ASUS is all set to introduce its Zenfone 8 line of flagship smartphones on May 12. And if the company’s 2020 strategy is anything to go by, we might get the vanilla Zenfone 8 and a Pro model as well. However, recent leaks suggest that a compact flagship called the Zenfone 8 Mini is also in the pipeline. Now, as per a report from DealnTeach, the Zenfone 8 Mini won’t just be a flagship, but a prime example of hardware overkill as well.
The Taiwanese company is reportedly planning to offer the Zenfone 8 Mini in a total of five memory configurations, with the top-of-the-line packing 16 gigs of RAM. Now, this certainly is not the highest figure out there, but for a non-gaming smartphone, 16GB of RAM is just bonkers. However, the industry is definitely warming up to this trend, as the likes of Samsung, Xiaomi, and Lenovo have already launched phones with a similar RAM figure.
Snapdragon 888 SoC, 120Hz OLED display and 30W wireless charging
The upcoming ASUS phone will be up for grabs in 6GB + 128GB, 8GB + 128GB, 8GB + 256GB, 12GB + 256GB, and 16GB + 256GB trims. There is no word if there’s going to be scope for storage expansion via a microSD card slot though. Additionally, the Zenfone 8 Mini will reportedly come equipped with a 4,000mAh battery.
This is not the biggest battery by 2021 flagship phone standards, but taking into consideration the phone’s compact form factor and a small-ish 5.92-inch OLED display, it could prove to be sufficient. There will be support for 30W charging as well, but we have no information regarding wireless charging compatibility.
ASUS is said to employ the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 SoC for the entire Zenfone 8 series. Circling back to the ZenFone 8 Mini, it will reportedly drop the flip camera module seen on its predecessor in favor of the hole-punch design for housing the selfie camera. And oh, the FHD+ display will refresh at 120Hz, so you’re covered in that department.