Asus is reportedly working on a new series of new Zenfone 4 handsets which it plans to unveil in May this year.
The report from DigiTimes cites sources from Taiwan’s handset supply chain as claiming the new range of Zenfone 4 smartphones will arrive with “higher” hardware specifications than the recent Zenfone 3 line.
It states the company shipped around 17.5 million Zenfone-series smartphones in 2016, which is a 14.6% drop from the 20.5 million it shipped in 2015.
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As such, Asus is hoping the upcoming launch of the Zenfone 3 Zoom in February, combined with the upcoming Zenfone AR, and the rumoured new Zenfone 4 series, will help improve shipment numbers and earnings this year, according to the sources.
The Zenfone AR was announced at CES 2017 and comes packing a Snapdragon 821 chip, with a whopping 8GB of RAM, and a QHD AMOLED screen.
Whether the rumoured Zenfone 4 series will follow the AR’s example remains to be seen, though the DigiTimes report seems to suggest the new phones will indeed be high-end devices.
The report also suggests we’ll be getting an entire new line of smartphones rather than a single device, so we may well see some mid-range offerings arriving in May, too, if the information is accurate.
DigiTimes has a patchy record when it comes to these rumours, so the usual pinch of salt approach applies here as none of the information has been verified.
Towards the end of 2016, an Asus handset with the model number X00GD was spotted over at China’s TENAA regulatory board’s website.
The mid-range device could be part of the rumoured Zenfone 4 series mentioned in the latest report, but there’s no way to be sure.
The X00GD features a 4,850mAh battery, which is considerably larger than most current high-end handsets, along with a 5.2-inch 1,280 x 720 screen and 2 or 4GB of RAM.
We’ll just have to wait to find out if this is indeed one of these rumoured Zenfone 4 phones, so stay tuned for the latest.
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Let us know what you think of the rumour in the comments.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
