The Asus ZenFone 6 was one of the most unique and affordable flagships available in 2019, sporting a flip camera module that allowed users to access the high-quality rear-facing cameras when taking selfies, negated the need for a front-facing camera in the process – either in the form of a notch or hole-punch, both of which would obscure the display of the phone.
The ZenFone 7 is set to continue the trend in 2020, but when will it be announced? And what will it feature? We round up all the latest ZenFone 7 rumours right here, from announcement timings to expected pricing and leaked features.
When will the Asus ZenFone 7 be announced?
The biggest question mark right now is surrounding the Asus ZenFone 7 announcement and eventual release.
Taiwan’s Commercial Times reports that the company is planning to launch the ZenFone 7 and ROG Phone 3 in Q3 2020 – somewhere within July to September. It claimed that the phones could be announced for China at the end of the second quarter, but considering Q2 officially ended at the end of June, that doesn’t seem to be the case.
For more on upcoming smartphones, take a look at the best new phones coming in 2020.
How much will the Asus ZenFone 7 cost?
Asus impressed consumers by keeping the price of 2019’s flagship ZenFone 6 in-line with that of the previous generation ZenFone 5Z, but, as confirmed by Asus during an investors conference in Taipei, that trend will likely end with the upcoming ZenFone 7.
As first reported by rumour site ZenFone.org, executives were quizzed about the upcoming ZenFone during a Q&A session at the company’s latest Investors Conference. There was a particular focus on whether the ZenFone 7 will ship with 5G, the latest connectivity standard which has already featured in many flagship smartphones in 2020 so far.
Asus execs allegedly confirmed that the ZenFone 7 will ship with 5G, but with the caveat that it’ll be more expensive than the ZenFones before it. No exact prices were confirmed during the conference, but with the phrase “significantly higher” thrown around, we’re expecting more of a premium this time around.
If true, we could see the price of the ZenFone 7 jump right up from the ZenFone 6’s £499/US$499 to current flagship-level prices.
With confirmation that the ZenFone 7 will be more expensive, we estimate that it could cost at least £650/$650, but we’ll update this section with any more pricing-related news as soon as we hear it.
Asus ZenFone 7 features and spec rumours
So, what will the ZenFone 7 feature? We already know that it’s likely, if not confirmed, that the ZenFone 7 will sport 5G connectivity and another leak suggests that Asus may finally be ready to introduce wireless charging to the ZenFone range.
The Wireless Power Consortium (WPC), as the name suggests, is a collaborative wireless standard development group with more than 500 member companies around the world. It’s essentially the go-to for the wireless charging standard and the website lists all certified wireless chargers currently available around the world.
While the list is populated with many of the key players in the wireless charging industry, including Mophie and Belkin, Asus-branded wireless chargers have made an appearance despite no current smartphone supporting the wireless charging standard. The chargers support a maximum of 15W, and unless Asus is planning to get into the accessory market, we imagine these will be official accessories for the ZenFone 7 and any other Asus-made wireless-charging-enabled smartphones due on the market in 2020.
Wireless charging-aside, it’s likely that the ZenFone 7 will see an upgrade to 2020 flagship internals, including the upcoming Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 (partly to accommodate 5G connectivity) alongside greater amounts of RAM and storage.
To that point, in late June Twitter user, Abhishek Yadav posted a screenshot from Geekbench’s profiler detailing a device registered as the ‘Asus ZF’, running a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor with a base clock speed of 1.8GHz, a mighty 16GB of RAM and running on Android 10.
Asus Zenfone ZF Or 7Z Spotted On Geekbench.👉16Gb Ram👉 Snapdragon 865👉Android 10.0 pic.twitter.com/Fsa9PDCFyR
— Abhishek Yadav (@yabhishekhd)
June 18, 2020
It’s not a stretch to assume that ‘ZF’ stands for ‘ZenFone’, while a base frequency of 1.8GHz lines up with the likelihood of a Snapdragon 865 chip. 16GB of RAM meanwhile is a lot – the most we’ve seen in a smartphone – so we’re assuming this if this is the ZenFone 7, it’s just one SKU; with alternatives sporting 12GB, 10GB and/or 8GB of RAM also arriving at launch.
That was somewhat confirmed by a TNNToday report, suggesting that there will be two variants of ZenFone 7, unlike the single model from last year.
The flipping camera module which debuted on the ZenFone 6 is likely to make a return, according to the same TNNT report, giving users access to the high-quality rear-cameras on the front of the device when required. The notch-ditching feature was unique compared to other 2019 flagships, and let’s be honest, it made for a pretty cool party trick too.
The site suggests that it’ll feature more lenses than last year’s model to keep in-line with the multiple camera offerings of other flagship smartphones in 2020.
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