14 DAY TRIAL // Yesterday, we reported that Asus and Flipkart were likely to launch one of the smartphones in the Zenfone lineup in India, but it appears that there are two handsets from the series that are now available for purchase.
Aside from the Zenfone 5 that we mentioned in a previous article, Asus has announced the Zenfone 6 is also going on sale in India, but for a higher price given the better specs.
Asus’ Zenfone family of smartphones was officially introduced by the company back in January at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2014. Some of these handsets have already been released in China and a few other Asian countries, but customers in India will also be able to grab the Zenfone 5 and 6 beginning today.
Asus Zenfone 6 should soon be available for purchase exclusively via Flipkart for no less than Rs 17,999 ($300 / €220) outright, fonearena notes. Customers will be able to choose from four color options, such as Charcoal Black, Pearl White, Cherry Red, and Champagne Gold.
As the name suggests, the handset sports a huge 6-inch IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen display that supports HD (720p) resolution and features Corning Gorilla Glass 3 coating for extra protection.
That puts the Zenfone 6 in the phablet category, so those looking for an Android smartphone with a large display may want to take this one into consideration.
The bad news is the smartphone ships with the Android 4.3 Jelly Bean operating system out of the box. Even though Asus confirmed that the Zenfone 6 would eventually receive an Android 4.4.2 KitKat update, there are no details on when exactly it may be released.
Fortunately, Asus Zenfone 6 offers dual-SIM capability with dual standby, so users will be able to fit in two microSIM cards instead of just one.
Furthermore, the smartphone is equipped with a dual-core Intel Atom Z2580 processor clocked at 2GHz, which is complemented by a PowerVR SGX544 MP2 graphics processing unit and 2GB of RAM.
Asus’ phablet packs 16GB of internal memory, but users can further expand storage up to 64GB via the microSD card slot. Another strong point of the device would be the 13-megapixel photo snapper on the back, which features autofocus, LED flash and full HD (1080p) video recording capabilities.
Asus Zenfone 6 provides users with multiple connectivity options, including 3G HSPA+, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, microUSB, GPS with A-GPS, and 3.5mm audio jack.
It’s also worth mentioning that the smartphone is powered by a 3300 mAh battery and packs a 2-megapixel camera on the front for video calls and selfies.