The Asus ZenFone 6 is finally official and it certainly defies a couple of conventions when it comes to flagship smartphones. While most manufacturers tend to remove things from their high-end devices, the ZenFone 6 retains a lot of features that are standard in mid-range devices.
Firstly, the ZenFone 6 finally kills the notch and it has a new 6.4″ NanoEdge display that stretches edge to edge while pushing a Full HD+ resolution. According to Asus, the IPS display offers 600 nits of brightness and a 92% screen-to-body ratio. There’s also Gorilla Glass 6 for better durability.
Under the hood, it runs on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 processor that can be configured with either 6GB or 8GB of LPDDR4X RAM. The device has UFS 2.1 storage options of 64GB, 128GB and 256GB. If that’s not enough, the ZenFone 6 still accepts microSD expansion. Unlike other flagship devices, this comes with a triple card slot, allowing you to have a microSD card and two nano-SIM cards inserted at the same time.
The standout feature is its flip camera mechanism. The ZenFone 6 has a 48MP f/1.79 main camera with Sony’s IMX586 sensor and a secondary 13MP ultra-wide-angle camera that has a 125-degree field of view. The sensor’s quad bayer array offers better low light performance as it can combine four smaller pixels to create a larger 1.6-micron effective pixel size.
Since there’s no dedicated front camera, the dual-camera module can be flip to the front, which is somewhat similar to the Oppo N3. According to Asus, the flip module uses a liquid metal amorphous alloy which is both tough and light. It moves with a small stepper motor and you can set it to flip at your preferred angle.
Just like the Oppo N3, there’s also an automatic panorama mode where the camera can flip up by itself while shooting without having you to tilt the phone backwards by hand. The ZenFone 6 camera has a Super Night Mode but this will be enabled later via a software update.
The back of the phone uses 3D gorilla glass and it also comes with a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor. Since the ZenFone 6 has to house a huge 5,000mAh battery and also a flip camera mechanism, Asus had to shrink the size of its circuit board by adopting a 2-piece PCB layout.
At 5,000mAh, this is the biggest battery to be fitted on a Snapdragon 855 powered smartphone. It charges via USB-C with Quick Charge 4.0 support. According to Asus, the high capacity battery is able to push up to 2-days of usage on a single charge.
For better video playback enjoyment, the ZenFone 6 even comes with stereo speakers with dual smart amplifiers for louder, deeper and less distorted sound effect. Not only that, it still retains a 3.5mm headphone jack and according to the spec-sheet, the device even comes with FM radio.
In terms of connectivity, it supports 802.11ac WiFI with 2×2 MIMO, Bluetooth 5.0, NFC and there’s also dual-frequency GPS support as well. Unfortunately, the device has no wireless charging and IP-rated water resistance.
Out of the box, it runs on Android 9 Pie with ZenUI 6 skin on top. The device comes with a pair of ZenEar Pro Hi-Res earphones, a transparent case, USB-C cable and an 18W charging brick. The ZenFone 6 is available in Midnight Black or Twilight Silver.
In Europe, the ZenFone 6 is priced as follows:
6GB RAM + 64GB storage – 499EUR (about RM2,326)
6GB RAM + 128GB storage – 559EUR (about RM2,603)
8GB RAM + 256GB storage – 599EUR (about RM2,792)
Do note that European smartphone pricing is usually higher when compared to the Malaysian market. It isn’t clear if the ZenFone 6 will be coming to Malaysia anytime soon but do stay tuned to us for the latest updates.
What do you think of the ZenFone 6? Let us know in the comments below.
