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ASUS is joining the fray at MWC 2018 with a trio of new phones, all of which belong in the ZenFone 5 family. ASUS is launching a pair of flagships which seem to only be differentiated by the processing package found inside. The ZenFone 5Z sports a top-end Snapdragon 845 SoC and will retail for $499, while the ZenFone 5 packs in a more mid-range Snapdragon 636 SoC and will most assuredly retail for less, although we don’t have an official price yet. The rest seems to be identical between the two, including the very obviously iPhone X inspired design. The notch is here with a 6.2-inch 19:9 aspect ratio screen on both phones, only having a very small chin and almost no bezels anywhere else. The back is flat and made of glass, with a brushed metal look, and vertically aligned dual cameras are situated to the top left.
Both phones sport a Sony IMX363 sensor for the main camera, and a secondary sensor of unknown make with a 120-degree wide angle lens. With these upgraded camera modules comes upgraded camera software and tons of new features, all of which are powered by AI algorithms. In the ZenFone 5Z’s case, a dedicated Qualcomm Hexagon 685 Vector DSP co-processor is inside for processing AI, helping ASUS’ new features work faster and better than they would if it were just running on the main processor. ASUS is serious about the audio side of things, not just packing in the 3.5mm audio jack at the bottom, but supporting high res audio, all the Bluetooth codecs in Android 8.0 Oreo, and even packing stereo speakers right on the phone as well. A pair of what ASUS calls premium earbuds are included in the box, and the phone also supports DTS Headphone:X 7.1 surround sound too. To round things out, ASUS has a fingerprint sensor on the back and face unlock features, as well as ZeniMoji which, as you can guess, are AR emojis that use the phones cameras for animation.
Last but not least is the ZenFone 5Q, or also known as the ZenFone 5 Lite in some markets. This phone packs in a 6-inch 18:9 screen with some larger bezels, and the Snapdragon 630 SoC inside. A 3,300mAh battery is inside, and the phone features a rear-mounted fingerprint scanner as well as ASUS new face unlock tech. It’s got dual cameras on front and back, with the secondary camera on both sides featuring a 120-degree super wide angle lens. It’s definitely shaping up to be a budget winner, but don’t take our word for it, see it in action at the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe to us on YouTube to get up-to-date videos as they drop!