Lenovo announced a smartphone last year June which was also the first one to get Tango (Google’s augmented reality (AR) technology). But there’s also Daydream which is Google’s virtual reality (VR) platform and seeing as both platforms haven’t gained the market share Google would like to see them have, they are happy to achieve this by making both technologies as commercial as possible. So after Lenovo, ASUS has announced that it would be bringing both technologies to its new smartphone called ZenFone AR which is part of other smartphones announced by ASUS.
The Zenfone AR is a 5.7 inch QHD AMOLED (compared to the Lenovo Phab’s 6.4 inches) touch screen device that with a motion tracking camera and a fisheye depth-sensing camera. It also features Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 821 chipset and 8GB RAM (quite big for a smartphone and this is to effectively support both AR and VR features). It has a 23MP Sony IMX318 sensor with OIS, EIS, and 4K video recording.
The phone will be available from the second quarter of this year (April, May or June) and there’s not pricing information. We are likely to know all this information when it launches.
There’s also the Zenfone 3 Zoom and like the Zenfone Zoom from last year, it has a main camera and zoom one with the only difference being that it has dual cameras at the rear this time and yes the zoom function. The magnification this on the Zenfone 3 Zoom is 2.3x compared to last year’s 3x. The second camera just like that on the iPhone 7 is to help create a bokeh effect which is a term given to the blurring of the image background effect while focusing on the subject.
It features a 12MP lens and a 12 MP wide angle unit with f/1.7 aperture and Sony’s IMX362 sensor. They both feature 1.4nm pixels and a 4K video capture. It has an Autofocus time of 0.03 seconds as well. The phone is light and thin weighing only 170g and 7.83mm thin. Unlike its AR counterpart, it’s a 5.5 inch 1080p touchscreen and a Snapdragon 625 SoC. On the power side, it features a 5,000mAh battery.
The device will be available in February and as of now, we don’t know how much it costs. It doesn’t feature the latest Android 7 Nougat rather it comes with Android 6.0 Marshmallow.
Paul Balo is the founder of TechBooky and a highly skilled wireless communications professional with a strong background in cloud computing, offering extensive experience in designing, implementing, and managing wireless communication systems.
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