Asus ZenFone Zoom with 3X optical zoom to launch mid-December

Asus ZenFone Zoom, which was unveiled at CES this year will finally go on sale this month in Taiwan. The company will be offering two variants based on chipsets. According to  eprice, the device with an internal storage of 64GB along with a 2.3GHz quad-core Intel Atom Z3580 processor has been priced at TWD 13,990 (approximately Rs 28,500) while the device with an internal storage of 128GB and a 2.5GHz quad-core Intel Atom Z3590 processor will be priced at TWD 15,990 (approximately Rs 32,500). In terms of specifications, the smartphone features a 5.5-inch display with a 1920 x 1080 resolution along with a 403ppi. It uses Gorilla Glass 4 for protection. It is powered by a quad-core Intel Atom processor paired with 4GB RAM. It offers 64GB or 128GB of internal storage plus microSD card slots. The main USP of the smartphone is its camera. It is said to be the world’s thinnest smartphone sporting a 13MP camera with optical-zoom. Additional features are f/2.7 – f/4.8 10-element Hoya lens, laser AF and dual-LED ‘Real Tone’ flash. It also includes optical image stabilization (OIS) and the device is capable of up to 12X magnification along with close-ups shots from only 5cm away with its macro shooting mode. In addition, the phone includes a 5MP front facing camera. Connectivity options include Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, 4G LTE (Cat 4) and microUSB 2.0. The Android Lollipop based smartphone comes with ZenUI on top and is backed by a 3,000mAh battery.