14 DAY TRIAL // Asus announced the ZenFone AR, the first Tango and Daydream-ready smartphone, in January this year, but the phone has yet to hit shelves. Smartphones that support Google’s Tango aren’t that many, with the list also including last year’s Lenovo Phab 2 Pro, the first to support Google’s project on augmented reality.
The ZenFone AR adds support for Google’s Daydream platform, another feature that not many phones come with. While the ZenFone AR brings many exciting features and its Tango support ensures applicability in a number of activities, the phone has yet to hit shelves.
Asus CEO Jerry Shen has recently shed light on the matter and revealed that ZenFone AR will see the light of day in July in the US, according to a report.The phone will be exclusive to Verizon this summer, but details about its exact release date and pricing are unknown. The CEO did say that the company wouldn’t charge more than for the Samsung Galaxy S8+, which means that ZenFone AR could actually carry a price tag of around $800.
Over 1,000 Tango apps will be available in 2018
What makes the ZenFone AR special is the number of cameras and sensors on board for 3D mapping. The phone will use these components to understand the environment and overlay a series of objects. Asus' CEO has said that there are 100 Tango apps available at this point, and their number will increase to over 1,000 by next year. ZenFone AR’s advantage over last year’s Lenovo Phab 2 Pro is its thinner and sleeker design.
Three rear cameras on the ZenFone AR are responsible for motion tracking, depth sensing and capturing images using a 23MP Sony IMX318 sensor. In order to support both Tango and Daydream, the ZenFone AR comes with a 5.7-inch Super AMOLED display with 1440 x 2560 QHD resolution and 6GB or 8GB of RAM.
It also features 64GB/128GB of internal memory and runs last year’s Snapdragon 821 chipset, which was optimized to squeeze the highest performance rates. Moreover, the phone features SonicMaster 3 technology for enhanced audio quality and effects.