As a smartphone manufacturer, Asus has been more about performance than style, making its ZenFone brand of handsets one of the better-loved smartphones among many tech enthusiasts.
The ZenFone 2, which was unveiled at this year's Consumer Electronics Show in January, is easily Asus' best smartphone to date, but the Taiwanese firm is not about to let go of issuing new variants for its flagship handset.
The latest announcement coming from Asus is the new ZenFone 2 Deluxe Special Edition, which is basically the ZenFone 2 but with one teensy, weensy difference. The Deluxe Special Edition Asus phone packs in a whopping 256GB of built-in storage, making it the first phone to offer the biggest amount of storage space without needing a microSD card for expansion.
Not that the special edition ZenFone 2 does not have a microSD slot. In fact, it does allow users to expand their disk space by another 128GB more via microSD. For true-blue storage junkies, the ZenFone 2 Deluxe Special Edition could be one very attractive smartphone to buy, especially given the new trend in the smartphone industry leaving out microSD slots and limiting storage to 128GB at most.
Other than the 256GB storage and microSD slot, the Deluxe Special Edition shares the same specs as the ZenFone 2, with a 2.5GHz 64-bit Intel Atom Z3580 processor and 4GB of RAM under the hood. The display is 5.5 inches in size, featuring a Full HD resolution of 1,080 x 1,920 pixels and Corning Gorilla Glass 3 cover.
Like its original version, the Deluxe Special Edition has a 13MP rear camera and a 5MP front-facing camera. It also features a secondary SIM slot and a good 3,000mAh battery and runs on Android 5.0 Lollipop out of the box. The phone comes in two designs: one with a trendy, light-colored rear panel with polygon shapes and another in the same simpler, textured black as the original ZenFone 2.
At 32GB, the ZenFone 2 is priced at $429, which means even if Asus pegs the price of the 256GB smartphone in the $600 to $700 range, it will still be the better deal compared to many flagship smartphones today, which only offer 32GB at that price range.
Unfortunately, the ZenFone 2 Deluxe Special Edition will only be available in Brazil when it launches in September, and Asus has made no mentions of its hottest, new smartphone crossing the borders northwards to North America. The availability of the device will likely depend on its sales performance as well as the costs of producing it for the United States. However, given that the ZenFone 2 is a more than decent smartphone with a competitive price that was received positively in the U.S., let's hope Asus decides to introduce its new handset to the American market as well.
