Rumours: ASUS ZenFone and PadFone S getting Android 5.0 in April 2015

The recent news of the Nokia 6 made quite a few "mehs" with most of those directed at the Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 processor it uses. Other tech specs like the 4GB RAM and 64GB storage didn't get as much flak so we thought we'd check out the Snapdragon 430 processor using our similarly powered ASUS ZenFone 3 Max 5.5 or ZC553KL. Granted, there are differences between the two phones which you can see with our comparison tool, but the Nokia 6 does have the same display and more memory, so the differences in performance should be negligable if not better.

The newly announced ASUS ZenFone 2 and ZenFone Zoom smartphones are making waves around the world as ASUS have opted to make one really good ZenFone instead of a new version for each of the three previous original ZenFone smartphones. Due to the 5.5-inch display (which hits a very nice sweet spot in our opinion) the closest original ZenFone in terms of size would be the ZenFone 6, so we've used our tech comparison tool to compare all three smartphones. Key features that the new ZenFone 2 and ZenFone Zoom bring to the table are 64-bit Intel Processors, 5MP selfie-ready front cameras, 4G LTE cat 4 connectivity, dual tone LED flash and for the ZenFone 2, rear volume controls. While there are no Malaysia release dates yet, we expect the ZenFone 2 and ZenFone Zoom to reach us in the next few months or so as the original ASUS ZenFone smartphone range was launched regionally in April 2014.

Local Malaysia price details for the ASUS ZenFone 2 or ZenFone Zoom are also unknown still but based on the current US price of $199 (RM707) we expect the 2GB RAM ZenFone 2 to be priced around RM699. This would result in a drop in price for the existing ZenFone 6 and other previous ZenFone smartphones. Rumours indicate that AnTuTu benchmarks for the new ZenFone 2 could be around 39000 to 41000, which is a huge jump over the previous ZenFone 6 which scored 19661 on AnTuTu. Feel free to compare the ASUS ZenFone 2 or ZenFone Zoom with other smartphones using our tech spec comparison tool or check out the links below:

• ASUS ZenFone 2 vs ASUS ZenFone 5 vs ASUS ZenFone 6
• ASUS ZenFone 2 vs Samsung Galaxy Note 4 vs Huawei Ascend Mate 7
• ASUS ZenFone 2 vs Xiaomi Redmi Note 4G vs Samsung Galaxy Grand 2