Asus wows shutterbugs with the ZenFone Zoom, the thinnest 3X optical zoom handset

That's right, the handset is the rare bird featuring optical zoom, and it is stuffed in a fairly stealthy body at that, too. The 3x optical zoom is not in the scope of Samsung's Galaxy K zoom series, and yet is a much better compromise between the chunkiness of the K zoom, and the portability of a regular non-zoom phone. The rest of the specs include a hearty 5.5" 1080p IPS-LCD display with 400 nits of peak brightness, a 64-bit quad-core Atom processor, and a 3000 mAh battery. The selfie phenomenon is taken care of by a 5 MP wide-angle front camera.

The 13 MP PixelMaster camera on the back is not only sporting a 3x zoom 10-element lens and f/2.0 to f/4.8 aperture, but also features optical image stabilization, too. Moreover, you get laser auto-focus, similar to LG G3 and G Flex2, and a dual-color Real Tone flash tech, for a full point-and-shoot camera experience.

All that jazz is packed in a fairly compact for the awesome features body, at 158.9 x 78.84 x 11.95 mm, and with a weight of 185 grams. In addition, there are some manual adjustments for the shutterbugs out there, like exposure and shutter speed. Sounds like a great package for the $399 Asus is asking on the ZenFone Zoom, which will be released some time in Q2. Any takers?

source: ASUS