If you are already in the hunt for buying a Snapdragon 821 phone, things just got a bit easier for you. ASUS has announced that a new variant of its existing ZenFone 3 Deluxe handset, originally announced way back in Computex in May, will be the first to come with the new chipset which is an upgrade over the 820. It arrives in August.
The new chipset will bring a slightly overclock of Kryo cores to 2.4 Ghz as well as a higher clock to the Adreno 530 GPU, leading to a 10 percent increase in performance. But ASUS is keen to hit other areas as well.
Storage versions go all the way to 256 GB of UFS 2.0 storage (also expandable), while RAM options go all the way to 6 GB LPDDR4 for a truly beefy experience. There will be humbler packages with 4 GB RAM, 32 GB storage as well as 6 GB RAM and 64 GB storage.
The display is a 5.7” panel albeit with 1080p resolution and Gorilla Glass 4. The design is completely made of metal, coming in Gold, Gray or Silver in a 7.5mm waistline. The camera is of 23 megapixel with dual-tone flash, laser autofocus, HDR, OIS and 4K video. There’s an 8 MP 85-degree shooter on the front, too.
Connectivity options include USB Type-C, NFC, Dual-SIM, LTE and Wi-Fi ac. The 3,000 mAh battery features support for Quick Charge 3.0. Topping off the package is a fingerprint scanner on the back.
Of course, when you just throw features as easily as ASUS does, the end-product isn’t cheap and the ZenFone 3 starting at $500 for the base (4 GB, 32 GB) variant, rising to $560 for the next model (6 GB, 64 GB) and climaxing at $780 for the ultimate (6 GB, 256 GB) thrill.
