Asus Unveiled Three New Phones in its Zenfone 5 Series

Android Oreo comes pre-installed on the phone, while ASUS ZenUI 5.0 skin comes included on top of it. Bluetooth 5.0 is also included in the package, as is a Type-C USB port which sits at the bottom of the phone.

Asus has used MWC 2018 to reveal the new Zenfone 5 (not that one from 2014) to the world with a new design we haven’t seen on any of the company’s devices before. Here’s what we think so far. ZenFone Max has a 5.5-inch full-view display and a huge 4000mAh battery. The 5 Lite uses the extra space above the screen for a pair of front-facing cameras.

There’s no escaping the fact that the Asus Zenfone 5, and the 5Z, look nearly identical to Apple’s iPhone X.

Asus ZenFone 5Z is company’s Flagship smartphone for this year which has got a series of extraordinary features. This doesn’t make the ZenFone 5Z any less interesting, but it might harm its success once it hits the market, which is a shame.

The “notch” is a small bit of plastic that juts out from the top of the phone, eating into the screen.

Then there’s the Zenfone’s display, which at 15cm across and featuring a 19:9 FHD+ resolution, looked remarkably sharp. Still, the ZenFone 5 has one big advantage over the iPhone: a 3.5mm headphone jack.

There are other concessions to budget of course. The device is backed up by a 3,300mAh battery.

The ZenFone 5 will be available to buy in late summer in two shades: blue and silver. While Asus has not brought a phone directly here in a few years a lot of people do acquire them through grey market importers so we have made a decision to touch on them.

As we head into 2018, it seems like most smartphones will be embracing the design language of the iPhone X.

The phone has a 6-inch 2,160×1,080 display, and an 80.3% screen-to-body ratio. In person it looked bright and vivid, with great colour reproduction. In fact, the upcoming Huawei P20 is rumored to be embracing the notch, and Android P will reportedly embrace it, too. The latest unveiling comes from Asus: the company just introduced a trio of new ZenFone 5 handsets, including the Asus ZenFone 5Z flagship. The battery is 3300mAh, which should be enough for a day or two of typical usage. The range comes with the Zenfone 5 and 5Z, which are almost identical, as well as the Zenfone 5 Lite.

The cameras on the top-end models include 12 megapixel Sony IMX363 cameras with a mode for low light, with the second camera having a 120-degree wide-angle lens, and a front-facing 8MP camera. Up front, there is an 8-megapixel camera with f/2.0 aperture. The camera also has a flexible Pro mode with support for RAW and shutter speeds from 1/10000 to 32 seconds. Those speakers support DTS 7.1 virtual surround sound. There are likely to be a Zenfone 5 standard model, a dual-SIM version, a Zenfone Lite variant, and a Zenfone Max.

Thankfully, all three of these phones will run Android Oreo out of the box.

For one, there’s that notch.

That processor features an Adreno 630 graphics component that allows for 4K HDR video capture and very high-resolution still images. Rest of everything stays the same as of Zenfone 5Z. The AI scene detection can automatically adjust white balance, exposure, brightness, and saturation by analysing the objects in front of the camera.

More than that, it will also learn from your behaviour. According to Asus, software works around the notch, so you apps’ UIs will be neither hindered nor obstructed.

Asus claims the display has AI features, like automatic color temperature adjustment, but that’s misleading marketing at best since it’s not using machine learning, just responding to an input.