The Asus (ZenFone) 6Z Just Launched In India, And It Has A Unique Flipping Selfie Camera

Asus as a brand is synonymous with laptops and computer peripherals. However, it's also ramping up its smartphone offerings since last 18 months, making people sit up and take notice.

It unveiled its flagship device, the Asus 6Z in India today (Also known as the Asus ZenFone 6 globally, but couldn't be launched in India with the same branding due to trademark clash), along with with some 'flipping' inclusions. Priced at Rs 31,999, Let's have a quick look at what this device has to offer.

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The Display

Asus 6Z sports a 6.4-inch IPS (in-plane switching) display with a resolution of 2340x1080 pixels with support for HDR (High Dynamic Range). IPS panel means the viewing angles and colours are amazing, but it'll lack the dark rich blacks of an OLED display. The display is notch-less with an edge-to-edge screen but with a slightly thick chin at the bottom.

The Top

This smartphone boasts a stereo speaker setup, the top section of the display holds the speaker driver, along with the earpiece. They've also included a tiny LED indicator (which is really a boon!). You'll also find the secondary mic for noise cancellation on top.

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The Bottom

The bottom of the smartphone holds the second speaker driver for the stereo speaker setup, along with the primary mic, a USB Type-C charging port and the thing rarer than bismuth crystals these days- a headphone jack!

The Sides

The right side of Asus 6Z holds the power lock key, highlighted with blue accents (which is a neat touch), a volume rocker and a programmable button on top which can be set to a few predefined options or applications (like enabling Google Assistant, Camera shutter etc). The buttons are nice and tactile, however, the programmable key is a little hard to reach single-handedly, considering the size of the device. The left holds the SIM card tray which can hold two SIM cards and a microSD card (up to 1TB) all at the same time.

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The Back

The device possesses the classic glass sandwich design that we're commonly witnessing in devices these days. The glass curves around the edges that makes it easy to hold on to the device. The glass back is held in an all-aluminium chassis which is coated with a matte-finish paint that helps in gripping this otherwise slippery device. The chrome edging looks cool too. The back also holds the fingerprint scanner along with the Asus branding in electric blue. The back also possesses a unique flip camera that we'll talk about in the next section.

Camera

In today's world where smartphones come with 4, even 5 cameras, the Asus 6Z has just two. But don't mistake them to be any less than the competition. This entire camera module flips to work as both front as well as back cameras. The module houses a 26mm, 48-megapixel Sony sensor with f/1.8 (helping in better low-light photography) and a secondary 11mm ultra-wide camera with a 13-megapixel sensor with f/2.4 aperture.

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The camera also gets Laser auto-focus sensors for focussing on subjects instantly. Switching the camera to selfie mode flips the entire camera module to the front using motors, letting users click sharp selfies every-time.

Hardware

Speaking of hardware, this device is no slouch. It is packing Qualcomm's top-of-the-line Snapdragon 855 octa-core processor along with Adreno 640 GPU. The device packs 6GB of RAM with 128GB of storage. The device is also available in an 8GB RAM/ 256GB storage variant. The smartphone is running on Android Pie 9.0 along with Asus's custom Zen UI skin on top. The device also gets a ginormous 5000 mAh battery with support for 18W quick-charging (Qualcomm Quick Charge 4.0).

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Conclusion

With the price tag of Rs 31,999, the Asus 6Z smartphone stands to compete with OnePlus 7, among other smartphones in this category, but is it strong enough? Stay tuned for a hands-on and full-review of Asus 6Z very soon.