There’s been a lot of hype surrounding the ZenFone 2 by Asus, and it’s probably entirely justified – the device is a great combination of features at a great price, according to most reviewers, and it’s definitely a solid entry into the Android market that more people should check out. And it seems that soon, users in the US will get a chance to try out the phone, as it’s headed to the country on May 18.
Meanwhile, Indians are going to get a 128 GB version of the phone, according to recent reports. It went up for pre-purchase on Flipkart, where it was listed at Rs 29,999, but at this time there is no information about the device’s availability or when it would actually be released. However, before that we got reports that the phone will be available in the country soon, so it’s probably safe to expect it any day now.
Flipkart will be the only ones selling it, according to the same reports, as Asus have chosen them for their exclusive retailer for the device on the Indian market. It’s not clear if this is a time-limited situation or if the phone really will be sold only through Flipkart even in the future, but that’s how things are at the moment.
It comes in several different versions, namely the ZenFone 2 ZE551ML which has 4 GB of RAM and 64 GB of built-in storage, and costs Rs 22,999; then there’s the ZE551ML which has 32 GB of built-in storage and lowers the price to Rs 19,999; and there’s also the ZE551ML which cuts the RAM in half to 2 GB and also has 16 GB of built-in storage, costing Rs 14,999. The ZenFone 2 ZE550ML is offered at Rs 12,999.
Other than the good storage options, the phone also has a 64-bit 2.3 GHz processor with four cores on the 4 GB versions, and an 1.8 GHz quad-core processor on the 2 GB variant. The display on all devices has been noted for its exceptional picture quality and durable build, sporting Gorilla Glass 3 and GloveTouch in order to make the touch experience the best there is on the market right now.
On the software side, the phone runs the special Zen UI by Asus, built on top of the standard Android 5.0 release. The OS has been noted to work quite well and without any issues compared to the default Android 5.0 experience, although nobody expected anything really different considering that Zen UI has already established its presence on the market.