ASUS CEO Jerry Shen today announced at India the ZenFone Max Pro (M1), a high-performance smartphone running stock Android and powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 636, priced at $165.
The ZenFone Max Pro will feature dual-SIM slots as well as a microSD card slot. It packs a massive 5000mAh battery, a 6-inch FHD+ Full View display and a dual-camera system into a compact body that's no larger than many standard 5.5-inch smartphones. It's powered by the energy-efficient Qualcomm Snapdragon 636 Mobile Platform, with Adreno 509 graphics. The Snapdragon 636 is a 14nm 64-bit system-on-a-chip (SoC) with up to 6GB RAM, and which is engineered to deliver up to 40%-higher CPU performance and 10%-higher graphics performance than the Snapdragon 630, while maintaining excellent battery life.
ZenFone Max Pro offers users up to 20 hours of YouTube video playback, up to 42 hours 3G talk time, and up to 28 hours of Wi-Fi web browsing. All this power is backed up with fast charge times: ZenFone Max Pro can charge its 5000mAh battery from 0% to 100% in just 2 hours and 42 minutes, according to Asus.
The design features a stylish 180g-light metal body with diamond-cut edges and 2.5D-curved display glass, and is available in two finishes: Deepsea Black and Meteor Silver.
ZenFone Max Pro ships with pure Android 8.1 Oreo.
The 6-inch Full View FHD+ (1080 x 2160) display in ZenFone Max Pro features 450cd/m2 brightness, 1500:1 contrast ratio and an 85% NTSC color gamut.
The device also features a five-magnet speaker driven by an NXP smart amplifier, along with a dual-camera system. The rear camera focuses on the subject in less than the blink of an eye, and has a high-resolution up to 16MP sensor with a f/2.0 wide-aperture lens.The secondary 5-megapixel camera is used to create an artistic bokeh effect for portraits and close-ups, putting the subject in sharp focus while progressively blurring the background for a gentle effect.
ZenFone Max Pro shoots video at up to 4K UHD resolution.
The 8-megapixel front camera has softlight LED flash and a live beautification feature that instantly retouches shots to remove blemishes, balance facial features, enhance skin tone and more.
A new face unlock feature lets users unlock the phone simply by looking at it.