ASUS’s ZenFone 5 smartphone lineup, which dates back to the Android Jelly Bean days, was succeeded by the ZenFone 2 and ZenFone 3. But the company’s said to be prepping a trio of new ZenFone 5 smartphones ahead of an unveiling at Mobile World Congress 2018, and one member of the new family, the ASUS ZenFone 5 Lite, broke cover on social media this week.
VentureBeat’s Evan Blass, who has a reliable track record when it comes to smartphone rumors, published specifications and a press render of the ASUS ZenFone 5 Lite on Twitter. According to Mr. Blass, the upcoming smartphone will have a Full HD+ screen, a rear fingerprint sensor, and an edge-to-edge design with narrow bezels. The real highlight of the handset, though, is its “quad camera”: a front-facing camera module with two 20MP sensors and a rear camera module with a pair of 16MP sensors.
Asus Zenfone 5 Lite – quad cam (2 x 20MP selfie + 2 x 16MP rear) FHD+ pic.twitter.com/819mlsLJm7
— Evan Blass (@evleaks) February 9, 2018
The ZenFone 5 Lite isn’t the first in the upcoming ZenFone 5 series out of the woodwork. In early February, WinFuture posted a leaked user manual for the “ASUS X00PD“, revealing the unibody smartphone’s 5.7-inch 18:9 aspect ratio display, microUSB port, 3.5mm headphone jack, dual rear camera module, and fingerprint sensor. Benchmarks results for the “X00PD” on Geekbench point to 3GB of RAM and a Qualcomm octa-core Snapdragon 430 system-on-chip (SoC)under the hood.
By all appearances, this year’s ZenFone 5 lineup will be significantly more powerful than previous generations, most of which packed Intel Atom SoCs. But if history is any indication, they won’t break the bank — the ASUS ZenFone 4 (A500CG) had a starting price of around $127, and the ZenFone 5 (A500KL) was less than $200 at launch.
Mr. Blass didn’t provide details regarding the ZenFone 5 Lite’s pricing or availability, but we expect to learn more at ASUS’s press conference at MWC 2018 in Barcelona, Spain later this month.
…in (from left to right) Midnight Black, Moonlight White, and Rouge Red pic.twitter.com/yPVqnidM7g
— Evan Blass (@evleaks) February 10, 2018
Update 2/10/2018: Mr. Blass published additional renders of the ASUS ZenFone 5 Lite in three color configurations: Midnight Black, Moonlight White, and Rouge Red.
Source: @evleaks
