Asus Zenfone 9 finally has a launch date. The Taiwanese company announced its next Zenfone flagship phone is coming to global markets on July 28. Asus mentioned the launch event will originally take place in Taiwan’s capital Taipei, but it will be live-streamed for anyone to catch up. For the rest of the world, the phone will arrive as Zenfone 9, but in India, it will be known as Asus 9z, if the company decides to bring it here.
On its website, Asus teased the launch with adjectives, such as “Compact Size”, hinting at a compact phone. Last year, Asus launched the Asus Zenfone 8 and Zenfone 8 Flip, the former of which was a petite phone — much like the iPhone 13 mini. This time the speculation is there will be two phones, but if not, the Asus Zenfone 9 will arrive as the successor to the Zenfone 8.
Asus has announced the Zenfone 9 launch event will begin at 9 pm Taipei time, which is 6.30 pm in India, on July 28. The event will be available to watch online for anyone to catch real-time updates. Asus has, however, not said anything about the launch plans for India yet.
The Asus Zenfone 9 specifications are not official as of now. However, a leaked video suggested the phone will come with a 5.9-inch AMOLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate. It will rock Qualcomm’s top-end Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 processor with up to 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. A microSD card slot is unlikely, however.
The Asus Zenfone 9 may ship with Android 12 with the company’s own skin on top. Its camera unit on the back may include a 50-megapixel Sony IMX766 sensor with features such as optical image stabilisation and gimbal stabilisation. The video showed a secondary camera on the phone’s back, but its graphics resolution is unclear at the moment.
Feuling the phone’s power could be a 4300mAh battery with support for 65W fast charging support. There could also be a headphone jack available on the phone since Asus is likely to pitch this phone to gamers. Speaking of which, the Asus Zenfone 9 may sport shoulder triggers for aided gaming, blurring the lines further between the Zenfone and ROG Phone lineups.
But the most interesting feature on the Asus Zenfone 9 could be the side-mounted fingerprint sensor, which, in addition to letting you unlock the phone, will double as what the company is calling the “Smart Key.” What it would essentially do is let you scroll through articles and webpages with a slide up and down. It could be the best form of the comeback of the scroll feature on smartphones.
A tipster suggested the Zenfone 9 could cost between EUR 800 and EUR 900, which translates to roughly Rs 64,700 and Rs 72,800. The Asus Zenfone 9 is expected to arrive in different colours.
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