Nine days before the official announcement, I was able to check in the 5.5 inch variant of the (regular) Asus Zenfone 3
The one that I had is the 5.5 inch Full HD version with 4 GB RAM and 64 GB ROM. Same processor as to the 5.2 inch little brother with Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 octa-core processor.
These are the front and back views of the device. Yeah, the back is kinda shiny but definitely a notch higher in terms of form factor and overall design compared to Zenfone 2. I love the black color of this phablet.
Both the volume rocker and power/unlock button can be found at the right side.
Noise cancelling mic and 3.5 mm. audio jack at the top; Pin hole mic, speaker and USB Type C at the bottom
Considering that this device that I already played has some downloaded apps already, there is still plenty of room for more apps. As true in some rumors, 3.5 GB out of 4 GB RAM was visible but do not worry as the remaining 500 MB is really allocated in the system which is pretty evident when I switch back and forth on apps and app drawer with a lighter Zen UI based on Android Marshmallow. There are still some bloat apps but good thing, most of it can be uninstalled.
The Antutu score of 59,987 is quite near compared to what Asus Vietnam presented in their recent ZF3 launch. Seven out of nine sensors are working inside.
Glimpse of the pro and the modes of both shooters of ZF3 which also has a major improvement. I took some camera samples for this blog post and it is really fast this time (as you can really see it at the pathfinder) even if you will compare it with the flagship Intel-powered variant of Zenfone 2.
And these are my camera samples taken in artificial light inside Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, SM Aura. The color accuracy was superb for me.
Asus Zenfone 3 ZE552KL 16 MP rear camera sample
Asus Zenfone 3 ZE552KL 8 MP front camera sample
As we do not have the official pricing so far (I will just compare it to the pricing of Widget Cit for now), this is so far one of the best camera phones that you can get within that price range. NBA 2K16 was a-ok in high settings. The overall design is comparable to some flagship handsets. One bad thing that I saw so far on this device, no LTE only option.
Asus Zenfone 3 and 4 of it's variants will be officially announced this August 14 in the Philippines. Of course, this blog will be present to cover more of the devices and the festivities so stay tuned.
Special thanks to Peter of gizguide.com as he allowed me to play his Asus Zenfone 3 review unit