AR-ready ASUS ZenFone with up to 8GB RAM is coming

IT’S been almost five months since the ASUS ZenFone AR was launched at CES 2017 in Las Vegas. So whatever happened to the first Tango- and Daydream VR-enabled phone?

Good news: At the Computex computer expo in Taipei, ASUS has finally confirmed that it will roll out to different markets soon. The Philippines and, of course, its native Taiwan will get the device in June, ahead of everyone else. The United States and Canada will have it by July.

Earlier, on May 25, ASUS India director for mobile product center Dinesh Sharma revealed that the ZenFone AR will be launched in the world’s fastest-growing smartphone market within two months. So the rollout in India should be by July as well.

No price has been announced yet, but when asked if the device will cost more than the Samsung Galaxy S8+, ASUS CEO Jerry Shen did say to international tech site Engadget that they “won’t dare charge more than that.” In the Philippines, the 64GB variant of the bigger S8 costs P45,990 or roughly $922.

The ASUS ZenFone AR will not cost more than the Samsung Galaxy S8+.

As mentioned earlier, the ASUS ZenFone AR is the first device to support both Tango and Daydream. Tango is Google’s augmented-reality system for smartphones, which enables new experiences in apps and games by bringing virtual objects to real-world settings. Daydream VR, on the other hand, is a virtual-reality platform built directly into Android. Watch the first part of this video to understand the two.

ASUS’ ‘Meet the ZenFone AR’ video

The ASUS ZenFone AR’s chipset isn’t Qualcomm’s latest and greatest; there’s only a Snapdragon 821 here, but it has been optimized for Tango. Also, the RAM is a whopping 8GB. There’s a variant with lesser RAM — 6GB to be exact; however, even that is still large by today’s standards.

Up front is a 5.7-inch quad-HD AMOLED screen, and inside is a 3,300mAh battery. And because AR and VR apps can cause a lot of heat when being used, there’s a special cooling system that prevents the internals from getting fried. To see the phone’s complete specs, swing by this page.

So, what do you think is the fair price for the ASUS ZenFone AR? Sound off in the comments section below.

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Alora Uy Guerrero

Editor-in-chief: Alora Uy Guerrero has 22 years of experience as an editor for print and digital publications such as Yahoo. She took time off journalism to manage OPPO’s digital-marketing campaigns. When not busy with her babies, she’s working on Revü, a passion project — or probably traveling or obsessing over her favorite bands, movies, TV shows, and basketball teams.