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An unannounced Snapdragon-branded ASUS phone has just surfaced online. Chinese certification agency TENAA has certified the new phone, revealing its design and key specs in the process.
The device bears the model number ASUS_I007D. According to XDA Developers, this model number was previously spotted inside the kernel source code of the ASUS ROG Phone 5, with the codename VODKA. It appeared alongside two other phones codenamed SAKE and PICASSO. The latter two launched as the ASUS ZenFone 8 and ZenFone 8 Flip respectively last month.
This suggests that the upcoming ASUS_I007D is a new model in the Zenfone 8 series. However, there are plenty of reasons to believe otherwise.
A report in October last year suggested that Qualcomm is teaming up with ASUS to develop a Snapdragon-branded gaming smartphone. The chipmaker later said it would be a reference device, without going much into details. It looks like this is that phone. As you can see in the featured image above (and attached images below), the phone has a clear Snapdragon branding at the back.
Leaked specs suggest a full-fledged gaming phone
The TENAA listing also includes the key specs of the phone. It seems the two companies have developed a fully-fledged gaming phone rather than just a reference device. Perhaps ASUS has used that reference device for the certification purpose. The end product may not actually feature that Snapdragon branding.
Nonetheless, this mysterious phone features a Snapdragon 888 chipset with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. It sports a 6.78-inch AMOLED display and packs a 3840mAh battery (two separate units of 1920mAh capacity each). There’s a triple camera setup at the back, which includes a 64-megapixel primary shooter as well as a 12-megapixel sensor.
A rear-mounted fingerprint scanner is also visible in the attached images. However, the TENAA website explicitly mentions an under-display fingerprint sensor. This is another indication that the phone shown in these renders isn’t the final product.
The phone will measure 172.92×77.33×9.55 mm in dimension and weigh around 218 grams. It will run Android 11-based software out of the box. The device will also feature a dedicated headphone jack.
By the looks of it, the upcoming ASUS_I007D will be a flagship offering from the Taiwanese phone maker. However, it’s unclear when the device would launch. The previous report had claimed that ASUS would announce the phone in late 2020 and would start shipping it in 2021. However, that didn’t happen. With pretty much everything revealed in this TENAA certification, it shouldn’t be very long before this Snapdragon-branded ASUS phone makes another appearance online. It now remains to be seen whether the end product would keep that Snapdragon branding.
