Asus pulled off some magic tricks at CES this week. The
Taiwanese tech giant has announced its newest products – mostly upgrades to its
already successful phones and 2-in-1s.
First up is the Zenfone 2, which obviously will replace the
trio of Zenfones
from last year. The new model will have a 5.5-inch display with Full HD
resolution and a screen density of 403ppi, which will be protected by a Gorilla
Glass 3 panel. It will also have an Intel Atom Z380 chipset with a 2.3GHz
processor, at least 16GB of onboard storage and a whopping 4GB of RAM.
On the camera side, the Zenfone 2 comes with a 13MP f/2.0
rear camera with an HDR and manual mode, and a 5MP front-facing camera that
features a field of view up to 140 degrees thanks to a Selfie Panorama feature.
Other notable features of the handset include a 3000mAh battery, LTE
connectivity, dual-SIM connectivity and Android 5.0 Lollipop with an updated
ZenUI out of the box.
The phone is expected to hit the store shelves in Q2 2015 in
5 different colors including osmium black, sheer gold, glacier gray, glamor red
and ceramic white. Pricing starts at $199 for the 2GB RAM/16GB version.
Then there’s the Zenfone Zoom – the company’s answer to
Samsung’s Galaxy K Zoom and the Nokia Lumia 1020 by having a 13MP camera with a
3x optical zoom lens with built-in OIS. The camera also comes with a True Tone
LED flash and laser focus and a variable aperture of f/2.7 to f/4.8.
As for the rest of the specs, the Zenfone Zoom shares almost
identical specs as the Zenfone 2 including a 5.5-inch Full HD panel, an Intel
Atom chipset with a 2.3GHz quad-core processor, a PowerVR GPU, up to 4GB of RAM
and 128GB of expandable storage, a 5MP selfie camera, LTE connectivity,
Bluetooth v4.0 and dual-SIM connectivity.
The Asus Zenfone Zoom will be available alongside the
Zenfone 2 in Q2 2015 for around $400 in either meteorite black or glacier
white.
Now onto the Transformers – Asus has launched three new
models this year. The Transformer Book T90 is the baby of the three with a
screen size of 8.9 inches that sports a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels. It’s
packing a 1.4GHz Intel Atom Z3775 chip and comes with up to 64GB of built-in
storage.
On the other hand, the Transformer Book T100, which is meant
to replace last year’s model will have a 10.1 panel that offers a slightly
better resolution than the T90 by having a Full HD screen. Other than the
display, the T100 shares identical specs as its younger sibling.
The star of the trio is of course the Transformer Book T300
chi, which was actually first unveiled at last year’s Computex.
The 2-in-1 features a 12.5-inch display that comes with either a Full HD or QHD
panel. Asus has jammed Intel’s latest Core M Broadwell processor onto the device
allowing the T300 to have a waistline of 1.65 inches even while docked with its
keyboard.
Complete specs of the T300 chi haven’t been disclosed yet but
pricing information has been released for all three tablets. The T90 will be
offered at $299, while the T100 and T300 will go for $699 and $799
respectively.
