ASUS launched the Zenfone 4 Series a couple of months ago and has even added some other phones outside the Zenfone 4 Series. However, all these phones come with Android Nougat out of the box. ASUS already announced that the Zenfone 4 and Zenfone 3 series will get Android Oreo in 2018, and knowing ASUS, it may as well be mid-year before it arrives.

While we wait, screenshots of a Zenfone 3 running Android Oreo has surfaced, providing an early look for us. We can’t explicitly say if there are changes in the UI since most of the features ASUS announced for ZenUI 4.0 are not visual.

READ MORE: ASUS Pegasus 4S Arrives with 18:9 Display, Massive Battery

Some of the Android Oreo features that we also expected to see are not shown in the screenshot such as picture-in-picture mode. We also do not know if ASUS will implement Project Treble. Nevertheless, owners of the Zenfone 3 will be happy to see their device running the latest version of Android.

(Source, Via)

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People usually associate the brand Asus with computers or related accessories but the company has already proven that it is capable of producing some top quality phones. The Zenfone 3 is one of their latest models and it costs about $370. Is it worth the price? Learn more if this phone is any good in the full review.

Thanks to Gearbest for sending the Asus Zenfone 3 for a review.

Asus Zenfone 3 Review: VIDEO REVIEW

Asus Zenfone 3 Review: UNBOXING

The phone ships with all the usual stuff and some extras include a pair of earphones.

Asus Zenfone 3 Review: DESIGN and DISPLAY

The Zenfone 3 is a nice looking phone and it uses some premium materials like Gorilla Glass on the front and rear and a metal chassis.

Obviously, using glass has its tradeoffs as the phone is a huge fingerprint magnet.

However, the buttons are made of plastic and the hybrid dual SIM card tray rattles quite a bit.

On a positive note, the 5.5” 1080p display is just beautiful to look at. It is sharp, vibrant and bright both for indoor and outdoor use.

It’s great that we have an 8MP camera and the notification LED light but I don’t understand why Asus thinks that implementing the non-backlit capacitive buttons is okay. Also, I always love the back button on the right side.

The Zenfone 3 has a pretty powerful camera setup that includes a high-end 16MP Sony IMX298 sensor, 4-axis OIS, 6-axis EIS, hybrid laser/phase/contrast detection autofocus system and dual tone dual-LED flash. The fingerprint scanner is one of the best. It’s fast, accurate and it allows you to unlock the phone straight from the standby mode.

As far as audio, I love the quality of sound via the headset jack. Also, the loudspeaker is great. The volume output is good and the sound is crisp, and balanced.

Asus Zenfone 3 Review: HARDWARE and PERFORMANCE, BATTERY LIFE

When it comes to hardware, the Zenfone 3 ships with the midrange-level Snapdragon 625 chip, 4GB of RAM and 64GB of expandable storage.

The sheers specs may suggest the midrange nature of the phone but the Zenfone 3 is an excellent performer when it comes to 3D gaming. There are no skipped frames or stutter and the phone stays absolutely cold to the touch even after 30 mins of gaming. That’s really impressive.

In addition, I just love the Snapdragon 625 chip due to its power efficiency. The phone ships with the 3000mAh battery, which does not look impressive on paper but I could constantly get over 5 hours of screen-on time with the max. auto-brightness, using the phone quite heavily and having installed a lot of apps and 4 Google accounts.

Finally, the phone supports the Quick Charge 3.0 feature but it ships with a regular charger, so it takes about 2 hours to fully charge the phone.

Asus Zenfone 3 Review: BENCHMARKS

Asus Zenfone 3 Review: USER INTERFACE

The user interface is what makes the Asus phones unique. The phone runs on the Android 6.0 but we have a heavily customized ZenUI skin on top of it. Honestly, I didn’t like it at first but it started growing on me after 2 weeks of using this phone.

There are so many features, customization options and some little tweaks to make the phone look your own. Just to name a few, you can choose from a huge collection of themes, select from different icons packs and so on. Also, you can use some gesture and motion controls that work well. I’m not sure if you are going to use all the customization options since there are many more features to choose from.

Most importantly, the user interface performance is good on the daily basis. There is no stutter or lag despite all those extra features.

Asus Zenfone 3 Review: CAMERA

The camera app is a good example of how Asus looks into their smartphones. There are just so many shooting modes to choose from and I’m not really sure if an average user would use them all.

