Asus To Launch The ZenFone 6 In India As Asus 6Z On The 19th Of June
Asus launched its latest flagship smartphone, the ZenFone 6 at an event in Valencia, Spain on the 16th of May. The device features top tier specifications at a more affordable price than similarly specced handsets available currently. It has been long speculated that the company will launch the latest smartphone in India soon, but no announcements regarding it were made. Now, it has been revealed the ZenFone 6 will be launched in India with the name Asus 6Z on the 19th of June. The change of name is allegedly due to a legal battle in the Delhi High Court against the ZenFone branding.
About the case
The aforementioned lawsuit against Asus was filed by Telecare, which owns the trademark for the Zen and Zen Mobiles name. To not cause confusion between products of the two companies, the Delhi High Court ordered Asus not to sell any product which is identical or deceptively similar to the trademark “Zen” and “Zen Mobile”. Notably, this decision will affect the company’s product lineup only in India at the moment. Interestingly, Telecare alleges that it started selling products under the registered name in the year 2008; while Asus began the sales of its ZenFone lineup starting in year 2014.
Asus 6Z
The Asus 6Z is the latest flagship offering by the company as mentioned above and will succeed the ZenFone 5Z. It measures 159.1 x 75.44 x 8.4mm and weighs 190g. The smartphone has a glass design on the front and back with a metal chassis for reinforcement. It has a 6.4 inch LCD display with a resolution of 2340 x 1080 px. The screen to body ratio of the device stands in at an impressive 92 percent which is achieved by implementing a flip up camera mechanism. Like the Samsung Galaxy A80, the Asus 6Z has a rotating camera setup which can be used to take pictures from the rear as well as the front. For biometric security and rapidly unlocking the handset, it has a rear mounted fingerprint scanner and supports face unlock.
Under the hood, the Asus 6Z is kitted with the 7nm Snapdragon 855 SoC which is comprised of an Octa-core CPU and the Adreno 640 GPU. In terms of optics, the smartphone has a dual camera setup which consists of an f/1.8 aperture equipped 48MP primary sensor and a secondary f/2.4 aperture equipped 13MP Ultra wide angle sensor. As mentioned before, the device uses a flip camera mechanism to click pictures at different angles. For memory and storage, the handset may be launched in the following variants.
- 6GB RAM and 64GB ROM
- 8GB RAM and 128GB ROM
- 8GB RAM and 256GB ROM
The Asus 6Z is powered by a massive 5000 mAh battery which supports 18W fast charging. It has a unique Google Assistant button on the top right which can also be configured to open any application based on the user’s choice. In terms of connectivity, the handset supports Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 5.0 and NFC, 3.5 mm jack and bottom mounted USB Type C port. It is available in two colours, namely Twilight Silver and Midnight Black.
Pricing & Availability
Also read: Microsoft Takes Down Online Facial Recognition Database Over Accusations
As mentioned above, the Asus 6Z will be introduced on the 19th of June in the Indian market. It will be exclusively available online on Flipkart and offline in select retail stores across the country. While the company has not revealed its Indian pricing yet, it is expected to cost starting at Rs. 40,000 for the variant with 6GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage. The variant with 8GB RAM and 128GB of onboard memory may cost Rs. 44,000; while buyers may have to shell Rs. 47,000 for the version with 8GB RAM and 256GB Internal storage.
