When the Apple iPhone X came out last year, we expected flagship smartphones from its rivals borrowing its design and offering it at affordable rates. Taiwan’s ASUS is one of the first ones to do that with its recently unveiled Zenfone 5 and Zenfone 5Z — their flagship offerings for 2018. Both the Zenfone 5 models offer powerful specifications and a smart AI-based customised Android operating system. There has been no mention of the price, though ASUS has confirmed a March launch for the Zenfone 5 and a Jue launch for the Zenfone 5Z.
One look at the new Zenfone 5 models and it’s not hard to mistake it for the iPhone X. The 5 and 5Z sports a 6.2-inch IPS LCD display with a resolution of full HD+. The display achieves an aspect ratio of 19:9. ASUS claims that the Zenfone 5Z with its notch design achieves a screen-to-body-ratio of 90 per cent, which is impressive, considering the iPhone X’s 82.9 per cent ratio.
The Zenfone 5Z is built around Qualcomm’s latest 10nm Snapdragon 845 chipset and Adreno 630 GPU, accompanied by up to 8GB of RAM and 256GB of onboard storage. The Zenfone 5 on the other hand sports a Snapdragon 636 chipset along with up to 6GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. They run on ZenUI 5.0 based on Android 8.0 Oreo. They will sport FM Radio support, which is a rarity for flagship smartphones these days. ASUS claims that the ZenFone 5 and 5Z can be unlocked in just 0.1 seconds using its face unlock feature, or 0.3 seconds using the rear fingerprint sensor. The AI Ringtone is also claimed to adjust the ringer volume according to the ambient noise level.Therefore, you won’t miss out on calls even on a busy street or in a noisy restaurant, and calls received in the middle of the night won’t disturb others who are asleep around you.
ASUS has also included ZeniMoji — ASUS’s answer to Apple’s Animoji. ZeniMoji lets users animate cute avatars using their own voice, facial expressions and head movements. The avatars can be used in video chats or live-streaming, as well as in text chats.
For the photography department, there’s a 12MP dual rear camera setup, with the main sensor having an aperture of f/1.8 and the wide-angle sensor having an aperture of f/2.2 — there’s OIS available for stable video shots. The selfie camera is an 8MP sensor with f/2.0 aperture and support for face unlock.
Both the Zenfone models are backed by a 3300mAh battery that supports ASUS’ version of fast charging technology. The battery can be charged via a USB Type-C port. There’s also support for Bluetooth 5.0.
As stated, ASUS hasn’t declared the price of the Zenfone 5 and 5Z yet. However, we expect the 5Z to be priced on par with the likes of Samsung’s Galaxy S9 series of flagships.
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