Since December, Asus had been teasing a camera centric Zenfone variant that would be going official at the CES 2015 tech show. Going by the same, the Taiwan based firm has unveiled couple of smartphones at the platform – Zenfone 2 and Zenfone Zoom. As the name suggests, it is the Zenfone Zoom that is camera centric and it features 3x optical zoom.
The Zenfone Zoom is slated to hit the retail shelves in the second quarter of this year in two color variants which include Meteorite Black and Glacier White. The handset carries a price tag of $399 that translates to Rs 25,300 approximately, but it could be higher in India due to taxes.
Detailing on the imaging department, the Zenfone Zoom flaunts a 13MP primary camera at its back accompanied by f/2.0 aperture, auto focus, dual color Real Tone flash and 10-element lens with 3x optical zoom. There is a 5MP front camera with 85 degree wide angle lens.
It is claimed that the new Zen UI on top of Android 5.0 Lollipop brings several camera improvement tools such as low light mode, backlight (HDR) mode, laser auto focus, optical image stabilization (OIS), enhanced beautification mode, manual mode to control ISO settings and zero shutter lag. The camera is also capable of 12x digital zoom.
Otherwise, the Zenfone Zoom is pretty similar to the Zenfone 2 in terms of specifications. It is bestowed with a similar 5.5-inch Full HD IPS display that results in a pixel density of 403 pixels per inch and is layered with Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection. Under its hood, there is a 64-bit Intel Atom Z3580 quad-core processor ticking at 2.3GHz clock speed. Like the Zenfone 2, there are two RAM variants in this model as well and they are 2GB and 4GB.
Furthermore, the Zenfone Zoom comes in three configurations – 16GB, 32GB and 64GB and these can be expanded externally by another 64GB using a microSD card. Connectivity aspects onboard include 4G LTE (Cat. 4), 3G, GPS, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, USB OTG and NFC. Energizing the smartphone is a 3,000 mAh battery and it is claimed that there is support for fast charging that can charge the device up to 60 percent in 39 minutes.