It seems that Asus is going with the same strategy as it did with the Zenfone 2 series last year, make many models and then have variants among them. Earlier this year it launched the new Zenfone 3 series at Computex 2016 which included three models, Zenfone 3, Zenfone 3 Deluxe and Zenfone 3 Ultra . While we thought that Asus would stop there, it announced a new high-end variant of the Zenfone 3 Deluxe boasting the new Snapdragon 821 SoC and 6GB of RAM.
The Taiwan-based company has now revealed two more smartphones, the Zenfone 3 Max and the Zenfone 3 Laser, which were officially announced for the Vietnamese market . While the former offers a large battery and a thick build, the latter is camera centric variant of the original Zenfone 3.
The Zenfone 3 Laser comes with an improved laser autofocus system with the 13MP PixelMaster 3.0 rear camera with a Sony IMX214 sensor. The company says that it only needs 0.03 seconds to focus on the subject. It also features an electronic image stabilization sensor and a color correction sensor. The specs of the Zenfone 3 Laser are very much similar to the Zenfone 3 and including a 5.5-inch display with resolution of 1920x1080 pixels and a 2.5D curved display glass, 4GB of RAM, 32GB of integrated storage and a fingerprint sensor all packed in a 7.9 mm thick metal body.
The Zenfone 3 Max is an update to the Zenfone 2 Max but it includes a 4,100mAh battery which is a substantial drop from is predecessor which had a 5,000mAh battery. Rest of the specs include a 5.2-inch IPS display with a full HD resolution, 3GB of RAM, 32GB of internal storage, and a fingerprint scanner.
Pricing of the smartphones is $270 (Rs 18,000) for the Zenfone 3 Laser while the Zenfone 3 Max will sell at about $200 (Rs 13,000). No word from Asus about the Indian launch of these smartphones.