Hands-on with the ASUS ZenFone 3 Zoom at CES 2017

ASUS took the wraps off of a slew of products at CES 2017, and while all eyes are on the amazing ZenFone AR, the company also unveiled the official successor to the ZenFone Zoom, that will pique the interest of those looking for a great camera experience.

Here is your first look, as we go hands on with the ASUS ZenFone 3 Zoom!

The ZenFone Zoom had a large and bulky optical zoom lens attached to the back of the phone, that resulted in a somewhat awkward handling experience, but this time around, ASUS has managed to swap all of that with a dual camera setup. We’ve seen a lot of smartphones with dual cameras nowadays and the implementation is always a little different. However, in this case, the dual cameras of the ZenFone 3 Zoom is similar to what is seen with the iPhone 7 Plus.

You have two 12 MP cameras on the back with a f/1.7 aperture, and while the primary lens comes with a 25 mm focal length, the 59 mm focal length of the secondary sensor provides a 2.3x optical zoom. The camera is capable of going up to a 12x zoom though, but anything beyond the 2.3x mark is going to be digital.

The camera setup also comes with a new autofocusing system that ASUS is calling TriTech+. As the name suggests, this combines three technologies, including a laser autofocus system, subject tracking, and dual pixel phase detection autofocus, to make for an extremely fast focusing speed of just 0.03 seconds. The front camera is noteworthy as well, featuring a 13 MP unit with a f/2.0 aperture, which should be more than enough to cover all your selfie needs.

The implementation of the dual camera setup isn’t the only similarity you will see between the ZenFone 3 Zoom and the iPhone 7 Plus, with the former featuring a design that is largely reminiscent of the latter. The ZenFone 3 Zoom comes with a full metal unibody construction that is mostly flat and with rounded corners, not unlike the Apple flagship. Of course, ASUS manages to retain the headphone jack which can be found at the bottom, next to the USB Type-C port and a single speaker unit.

The device is just 7.99 mm thick, which is quite impressive when you consider the fact that the ZenFone 3 Zoom packs a massive 5,000 mAh battery. That should allow for excellent battery life on a single charge, and ASUS claims that the device can last for as long as 42 days on standby.

The rest of the specifications are standard fare for a current generation mid-range smartphone. It features a 5.5-inch AMOLED display with a 1080p resolution, and under the hood is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor, backed by 4 GB of RAM. There is also a fingerprint sensor on the back. The device is running Android 6.0 Marshmallow with the ZenUI on top, which will provide a largely identical experience to what we’ve seen from the ZenFone 3 series so far.

So there you have it for this quick look at the ASUS ZenFone 3 Zoom! The device is officially slated to release in February, but pricing and the regions it will release in are yet to be confirmed. Stay tuned with Android Authority for more about the ASUS ZenFone 3 Zoom, and for our ongoing coverage from CES 2017!