Has Asus dropped its use of Intel chips for Qualcomm in the Zenfone 3? Benchmarks give us clues about the upcoming Asus phone.
With CES and MWC already over we are starting to wonder when we will see a successor to the hugely popular Asus Zenfone 2 launched last year.
The Zenfone 2 managed to catch our attention as it was the first ‘budget flagship’from a major tech manufacturer. The phone featured an Intel chipset, 5.5-inch FHD display, 13 mega-pixel rear camera and a headline grabbing 4GB RAM. It was a good phone, if not perfect, and we are all excited to see what the Asus Zenfone 3 could offer.
Well if you don’t mind spoilers we have some possible specification details for the new phone here thanks to benchmarks performed on 3 of its variants.
The models range from a 5.5-inch HD model up to a 5.5-inch FHD version and also include a larger 6-inch version of the phone.
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Different Zenfone variants are not uncommon but what is odd is the use of Qualcomm chipsets rather than Intel processors this year, with the 3 phones running either Snapdragon 615 or 650 processors.
Another interesting detail is that none of the phones in the benchmarks have NFC, and the highest amount of RAM so far is just 3GB.
Obviously these 3 phones represent the entry-level – mid-level range of phones in the Zenfone 3 range so what for the flagship option?
Will the flagship Zenfone 3 stick to Intel, or will the new device have a Snapdragon 820 SoC, and will we see another headline grabbing RAM figure? 6GB RAM like the Vivo Xplay 5 perhaps? What are your thoughts.
Boring. What happened to X86 base? Why mediocre Snapdragon SoC’s? Not a big enough upgrade for a new release.
Ye, there was always more scope to do clever stuff with dual booting with the Intel x86 stuff and the idea of running fully blown Windows 10 from your phone via some sort of USB-C dock would be awesome…
The “idea” might sounds awesome for some people but in reality no normal people dual boot their phone; they use it to chat all day and the like, dual booting your phone is a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist for most people. Heck only a few hardcore people dual boot their PC (I was one when I had way too much time, now time is precious).
Maybe just some other model: they did a lot of variants last year, so this year could be no different
It makes sense as Intel has no new chips in the pipeline that can challenge the performance of the SD650 and above and consume less power, so it was only logical for Asus to turn to Qualcomm.
The first phone is an entry level device using the SD615 and has a 720p screen, so we are looking at a phone with really good performance at around 150$ range.
The more premium SD650 device is rocking the 1080p display and better camera and will probably cost around 250-299$.
What really concern`s me is two things?
What cameras both devises are using and has Asus done some real tweaking regarding the aesthetics, because those huge borders and the small screen/body ratio of the past phones has been a real turn-off.
Zenfone 2 was big and bulky and don’t forget the power button on top corner -_-
You know there’s a double tap to wake the screen right..? In my opinion the phone size is like the LG G4, making the Zenfone 2 more comfortable to hold with the rounded back in the palm of your hand.
Really nothing special about these, I love Asus laptops but their phones just dont excite me at all.
MY GOD !
leave the SD 615 BEHIND ALREADY !
this is the time for MTK p10 , x20 and SD 650 , 652 and 820 to be MADLY common in phones !
smh asus…
Well, zenfone is never excites me in the first place. Its design is meh, screen ratio is bad, it feels big, the brushed metal on bottom is a turn off. The new entry level with SD 615 is just wow. I mean…
If Asus doesn’t carry Intel that pretty much marks their exit from mobile phones.
I guess they went with if it’s not broken don’t fix it mantra, which is fine and all until the saturation hit them hard, and it will You can mark my words Asus. 🙂