14 DAY TRIAL // Back at CES 2015 ASUS came prepared to impress. The Taiwanese device maker pulled out of the bag the ZenFone 2, which is the world’s first handset to be announced with 4GB of RAM.
But ASUS also had something else up its sleeve, something meant to cater to the needs of folks who like to snap pictures with their phones.
We’re talking about the ASUS ZenFone Zoom which has been presented to the world as the handset with the thinnest 3x optical zoom. The product also enjoys a 10-element lens.
ASUS is not the first to implement an optical zoom in a tight and compact case. Samsung did it before by adding a 10x offering in its K Zoom device.
The big difference is that the ASUS ZenFone Zoom manages to boast a 11.95-mm / 0.47-inch frame, while the K Zoom was a little thicker, measuring 20.2 mm / 0.79 inches.
ASUS worked with HOYA for the photo module on the ZenFone Zoom
If you have been wondering how ASUS managed to keep the camera module so slim, maybe you’d like to know the company had a little bit of help.
It turns out that for their Zoom phone, ASUS had a deal with HOYA, the maker of the world’s thinnest 3x optical zoom set, as reported by What's On Tech.
The module in question is called the CUBE lens and is 6 mm / 0.23 inches in height. It comes equipped with 3x optical image stabilization and its imaging element is a 13.1MP, 1/3-type CMOS image sensor.
ASUS has yet to make the ZenFone Zoom available for purchase, as the company said we should expect the phone to make it into retail sometime in Q2 for the price of $399 / €334.
The ZenFone Zoom arrives with a 5.5-inch handset with 1080p IPS LCD display with 400 nits of peak brightness and a 64-bit quad-core Atom processor working on the inside (although we’re not exactly told which one that is).
The phone relies on a 3,000 mAh battery which should maintain a decent life cycle, even if you’re constantly out taking pictures with it.
