Taiwanese consumer electronics giant Asus launched its first ever Tango-enabled as well as Daydream-ready Asus ZenFone AR smartphone in India on Thursday at an event in New Delhi. Asus ZenFone AR will cost in India is Rs. 49,999. Asus ZenFone AR will go on sale from 4 pm IST exclusively on Flipkart. Flipkart is offering Rs 2,500 off on Google Daydream View VR headset along with the shopping of ZenFone AR. The Google Daydream View VR headset usually retails for Rs 6,499.
The smartphone was first unveiled back at CES 2017, and its biggest highlight is the presence of 8GB of RAM apart from, of course, support for Google Tango augmented reality (AR) platform as well as the Google Daydream virtual reality (VR) platform. With a set of sensors and cameras, the ZenFone AR lets users navigate the world of augmented reality with Tango AR apps.
The ZenFone AR is notably the world’s second smartphone — the first being Lenovo’s Phab 2 Pro — to support Google’s Tango technology that enables augmented reality (AR) experiences on a relatively affordable phablet form factor: a smartphone that will be aware of it surroundings and allow users to interact with it virtually through AR. The ZenFone AR, is, however, the world’s first (and only) smartphone to support Tango as well as Daydream, Google’s platform for VR experiences on a mobile form factor. The smartphone also sports a “premium-crafted metallic diamond-cut” body and bears a fingerprint sensor on the home button.
Asus ZenFone AR Launch offers
Asus ZenFone AR will only be available in a Black colour variant in India. The company has brought the 8GB of RAM/ 128GB inbuilt storage variant to India, though it had unveiled a 6GB RAM option apart from inbuilt storage ranging from 32GB up to 256GB at launch. In the box, users get the Asus ZenEar S earphones that support DTS Headphone:X and Hi-Res Audio. The ZenEar S are built out of aerospace metal and have a triple diaphragm.
Flipkart has already listed some Asus ZenFone AR launch offers, including a Rs. 2,500 discount on the Google Daydream View VR headset (priced at Rs. 6,499). Every Jio and ZenFone AR user will get up to 100GB additional 4G data and complimentary Jip Prime membership. The user can avail the additional 4G data in the form of one additional 10GB data voucher per recharge or Rs 309 or above, for a maximum of 10 recharges till March 2018.
Asus ZenFone AR specifications
Asus ZenFone AR supports dual-SIM (Nano) and runs ZenUI 3.0 based on Android 7.0 Nougat. It sports a 5.7-inch QHD 1440×2560 pixels Super AMOLED display with Corning Gorilla Glass 4 protection and claims of over 100 percent support for NTSC colour gamut. ZenFone AR is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 SoC (two cores clocked at 2.34GHz and two core clocked at 1.6GHz) that’s been optimised for Google Tango and Daydream VR performance and is coupled with 8GB of LPDDR4 RAM.
The Asus ZenFone AR sports a 23-megapixel rear camera – Sony IMX 318 sensor – with a f/2.0 aperture, 6P Largan lens, TriTech Focus System (dual-PDAF, laser autofocus, continuous autofocus), RGB sensor for colour correction, 4-axis Optical Image Stabilisation (and 3-axis electronic image stabilisation for videos), and RAW file support. The company claims the TriTech system can focus as fast as 0.03 seconds. It supports RAW, 4K UHD video recording and a super-resolution mode that can stitch “four native 23MP photos to create a single 92MP image. On the front, the ZenFone AR sports an 8-megapixel camera sensor with a f/2.0 aperture, an 85-degree wide-angle lens, and dual-LED flash. The front camera offers HDR and real-time beautification modes.
In terms of design, the ZenFone AR boasts a leather and aluminium body, with a screen-to-body ratio of almost 79 per cent.
The ZenFone AR has first announced at CES in January alongside another phone called the ZenFone 3 Zoom. Asus is also expected to launch the dual-camera toting ZenFone 3 Zoom in India soon. “We’re going to be shortly launching the ZenFone 3 Zoom and the ZenFone AR in India,” Dinesh Sharma who is the director, Mobile Product Centre for ASUS India had said while speaking exclusively with India Today Tech in May. “A fair time frame would be within two months,” he had said.
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