenfone 6. It sports a 6 inch HD screen of unknown resolution, the same Intel Atom Z2580 CPU as the Zenfone 5, a 13MP front camera utilizing the same PixelMaster technology as the Zenfone 5 and also has a 2MP front facing camera, and the GloveTouch and PenTouch technologies. The Zenfone 6 also includes ASUS virtual surround sound technology, comes in four colors and costs $199.
So now that you got a look at them, what do you think of the ASUS’s new line of budget friendly phones?
the 4″ has a 840×480 resolution i think i read on engadget. No info about how much ram or storage these phones have yet or whether they have micro sd card slots. The prices are good though 🙂
Let’s see the Chinese counter attack! 😉
This prices are becoming good, market is gonna get REALLY hot this year!
Taiwanese you mean? Sorry… it’s the same country isn’t it 🙂
Should I say mainlanders counter attack? 😛
Of course… it’s the same country! 😉
So the Zenfone 5 has 2 frontcamera’s?
Atom Z2580, 8MP…. 1GB RAM (?) and costs a mere $149. That is cheap and I’m sure it can easily score 20K + antutu like 2GB RAM K900 & ZTE V975.
Main problem would be app incompatibility though, Intel’s Atom uses x86-64 architecture, but most apps are written only for ARM instruction sets. Now this is just what I’ve read, so I may be wrong, but since phones running on MIPS-based CPUs also face these problems, I think the Atom will have the same hard time. Will have to see if developers start to support the Atom as Intel itself is currently developing an ARM SoC..
the k900 did suffer some app compatibility problems
Yes and ZTE V975 as well, “some incompatibility”… as with any other chip, try. I mean do you really want to run/try the whole play store in your mobile?
According to a review by Andrew Williams this mobile has the following parameters:
11.2mm slim, 4 inch screen, resolution 800 x 480 pixel (a bit old timer), Intel Atom chip, a dual-core 1.2GHz Z2520, 4GB of internal memory with microSD slot, no NFC.
I’d like to see a hands on video.
The design looks really good. You mention that Zenfone 5 has 8MP front camera. Is it correct? If so, what is the primary camera?