Top-of-the-line Asus ZenFone 3 Deluxe to be the first phone powered by the Snapdragon 821 SoC

Yesterday, we told you that Qualcomm had officially introduced the Snapdragon 821 chipset. The changes are minor as this is to be considered an interim chipset offering minor improvements until the Snapdragon 830 chipset is released. Produced using the same 14nm process as the Snapdragon 820 SoC, the Snapdragon 821 continues to employ the quad-core Kryo cores. The high performance cores will run at a maximum clock speed of 2.4GHz as opposed to 2.2GHz on the SD-820. On the low-performance cores, the increase in maximum clock speed is a heftier 25% from 1.6GHz to 2.0GHz.

This morning, Asus held an event for the Hong Kong and Taiwan region. During the festivities, the manufacturer announced that one variant of the Asus ZenFone 3 Deluxe will get a bump to the Snapdragon 821 chipset from the Snapdragon 820 SoC. It will be the first smartphone to carry the new chip. That particular phone will feature a quad-core 2.4GHz CPU, and the Adreno 530GPU running at 650MHz, up from 624MHz.

The ZenFone 3 is equipped with a Gorilla Glass 4 protected 5.7-inch Super AMOLED display. The screen has a 1080 x 1920 resolution. There is a 23MP rear camera with OIS, laser auto focus and an f/2.0 aperture. The front-facing 8MP snapper takes selfies and handles video chats. A 3000mAh battery keeps the lights on, and a fingerprint reader is located on the back.

There are three versions of the ZenFone 3 Deluxe. The top-of-the-line model is the only one that will employ the Snapdragon 821 chip. This unit has 6GB of RAM and 256GB of UFS 2.0 native storage, and is priced at the equivalent of $780 USD. The other two variants will be powered by the Snapdragon 820 SoC, with a quad-core 2.15GHz CPU. The model with 4GB of RAM and 32GB of native storage is priced at the equivalent of $500 USD. The other variant, with 6GB of RAM and 64GB of native storage, is tagged at the equivalent of $560 USD.

The two Snapdragon 820 SoC powered phones will be released in Taiwan and Hong Kong as soon as next month, The version with the Snapdragon 821 chipset will launch later in the year.

source: Engadget