Firstly, you can tweak the image settings using the manual mode. Other modes that I found useful are super resolution mode that takes images at a whopping resolution of 66MP. Finally, I loved using the low-light and night modes.

Asus Zenfone 3 Review: IMAGE QUALITY

IT IS HIGHLY-RECOMMENDED TO DOWNLOAD FULL RESOLUTION CAMERA SAMPLES TO SEE THE ACTUAL IMAGE QUALITY. THE PICTURES UPLOADED ON THE WEBSITE ARE 50% SMALLER IN RESOLUTION.

When it comes to the actual image quality, the Asus Zenfone 3 can take some nice-looking photos that are pretty sharp, have a good amount of detail and accurate colors. Also, the white balance is usually spot on. My only complaint would be that some of the images look underexposed. Anyway, I tested the camera in the cloudy day.

As for low-light camera performance, it is actually very good. Sure, there is more noise but the camera takes some flagship-worthy night photos. The dedicated night mode will brighten up the image by lowering the shutter speed but the images usually turn out softer. The low-light mode takes 4MP images that have less noise but there is less detail too.

The selfie camera is usually good but the selfies I took came out slightly soft, so I may not have held my hand steadily.

The 4k video looks sharp and detailed, the color reproduction is accurate and the sound recording quality is decent. Also, the video stabilization works pretty well reducing the shakiness. A few complaints would be that there were a few noticeable video artefacts and the auto-exposure feature could work more gracefully.

Download full resolution camera samples

Asus Zenfone 3 Review: CONNECTIVITY

When it comes to connectivity, I have zero complaints. The signal reception and the call quality are great using either SIM card as the phone comes with a hybrid dual SIM card tray.

Also, the GPS is very accurate, Bluetooth 4.2 and dual-band Wifi work absolutely fine.

Asus Zenfone 3 Review: CONCLUSIONS

The Asus Zenfone 3 is quite an interesting phone since it has a midrange-level chipset but the flagship-grade real life performance.

Also, the phone has a nice and premium-looking design, excellent display, great audio quality and a very capable camera

Even though the Snapdragon 625 chip is not as powerful as the 820-series processors, there is plenty of power under the hood to handle anything you throw at it. Also, a great power management of this chip leads to a good battery life.

I love that the user interface performance is great too. However, you may love it or hate it since you may not really need all those extra features, so you may end up using a third-party launcher.

Some more serious complaints would be the non-backlit capacitive keys, the SIM card tray rattles quite a bit and finally, the phone is an enormous fingerprint magnet.

At the end of the day, I still love the Asus Zenfone 3 after using it for a couple of weeks but it is up to you to decide if the midrange-level chip and the previously mentioned shortcomings are important to you or not.

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The new Zenfone 3 was released way back in May and didn’t go on sale until last month in select markets. From the looks of it, it should be available in China soon as two variants have made it to TENAA for certifications.

One of the variants has 3GB RAM with 32GB of storage while the other has 4GB of RAM and doubles the storage to 64GB. Both units sport 5.5” Super IPS screens, 16MP rear cameras with 4-axis optical image stabilisation, laser focus, and PDAF; and an 8MP selfie shooter.

There is a snapdragon 625 processor under the hood clocked at 2.0GHz and an Adreno 506 GPU on board. Other features include dual SIM slots with one doubling as a SD card slot, a fingerprint scanner, USB Type-C, 3.5 mm audio jack, dual Wi-Fi bands, Bluetooth 4.2, Cat 6 LTE, and a 3000mAh battery.

ASUS has changed the design of the Zenfone 3. The volume rocker is no longer on the back like that of the Zenfone 2 but is now on the right beside the power button (which used to be at the top).

READ MORE: Analyst Says There Won’t Be A SD 652 Version of The Redmi Note 4

Another major change with the Zenfone 3 is the price. Last year’s Zenfone 2 was praised for it’s low price ($299 for the 4GB RAM/64GB version) but the Zenfone 3 starts at over $300 for the 3GB version.

The Zenfone 3 weighs 155 grams and will be available in White and Gold variants. Which is a bit sad as we loved the red variant of the Zenfone 2.

The post Two New ASUS Zenfone 3 Variants Visit TENAA appeared first on Gizmochina.

