Asus has officially announced Zenfone AR at ongoing CES 2017. It is the smartphone in the world that is compatible with both Tango AR platform and Google’s Daydream VR platform. This also makes Zenfone AR the second ever Tango enabled smartphone as the first one is Lenovo Phab 2 Pro.
It sports a 5.7-inch 1440 x 2560 super AMOLED display and is powered by recently announced Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 821 processor. The phone runs Android 7.0 Nougat and has 8GB of RAM. At the back, it has a 23-megapixel main camera with a motion tracking camera and a depth sensing camera that supports Tango’s AR capabilities. It also comes with a new “immersive” five-magnet speaker that supports High-Res Audio and DTS virtual surround sound.
For those unaware, Tango is an augmented reality (AR) platform that combines camera, gyroscope, and accelerometer to estimate six degree of freedom motion tracking, providing you the ability to track 3D motion of a device while simultaneously creating a map of the environment. Daydream is a virtual reality (VR) platform built into Android 7.0 Nougat and above. Asus states the phone “was developed in close cooperation with Google to deliver the best user experience” using both AR and VR technologies.
Asus Zenfone AR (ZS571KL) Specifications
- 5.7-inch (2560 × 1440 pixels) Quad HD Super AMOLED display, NTSC over 100%, Corning Gorilla Glass 4 protection
- 2.3GHz Quad-Core Snapdragon 821 processor with Adreno 530 GPU
- 6GB / 8GB LPDDR4 RAM,32GB / 64GB / 128GB / 256GB (UFS 2.0) internal storage, expandable memory with microSD
- Android 7.0 (Nougat) with Zen UI 3.0
- Hybrid dual SIM (micro+nano/microSD)
- 23MP rear camera with dual-tone LED Flash, Sony IMX318 sensor, f/2.0 aperture, 6P Largan lens, 4-axis OIS, 3-axis EIS, Laser AF
- 8MP front-facing camera, f/2.0 aperture, 85-degree wide-viewing angle
- Fingerprint sensor
- Built-in Mono 5 magnet speaker, ASUS SonicMaster 3.0, DTS Headphone: X for virtual 7.1 surround sound Hi-Res Audio 192kHz/24-bit standard, NXP Smart AMP technology
- Dimensions: 158.67 x 77.7 x 4.6 ~ 8.95 mm; Weight:170g
- 4G VoLTE, WiFi 802.11 ac5 GHz 2×2 MIMO, Bluetooth 4.2, GPS, USB Type-C
- 3300mAh battery with Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0
The Asus Zenfone AR comes in Charcoal Black color with leather finish and will roll out starting from Q2 2017. No word on the pricing yet.