Asus Zenfone 7 and Zenfone 7 Pro have launched officially in Taiwan. Successors to last year’s Asus Zenfone 6 (Asus 6Z in India), the Zenfone 7 series takes the flip camera system forward, this time with three cameras on the back. The Zenfone 7 series is as flagship as it gets with the regular Zenfone 7 rocking a Snapdragon 865 chip while the 7 Pro comes with a Snapdragon 865 Plus processor. A first look at the new phones tends to point to a very familiar design, one that was uniquely implemented with the Asus Zenfone 6.
Asus has also worked on its flip camera mechanism and the new Zenfone 7 series is equipped with a more powerful stepping motor than the Zenfone 6 with up to twice the torque and a new angle sensor that controls the flip angle accurately. Let’s take a brief look at the specifications and pricing of the Zenfone 7 series.
Asus Zenfone 7 is priced at NT$ 21,990 for the 6GB+128GB variant while the Zenfone 7 Pro will be up for grabs at NT$ 27,990 for the 8GB+256GB variant.
These prices roughly translate to a starting price of around Rs 55,000 for the Zenfone 7 and Rs 70,000 for the Zenfone 7 Pro. Though, there’s currently no word on the launch of Asus Zenfone 7 in India. Global availability is also slated to be announced later this week.
Asus Zenfone 7 and 7 Pro largely share the same set of specifications and features. The only differentiating factor is that the Zenfone 7 is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 and the Zenfone 7 Pro comes with Snapdragon 865 Plus. The new Snapdragon 865 Plus chipset has an improved 10 per cent performance over the Snapdragon 865 which means that the prime core can now run at up to 3.1GHz clock speeds with 10% boost in graphics rendering.
Both phones have the same aluminium built and a design that measures 9.6 millimetres in thickness and 230 grams in weight. The rear panel is coated with a layer of Gorilla Glass 3. The Zenfone 7 series features a 6.67-inch Full HD+ (2400 x 1080 pixels) resolution display that uses an AMOLED panel with a 90Hz high-refresh-rate and is topped with a layer of Gorilla Glass 6.
The Zenfone 7 is paired with 6GB RAM and 128GB storage while there is another variant that comes with 8GB RAM. As for the Zenfone 7 Pro, it comes in a single variant with 8GB RAM and 256GB storage. The phones support microSD card expansion by upto 2TB. The Zenfone 7 series runs on Android 10 based ZenUI 7 out-of-the-box.
The Zenfone 7 and Zenfone 7 Pro comes with a triple camera setup housed within the flip camera mechanism. It has a 64MP primary camera with an f/1.8 aperture, an 8MP telephoto camera with 3x optical zoom and a 12MP ultra-wide-angle camera with 113-degree field-of-view. The cameras can record in 8K UHD at 30FPS and 4K UHD in upto 120FPS. The Zenfone 7 comes with support for 3-axis electronic image stabilization while the Zenfone 7 Pro comes with 4-axis optical image stabilization.
The phones come with the basic set of sensors and connectivity features like Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.0 and a side-mounted fingerprint reader. The Zenfone 7 series is fitted with a 5,000mAh battery with support for 30W fast charging. Asus claims that its fast charging standard can fill the battery from 0-100% in 93 minutes.
Given the high price tag of the phones, it is possible that Asus may not launch the phone in India at all. The Asus Zenfone 6z faced a number of issues, the first being a controversy around the use of the name "Zenfone", which the company had to drop by launch time. Additionally, the phone had a luke warm reception, making the launch of the Zenfone 7 and Zenfone 7 Pro a bigger risk for Asus. The company is, however, enjoying success with its ROG Phone 3.