ASUS updated the popular ZenFone lineup back at Computex last month. There were three models in the new lineup, namely the ZenFone 3, ZenFone 3 Deluxe and ZenFone 3 Ultra, all targeted at different categories of users. Although these three models were announced back then, the company failed to give out a release schedule for these devices. But now, after a month, it looks like we may have a date, thanks to a Taiwanese retailer.

ePrice website has just revealed that the above three ZenFone models from ASUS will go on sale from July 12 in Taiwan. Unfortunately, we still don’t have an international release date, but we can be sure that the global release should be a few weeks after this date.

ASUS has already revealed the prices for these three handsets. The ZenFone 3 starts at $249, while the ZenFone 3 Deluxe and ZenFone 3 Ultra are much costlier, priced at $499 and $479 respectively. Metal lovers are definitely going to love the design on the three handsets as they are super slim and come with a solid metal body. The ZenFone 3 and the Deluxe models feature fingerprint sensor at the back while the Zenfone 3 Ultra comes with a sensor right up front, mainly because of its monstrous size.

RELATED: ASUS ZenFone 3 Deluxe may have a Snapdragon 821 variant.

To recap, the ZenFone 3 comes with Snapdragon 625 chip inside with 3GB / 4GB RAM and 32GB / 64GB storage options. The phone features a 5.5-inch 1080p display. On the other hand, the ZenFone 3 Ultra comes with a large 6.8-inch FHD display with Snapdragon 625 inside and 4GB + 64GB memory combination. Finally, the ZenFone 3 Deluxe comes with a 5.7-inch FHD display with Snapdragon 820 chip and 6GB + 64GB memory. You can read all about these three smartphones from our launch coverage here.

(source)

The post ASUS ZenFone 3, ZenFone 3 Deluxe & ZenFone 3 Ultra To Go On Sale From July appeared first on Gizmochina.

ASUS may not be as popular as Samsung or Apple, but the company has established a reputation among mid-range customers for offering pretty good value for the money you pay for its ZenFone smartphones. Now, ASUS has just unveiled three new smartphones in the ZenFone 3 series and the three devices are targeted at different customers based on the specs and features they want.

ZenFone 3 Deluxe

First up is the powerful ZenFone 3 Deluxe. The company claims this is the first all-metal smartphone with invisible antenna lines. So, no ugly black bars on the back panel, which means, the phone is great too look at. The ZenFone 3 Deluxe is really the pick of the three smartphones announced today, coming with cutting edge specs and beautiful metal design to please the top-end market.

The phone features a 5.7-inch 1080p AMOLED display with 100% NTSC color gamut. The company has kept the bezels to a bare minimum, increasing the screen to body ratio to an impressive 79 percent. Under the hood, you get none other than the powerful Snapdragon 820 quad-core chipset with Adreno 530 GPU. Further, the company is going to offer up to 6GB RAM inside this new model, which means performance will be top-notch. Further, for connectivity, you get the X12 LTE model, which means fast data speeds.

In the camera department as well, the ZenFone 3 Deluxe is no slouch. It comes with a powerful Sony IMX318 23MP rear sensor with f/2.0 aperture lens and 4-axis OIS. You also get 3-axis EIS on the device for steady 4K video recording. The company claims that the phone’s camera setup can focus in just 0.03 seconds, thanks to the presence of 2nd gen Laser Focus, contrast detect focus and PDAF. As for the other features, the ZenFone 3 Deluxe model comes with a rear placed fingerprint sensor, Quick Charge 3.0 supported battery, USB Type-C, His-Res Audio support and powerful five-magnet speakers.

This particular model is truly a powerhouse and can be yours for a competitive price tag of $499.

ZenFone 3 Ultra

If you are looking for something big, I mean really massive, look no further than the ZenFone 3 Ultra. The phone features a massive 6.8-inch 1080p display with ASUS-exclusive Tru2Life+ video technology that reportedly uses 4K UHD TV grade processor to deliver stellar video playback. The Ultra is basically a tablet with phone functions targeted at users who will primarily use this device for entertainment. It comes with 2 x five magnet stereo speakers and NXP smart amplifier. Other entertainment boosting features include Hi-Res audio support and virtual 7.1 Channel surround sound with DTS Headphone:X.

