It’s that time of the year again where
Taiwan becomes the center of Asia (and arguably the tech world) with COMPUTEX,
the region’s largest tech-centered event kicking off in Taipei. This year, the
event opens with one of the country’s resident tech giant announcing several
devices including a new smartphone, a smartwatch and a few tablets.
First, there’s the Asus Zenfone Selfie,
which as the name implies is a Zenfone made for people who like taking selfies.
The device is packing a 13MP front-facing camera just like its main competitors
such as the HTC
Desire Eye, Micromax
Canvas Selfie and the Sony
Xperia C4.
It’s also sporting a 5.5-inch Full HD IPS
LCD display, a Snapdragon 615 chipset with an octa-core processor, Adreno 405
GPU, 2GB or 3GB of RAM depending on the market and 16GB to 32GB of on-board
storage. There’s also a 3000mAh battery and 4G LTE connectivity.
The star feature of the phone though is of
course its 13MP cameras. Both cameras come with dual-LED flash with the one on
the front flaunting an 88-degree f/2.2 lens. The front cam also comes with an
HDR mode, a set of beautification tools and a special setting for low-light
conditions.
Asus also unveiled the second-generation
ZenWatch, which now comes in two sizes: a 37mm model with an 18mm strap and a
41mm model with a 22mm strap. In terms of finishes, the new ZenWatch 2 comes in
stainless steel, silver, gunmetal and rose gold.
The bands also comes in different variants
including rubber (in blue, orange, red and taupe), leather (khaki, brown, gray,
blue and orange), stainless steel (silver, gunmetal, rose gold) and a special
leather strap with a diamond pattern and Swarovski crystals. The charger is now
magnetic and Asus claims it can now charge faster.
Lastly, there are the four new ZenPad
models. There’s a 7-inch model, two 8-inchers and a 10.1-inch version with an
optional keyboard.
The 7-inch model has a resolution of 1024 x
600 pixels and is powered by an Intel Atom chipset with a quad-core processor
and a PowerVR GPU. It also comes with 1GB of RAM and either 8GB or 16GB of
on-board storage.
Then there are the two 8-inch models. The
first one is packing a 1280 x 800 HD IPS panel with an Intel Atom chip packing
a 1.2GHz quad-core processor, 1GB or 2GB of RAM, 16GB/32GB of expandable memory
and a 5MP+2MP camera combo.
The second 8-inch tablet is an S-version
and sports much higher specs than the base ZenPad 8 model. The display has a
resolution of 2048 x 1536 and the processor is bumped up to a 64-bit Intel Atom
processor with a 2.3GHz quad-core processor, 4GB of RAM and up to 32GB of
expandable storage. The tablet also has an 8MP+5MP camera combo.
Both models get a 4000mAh battery,
Bluetooth 4.0, GPS and LTE connectivity (for the ZenPad S version). Asus also
made several accessories for these two tablets. The ZenPad 8 can come with
optional interchangeable covers in different colors and functionality. The ZenPad
8 S on the other hand has an optional Z Stylus that supports up to 1024 levels
of pressure sensitivity and up to a 1.2mm writing tip.
Lastly, the ZenPad 10 is touting a
10.1-inch display with a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels. It also comes with an
Intel Atom X3 C3200 processor with 1GB to 2GB of RAM, a Mali-450 MP4 GPU, up to
32GB of storage, a 5MP+2MP camera combo, Bluetooth 4.0 and front-facing stereo
speakers.
Just like its smaller 8-inch siblings, the
ZenPad 10 will be offered with a number of accessories including a Bluetooth
keyboard with build-in speakers and the Z Stylus pen, again with support for
1024 levels of pressure sensitivity.
All devices mentioned above are running
Android 5.0 Lollipop. No word yet on pricing and availability.
