Asus Zenfone AR, First Tango Phone Powered by Snapdragon 821 SoC Leaked

Last month rumors hinted about the launch of Zenfone 3 Zoom at the CES 2016, but the accidentally posted blog post from Qualcomm confirmed the launch of a new Tango Phone by Asus. The device will be officially launched on January 4th at the ongoing CES 2017. Though there is no complete information about the device, we got to know a couple of features. At the Lenovo Tech World event held in mid-2016, Lenovo unveiled the world’s first Tango phone called as Lenovo Phab 2 Pro. Now, the Asus Zenfone AR will be second Tango phone and might feature pretty good internals compared to Lenovo’s Phab 2 Pro.

The Asus Zenfone AR will be powered by the Snapdragon 821 quad-core SoC which is upgraded variant of the Snapdragon 820 SoC. It comes clocked at 2.35GHz and is coupled with Adreno 530 GPU. The Asus Zenfone 2 Deluxe launched at Computex 2016 is the first smartphone to come with this new processor. For comparison, the Phab 2 Pro came with the mid-range Snapdragon 652 octa-core processor. As mentioned in the blog post, the Zenfone AR will also be the first Tango phone to support the Google Daydream View VR headset. The reliable leakster, Evan Blass also posted the first renders of this upcoming smartphone.

From the above featured image, we can see the several sensors on the sensor on the rear that gives perfect Augmented Reality experience based on the surroundings. With the Daydream and Augmented Reality combined, the users can get new experience using the Google apps or even the third-party apps that support AR. However, the Zenfone AR runs on the Zen UI which looks different from the stock Android experience. It has a physical home button on the front that comes embedded with a fingerprint sensor. Apart from the Snapdragon 821 SoC, we can even expect the device to carry some powerful hardware.

The blog post also mentioned, “With Zenfone AR and the Daydream View headset and controller, you’ll be able to explore new worlds with apps like Google Street View and Fantastic Beasts, dive into your personal VR cinema with YouTube, Netflix, Hulu and HBO, and get your game on with Gunjack 2, LEGO BrickHeadz, Need for Speed and dozens other titles”. While the Tango phone offers a different experience than the regular Android smartphones, with the Zenfone AR’s compatibility with Tango and Daydream can bring even more new features. We can get complete details about the device specifications and features only after official launch which is just a day away.

Stay tuned on Phone Radar for more details!