Asus ZenFone 4 Selfie, Selfie dual and Selfie Pro launched in India; prices start from Rs 9,999

Asus announced the launch of its **ZenFone 4 series** at an event in New Delhi on 14 September, with the announcement of the ZenFone 4 Selfie, ZenFone Pro Selfie with dual cameras and the ZenFone 4 Selfie Pro. The phones are priced at Rs 9,999, 14,999 and Rs 23,999 respectively. All the smartphones will go on sale on Flipkart from 21 September 2017 onwards.

Asus has decided to kickstart this new generation of its smartphones with the selfie-centric trio. Over the last couple of years, selfie-centric smartphones have started picking up pace in India, as has been seen with the sales numbers of **Oppo** and **Vivo** smartphones. While Asus has also had selfie-oriented smartphones in the past, it has decided to take things up a notch this year by launching three variants of its selfie smartphone range.

The Asus ZenFone 4 Selfie features a 5.5-inch IPS LCD display with a Snapdragon 430 chipset coupled with 3 GB RAM and 32 GB of internal storage. The storage can be expandable to 2 TB using a microSD card. The rear camera is a 13 MP unit with PDAF, while the selfie camera consists of a 13 MP wide-angle camera. The device is powered by a 3,000 mAh battery.

Next up is a variant of the Asus Zenfone 4 Selfie going by the same name but arrives with dual selfie cameras. Buyers will get a 20 MP paired with a standard lens and an 8 MP unit paired with a 120 degree wide-angle lens. The primary camera gets an upgrade to 16 MP as well. While the chipset remains the same the dual camera variant gets 4 GB RAM and 64 GB of internal storage. The storage can be expandable to 2 TB using a microSD card. Both variants of the Zenfone 4 Selfie get triple slots so users can use two SIM cards and microSD card at the same time, instead of swapping a SIM card for microSD card when needed, which is the case with a hybrid SIM setup. Those buying the dual camera variant during the Flipkart Big Billion Day sale can avail of the special price tag at Rs 13,999.

Along with the standard ZenFone 4 Selfie models, Asus also announced the Zenfone 4 Selfie Pro. The ‘Pro’ tag gets the smartphone an upgrade to a Full HD AMOLED display, a Snapdragon 625 chipset paired with 4 GB RAM and 64 GB internal storage (expandable to 256 GB using the microSD card).

The selfie camera is the highlight here with a dual pixel 12 MP Sony IMX362 sensor on the front paired with a 5 MP Omnivision sensor sporting camera. Asus uses its DuoPixel camera technology which extrapolates the output to 24 MP. The front camera features an f/1.8 aperture that should deliver better selfies in low light according to Asus. It also offers 4K video recording on the front camera, along with a 120 degree wide angle field of view. Everything else remains the same as the standard Selfie model, such as the 16 MP rear camera.

All the phones announced today come with Android 7.1.1 Nougat OS with a revamped  ZenUI 4.0 skin atop them. The new skin looks a lot lighter, thanks to less pre-installed bloatware.

The Asus ZenFone 4 series line up was **announced** in Taiwan in mid-August and the phones announced there were: ZenFone 4, ZenFone 4 Pro, ZenFone 4 Selfie, ZenFone 4 Selfie Pro. So the demarcation is clear - standard and Pro. There is no indication as to when the other phones from this series will release in India.