Forget iPhone, Samsung Galaxy: Is this the most powerful phone ever?

The world’s most powerful smartphone may have just been launched by an unlikely contender: Asus.
Asus has announced a new variant of the Asus ZenFone 3 Deluxe, a flagship device that runs on Qualcomm’s brand new Snapdragon 821 processor, marking it as the world’s first phone to feature the powerful chip. The handset is a spin-off from the main ZenFone 3 range that was first unveiled at this year’s Computex.
The beefed up device also features a 5.7-inch Full HD display, a 23-megapixel camera, a fingerprint scanner, a USB-C port, 6GB RAM, and an incredible 256GB of fast UFS 2.0 storage. Basically, it’s got some of the best hardware on the market right now.
The Snapdragon 821, only announced on Monday, is Qualcomm’s most powerful system-on-a-chip to date. It’s said to be 10% faster than the Snapdragon 820, running a quad-core Kryo CPU at speeds up to 2.4GHz. It also features the same super-fast Snapdragon X12 modem – just like the Snapdragon 820 – that offers theoretical download speeds of up to 600Mbps.
“The 821 is engineered to deliver faster speed, improved power savings, and greater application performance,ensuring 821 powered devices keep pace with the growing performance demands of users,” explained a Qualcomm spokesperson at the launch of the Snapdragon 821.
The ZenFone 3 Deluxe starts at NT$15,990 (around £380), rising up to NT$24,990 (around £590) for the most expensive model.
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What do you think of the Asus ZenFone 3 Deluxe? Let us know in the comments.