The ZenFone 3 Ultra continues the no antenna design with metal body as the Deluxe model. The screen to body ratio is 79 percent which will make the massive 6.8-inch display look amazing. At the back, you get the same 23MP setup as the Deluxe model. Inside, you have an octa-core Snapdragon 652 chip with Adreno 510 and 4GB of RAM. You also get a fingerprint sensor, but it is located up front, below the display. You get a large 4600mAh body with Quick Charge 3.0. You can also charge other devices using the Ultra’s inbuilt battery at 1.5V.

The ZenFone 3 Ultra is priced at $479.

ZenFone 3

Coming to the least powerful, budget-friendly, yet competitive ZenFone 3, it sports a 5.5-inch 1080p display with 77.3 percent screen to body ratio and 2.5D glass with gorilla glass protection. At the back, you get a slightly downgraded 16MP camera sensor, but rest of the features like Laser Focus, PDAF etc are the same as the other two models.

ZenFone 3 is also the first smartphone in the world to feature the new Snapdragon 625 chipset, which is the successor to the popular Snapdragon 617 chip. The highlight of this chip is that it is manufactured on a 14nm FinFet process, which is a first for a mid-range processor. This really shows that Qualcomm is trying to take things to a new level in the mid-range segment with this new chipset. You get 4GB of RAM on board as well as a rear placed fingerprint sensor.

Pricing is expected to be $249, which is great for a device with these specs. It would be a real tough competitor to the existing Moto G4 Plus handset.

Still no word on the availability of these three handsets.

The post ASUS Unveils Three New Smartphones, Including ZenFone 3 Deluxe With SD820 & 6GB RAM appeared first on Gizmochina.

ASUS will officially release the ASUS ZenFone 3 models today in Taiwan. Like the name suggest, this will be the third generation smartphone series from the company and will succeed the popular ZenFone 2 models. There are three models expected to be announced today, namely, the ZenFone 3, Zenfone 3 Deluxe and ZenFone 3 Max. And just before the launch, now, some specs of the three devices have been leaked, thanks to a new internal document revealed by a tipster on Twitter.

The ASUS ZenFone 3 model is said to come with the new Snapdragon 625 chipset (MSM8953) which Qualcomm had announced back in February this year. This will be the successor to the Snapdragon 617 ad 615 mid-range chipsets that powered many smartphones last year. While the new gen Snapdragon 625 chip continues the same octa-core Cortex A53 design as the previous generation, the company has increased the clock speed from 1.5GHz to 2GHz. Plus, the GPU is upgraded to Adreno 506, so there should be an increase in the overall chip performance. But what really is the highlight of the new 625 chip is that it is manufactured on Samsung/ GlobalFoundry’s 14nm FinFet process.

Moving on, there will reportedly be two versions of the ZenFone 3, one with a 5.5-inch 1080p display and other with a 5.2-inch 1080p panel. The former will have a 16MP rear sensor with OIS, Laser Focus , f/2.0 lens and 8MP front shooter while the latter comes with the same specs except for the Laser Focus. The battery on the larger model is of 3000mAh capacity while the smaller model comes with a 2650mAh capacity battery. Both phones have 3GB RAM inside.

The ZenFone 3 Ultra model comes with Snapdragon 652 octa-core processor with 4GB RAM, Cat. 6 LTE support, fingerprint ID, 4600mAh large battery and a surprisingly thin 6.8mm body. At the back, there will be a 23MP sensor with OIS and EIS.

RELATED: Zenfone 3 Model Spotted In A Real Life Image In China

There’s a Zenfone 3 Max model as well, which is said to come with a 6-inch FHD display, dual speakers, 13MP rear camera with OIS and Laser Focus, 8MP front shooter, and a fingerprint sensor.

Finally, coming to the ZenFone 3 Deluxe model, it will feature Snapdragon 820 chip with a 5.7-inch display, 6GB of RAM and a 23MP rear camera shooter.

We haven’t heard of the ZenFone 3 Ultra model before, but it could be announced alongside the three other variants. One thing to note here is that the source reveals this document is from February and could be outdated. So, we will have to wait for an official announcement to confirm the final specs.

Which one of these models do you think is the best?

(Source)

The post ASUS ZenFone 3 Specs & Renders Leaked, At least three new Models Launching Today appeared first on Gizmochina.

