The Deluxe version of Asus’ Zenfone 3 smartphone is the first device in the world to pack Qualcomm’s new chip, the Snapdragon 821 announced yesterday.
The Snapdragon 821 is an upgrade of last year’s Snapdragon 820 which powers most of this year’s flagship smartphones and is expected to appear in most devices coming into the market through to next year. The Asus Zenfone 3 Deluxe will, however, have the distinction of having been the first device to be powered by the new processor.
The Asus Zenfone 3 Deluxe packs most of the specifications of the standard Zenfone 3 Deluxe which was unveiled at Computex 2016 not long ago. Its main differentiator is the Snapdragon 821 processor. The rest, the 5.7-inch full HD display protected by Gorilla Glass 4, internal storage that can go all the way up to 256GB (UFS 2.0, expandable via microSD for an additional 128GB), 6GB RAM (DDR4), a fingerprint scanner, a 23-megapixel camera (with OIS and laser autofocus), a 3,000mAh battery, Android Marshmallow, are pretty standard. The Zenfone 3 Deluxe is Android Daydream-ready.
Availability of the device is not yet known though you shouldn’t expect to see it in the market before August or September. It will be just a few coins shy of the $800 mark when it goes on sale. That’s for the model with all the possible high specifications – 6GB RAM, 256GB onboard storage, dual-SIM and the 2.4GHz-clocked Snapdragon 821. Two other models of the device also going to be made available with stepped down specs like lower memory and last year’s Snapdragon 820, will cost an equivalent of between $500 and $560 in the market.
