Asus Zenfone 5 release date, price, news and features

Asus has just unveiled a trio of new smartphones, namely the Zenfone 5, Zenfone 5Z and Zenfone 5 Lite, and they all pack big screens squeezed into small bodies.

They’re also attractively priced and – in the case of the Asus Zenfone 5Z – have flagship specs, so they could well be worth considering, even in the face of competition from big name brands like Samsung and Sony.

We’ve collected all the available information about all three of these handsets, so read on below for everything you need to know.

Asus Zenfone 5 release date and price

Asus hasn’t given any exact release dates for its new handsets yet, but it has said that the Zenfone 5Z will be available in the UK later this year from £500 (around $700/AU$885). The Asus Zenfone 5 meanwhile will be available in the UK from early Q3 (so probably July or August), but no price details have yet been provided.

So far we don’t have any details on the Zenfone 5 Lite’s price or release date – or information about any of them for the US or Australia – but we’ll update this article when we learn more.

Asus Zenfone 5 design and screen

The Asus Zenfone 5Z and Asus Zenfone 5 both have glass-covered bodies, with a shimmery design in Midnight Blue or Meteor Silver.

The screen has tiny bezels and an iPhone X-like notch at the top, allowing for a 90% screen-to-body ratio. That’s allowed the company to stick a 6.2-inch screen in a shell that’s apparently the size of a typical 5.5-inch phone.

Both phones also come in at 155g and have a super widescreen 19:9 aspect ratio and a Full HD+ resolution.

Their screens are IPS LCD and should work through gloves, the two phones can also automatically alter their color temperature based on the ambient lighting.

The Zenfone 5 Lite meanwhile has a 6-inch Full HD+ IPS screen with an 18:9 aspect ratio, and it too has slim bezels and is supposedly the size of a typical 5.5-inch handset.

Asus Zenfone 5 camera

The Asus Zenfone 5Z and Asus Zenfone 5 both have two cameras on the back – a 12MP f/1.8 main camera and a 120-degree wide-angle secondary lens, which you can use when you want to fit more in a shot.

Both phones can record video in 4K, and also have AI camera features, allowing them to automatically detect the type of scene you’re shooting and adjust the settings accordingly.

But if you want more control there’s also a pro mode, which lets you manually adjust most settings, and both phones have an 8MP f/2.0 front-facing camera.

The Asus Zenfone 5 Lite meanwhile has a 16MP rear camera and a 20MP front-facing camera, and both of them come with 120-degree secondary lenses for wide-angle shots, so it has four camera lenses in total.

Asus Zenfone 5 battery

All three Zenfone 5 models have 3,300mAh batteries, and while we don’t know much about the Zenfone 5 Lite’s, we do know that for the standard Zenfone 5 and Zenfone 5Z there’s both fast charging and ‘AI Charging’, which means the battery can monitor your charging habits and adjust the charge rate accordingly, to help the battery age slower.

Asus Zenfone 5 specs and power

This is one of the main differences between the phones, as while the Asus Zenfone 5Z has up to 8GB of RAM and a top-end Snapdragon 845 chipset, the standard Asus Zenfone 5 has just 4GB of RAM and a mid-range Snapdragon 636 chipset. Then the Zenfone 5 Lite is lower still (though still mid-range) with its Snapdragon 630 chipset.

The Zenfone 5Z also has more storage, with up to 256GB built in, compared to 64GB on the standard Asus Zenfone 5, though both also have a microSD card slot, as does the Zenfone 5 Lite.

The two headline phones also run Android Oreo – the Zenfone 5 Lite quite possibly does as well, but that hasn’t yet been confirmed.

Asus Zenfone 5 other features

All three Zenfone 5 models have fingerprint scanners and facial recognition, as well as NFC – so contactless payments should be supported.

The Zenfone 5 and Zenfone 5Z also have dual stereo speakers and support for Hi-Res audio. As with so many other things the Zenfone 5 Lite might also have these features, but details are currently thin on the ground.

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