ASUS has already confirmed that it will launch its new ZenFone 3 smartphones at Computex, Taiwan starting May 30. The company seems to be launching three new smartphones in the series and we already have the three possible names for the same — ZenFone 3, ZenFone 3 Deluxe and ZenFone 3 Max. The company has already kind of confirmed the launch of the three handsets with its teaser video released a couple of days back. Now, it looks like one of these ZenFone models has been spotted in the wild in China.

The image isn’t very clear, which makes it hard for us to see what’s on the back panel. What we could make out was that the phone comes with rear placed volume buttons, just like its predecessor. The camera sensor along with some other tech is located on the top left corner. Another thing almost confirmed by this leak is that the phone will be made out of metal.

While this may not be so clear, what really helps us understand the design of the three ZenFone models is the basic renders of the devices that poped up on the internet. All the three smartphones seem to of different sizes, with the one that we saw in the above above probably the Max or Deluxe version with the largest form factor. The other two models come with a slightly different design, with the camera and the other sensor located near the center, above the physical home button. The speaker and USB ports are located at the bottom according to this render.

As mentioned above, the company had already released the first video teaser for the new ZenFone 3 series. You can check them out from below.

Meanwhile, the launch is just 10 days away. So stay tuned for more details in the next few days.

The post ASUS ZenFone 3 Real Phone Spotted In China appeared first on Gizmochina.

So, what can we expect from the new ZenFone series?

We know that the new ZenFone 3 series won’t be coming with Intel chips this year, which opens up the possibility of Snapdragon series processors. Now, the first ZenFone 3 model seems to have been spotted on the benchmarking website, AnTuTu revealing key specs of the device. The model is called as the ASUS Z016D. The company is aiming the top-end segment with this device, using the new Snapdragon 820 chipset inside with Adreno 530 GPU. For memory, the phone comes with 4GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage. At the back, you get a massive 23MP rear camera sensor, while up front, there will be an 8MP shooter. The display size is unknown but the resolution will be FHD 1920 x 1080p. As for software, the phone will be running on Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow version.

Along with the specs details, AnTuTu also revealed that the new ZenFone 3 model scores around 135,000 points on AnTuTu, which is a great. This puts the device in direct competition with other top-end flagships like Xiaomi Mi 5, Galaxy S7 and HTC 10.

The company has already confirmed the release of the new models at Computex 2016. You can check out the teaser video from down below.

The post ASUS Zenfone 3 Model Pops Up On AnTuTu, Features Snapdragon 820 & 23MP Camera appeared first on Gizmochina.

Although ASUS has been making some ground in the smartphone segment in the past few years, the company’s phones haven’t been able to take on competitors like Xiaomi or Huawei. This year, the company has been relatively quiet. While other smartphone vendors were busy announcing their flagships and mid-rangers, ASUS was silent, which made us wonder what when will we see the new Zenfone 3 series.

Now, two new renders of the Zenfone 3 lineup have been leaked. The Zenfone 3 is said to come with a thin aluminum design with a 2.5D glass up front as well as the back. The phone will feature Laser Autofocus along with a rectangular fingerprint scanner.

The second render is reportedly of the ASUS Zenfone 3 Deluxe version. The phone will feature an oval home button, which should most likely integrate a fingerprint sensor. You will also find front facing flash on both the models.

This is not the first time we are hearing about the two Zenfone 3 models. A few weeks back, two new Zenfone models namely Z010DD and Z912D were spotted on the benchmarking app Geekbench. The former is most likely the Zenfone 3 Deluxe while the latter will be Zenfone 3.

One of the most interesting things revealed by the benchmark was that the phones were not using Intel’s chips. Instead, these models came with a Snapdragon chipset. Moving on, the Zenfone 3 (Z012D) will come with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 processor with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage. There will be a 5.9-inch display with 720p resolution, which is unusually low for such a large display. Other features include a 13MP rear camera and a 5MP front camera.

Coming to the ASUS Z010DD model, the phone will reportedly come with better specs, including the Snapdragon 650 hexa-core chip with 3GB RAM and 32GB of storage, 13MP rear camera, 5MP front shooter, 5.5-inch 720p display and Android 6.0.

To be honest, these specs are not very powerful as compared to the earlier generations. The screen resolution is very low and the processors aren’t very powerful either. So, we will have to wait and see whether these are the specs that we’ll see on the new Zenfone 3 models.

The phone is expected to be unveiled at Computex 2016 that will start from May 31 and continue till June 4.

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