Asus has launched a new phone in its photography-centric Zoom series, the Asus Zenfone 3 Zoom, at the CES 2017 show in Las Vegas. Unlike its predecessor, last year's Asus Zenfone Zoom, the new smartphone has a dual-camera setup.
The Zenfone Zoom 3 is sleeker and more refined in looks than its brick-like predecessor that had been optimised to achieve optical zooming. The new phone is reminiscent of the iPhone 7 Plus at some level though.
It comes with two 12 MP sensors with f/1.7 aperture, one is a wide angle lens while the other achieves a 2.3x optical zoom. Asus Zenfone Zoom had the better optical zoom of 3x but there were other trade-offs.
Another of Zenfone 3's noticeable feature is a huge 5,000 mAh battery that fits into the smaller casing. The smartphone has a 5.5 inch full HD display and is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 625. What's impressive is that the phone is launching with Android 7.0 Nougat, which is a good step in the software direction by a company not generally known to do the part well.
Asus has said that the Zenfone 3 Zoom will be available in the market in February 2017. Its internal memory and RAM specifications are still unknown.