Asus ZenFone AR – The World’s First Phone with 8GB RAM and Google Tango

Presenting at CES 2017, Asus has announced its ZenFone AR as the world’s first device which is both Google Tango enabled and Daydream-ready. Technically not first but you can say the first high-end or first flagship smartphone with Tango. Lenovo previously has launched Phab 2 Pro as the first device with Google Tango but that was just below the the mid-range stuff.

Well, Tango is a set of sensors and computer-vision software by Google that enables smartphone for augmented reality experience. Daydream is Google’s platform for high-quality, mobile virtual reality and supports Daydream VR apps.

In fact, ZenFone AR sure is the world’s first Tango enabled device to be powered by the not-so-latest but yet latest available Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 processor, and is designed to deliver smartphone augmented reality experiences.

Weighing 160 grams ZenFone AR is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 chipset with 2.35GHz processor that is optimized for Tango, and is the world’s first smartphone with 8GB of RAM. A 6GB model is also available. ZenFone AR has 5.7-inch WQHD Super AMOLED display. The phone runs Android 7.0 Nougat with ZenUI 3.0.

Related: Asus ZenFone 3 Zoom with Dual Camera and Optical Zoom

Camera

The augmented reality expert smartphone also features a 23 megapixel main camera along with motion-tracking camera and depth-sensing camera – coupled as “Asus TriCam System”. Asus claims as its TriCam system clusters its array of cameras to reduce their footprint within the phone while enabling the entire phone to be thinner and lighter.

The main camera is reported to be using Sony’s IMX318 image sensor under the hood and also features optical image stabilization along with various other specialized sensors for Tango AR experience.

Front camera is 8 megapixel with 85˚ wide-viewing angle f/2.0 aperture lens.

Other Features

ZenFone AR features a new five-magnet speaker that makes Daydream VR apps, games, and videos more immersive and entertaining and Android Nougat lets users get the most out of the device with its AR/VR capabilities.

Other features include 3300mAh battery with Quick Charge 3.0 and internal storage options come in variety of 32GB, 64GB, 128GB, and 256GB along with microSD card support up to 2 terabyte. Comes with free cloud storage of 5GB from Asus WebStorage for life and 100GB of Google Drive for 2 years.

ZenFone AR supports nano-SIM in dual-SIM slots and features NFC connectivity and supports USB Type-C 2.0. Sensors include Accelerator, E-Compass, Gyroscope, Proximity sensor, Hall sensor, Ambient light sensor, RGB sensor, IR sensor (Laser Focus), Fingerprint scanner, and Barometer. For navigation the phone supports GPS/A-GPS/GLONASS/BDS.

Price and Availability

Unfortunately, there is no pricing hint about the Asus ZenFone AR but the availability is promised to be within second quarter of 2017.  Now when Snapdragon 835 has already been launched, ZenFone AR with Snapdragon 821 coming not so quickly will be bad decision unless the 835 won’t make it within the first half of 2017 as specified.