ASUS ZenFone 3 Zoom ZE553KL Announced – SuperPixel Technology, 12X Zoom, and 5000mAh Battery
5 min read
ASUS today announced ZenFone 3 Zoom, the world’s slimmest and lightest 5.5-inch smartphone with a high-capacity 5000mAh battery and a dual-camera system that delivers photographic perfection.
Built for photographic perfection
ZenFone 3 Zoom is the most accomplished camera smartphone to date from ASUS, with a list of new features designed to make it unrivalled in mobile photography. These include:
Dual-camera system – ZenFone 3 features an all-new ASUS SuperPixel Camera for unbeatable low-light photography. Its dedicated 12MP, 59mm camera offers an instant 2.3X optical zoom and 12X total zoom for different subject types and focal lengths. The main SuperPixel Camera is ideal for shooting general subjects and macro shots as close as 10cm, while the optical-zoom camera is excellent for distant subjects. The biggest advantage of having two cameras with lenses of different focal lengths is the ability to let users switch lenses and compose in different perspectives.
ASUS SuperPixel Camera – ZenFone 3 Zoom features a new main ASUS SuperPixel Camera that can shoot photos quickly and clearly in night-time or low-light environments.The SuperPixel Camera consists of three main components:
- Large 1.4-micron pixel size – Larger pixels increase the camera’s sensitivity to light, and decrease the graininess of resulting photos, especially those shot in low-light environments. ZenFone 3 Zoom uses the Sony IMX362 sensor with pixels measuring 1.4 microns (µm) wide pixels and a 1/2.55-inch sensor size, which is one of the largest of any smartphone camera sensors, making the camera excellent for low-light photography.
- Large f/1.7 lens aperture – the large aperture allows for more light to enter the sensor compared to other smartphone cameras.
- ASUS SuperPixel technology – A combination of the new ASUS SuperPixel engine hardware and image digital-signal-processing software that that boosts light sensitivity up to four times (4X) by intelligently controlling ISO levels while shooting, and removing noise in post-shot processing.
High-resolution SuperPixel selfies – ZenFone 3 Zoom features one of the highest-resolution front-facing cameras of any smartphone. It has a 13MP SONY IMX 214 sensor with an f/2.0 aperture lens that shoots high-resolution selfies and also benefits from ASUS SuperPixeltechnology to achieve twice the light sensitivity. It also features a new ‘screen flash’ mode that uses the display as a flash in low-light environments.
ASUS 0.03s TriTech+ auto focus – ASUS TriTech+ automatically chooses the best technology to use depending on the subject, and achieves focus in an amazingly fast 0.03 seconds— the world’s fastest auto focus.
- Dual Pixel PDAF – Each pixel on the sensor is now divided into two phase-detection sections that can detect the movement of subjects by analyzing the variations between the light rays hitting the two sensors. Working together with all the other 12-million pixels on the sensor, ZenFone 3 Zoom is able to achieve rapid phase-detection auto focus even in low-light conditions.
- 2nd-generation laser auto focus – Which has three times (3X) the range of standard laser focusing systems which can benefit shooting close-up subjects within 1.5 meters.
- Subject-tracking auto focus – The system cleverly tracks moving subjects while the user is shooting, so they will never be out of focus.
RAW file support – ZenFone 3 Zoom offers photographers the freedom to shoot and store compositions in RAW format. Available on Android 7.0 ‘Nougat’, RAW files save the full data of the photo captured by the camera’s sensor and are ideal for enhancement with editing software, where users are able to uncover fine details in areas of shadow, or recover overexposed areas in the highlights, with much less degradation of of image quality when compared to editing JPEG image files.
Full Manual mode – This mode enables full control over ZenFone 3 Zoom’s extensive camera settings. These includes white balance, exposure value (EV), focus, and ISO settings, and an impressive shutter-speed selection of between 1/16000 sec and 32 seconds. In ZenFone 3 Zoom, this mode also allows users to override the automatic camera selection and choose to use either the 25mm, f/1.7 lens of the main camera or the 59mm lens of the zoom camera.
Continuous auto focus 4K UHD video recording – For video recording, ZenFone 3 Zoom’s subject tracking auto focus system allows the smartphone to continuously focus on subjects while recording video at stunning 4K UHD resolution.
ZenFone 3 series camera features – ZenFone 3 Zoom also comes with all the powerful photographic features of the ZenFone 3 series including:
- Four-axis optical image stabilization (OIS) and three-axis electronic image stabilization (EIS)to prevent hand movements from blurring photos or making videos appear shaky.
- Ultra-sharp 4K UHD video recording at 3840 x 2160 resolution.
- RGB Color-correction sensor that automatically adjusts the colors in a photo to look natural and accurate.
- 48MP Super Resolution mode that combines four native 12MP photos to create a single image with 4 times better clarity, greater detail and less noise.
- 19different unique and versatile modes that optimize the camera to shoot scenes or add special effects to photos.
Ultra-large 5000mAh battery and reverse-charging ability
ZenFone 3 Zoom is the world’s slimmest and lightest 5.5-inch 5000mAh smartphone, and is a mere 7.9mm thin and weighs just 170 grams. Paired with the powerful yet battery-efficient 14nm Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor, this high-capacity battery enables ZenFone 3 Zoom to achieve an amazing 6.4 hours of continuous 4K UHD video recording time, or 42 days of standby time.
ZenFone 3 Zoom’s highbattery capacity also lets it doubleup as a high-speed power bank for charging other devices via an automatic reverse-charging capability.
Strong-yet-beautiful display
ZenFone 3 Zoom’s display is a 5.5-inch Full HD AMOLED panel with high 500cd/m2 brightness for outdoor-readable images with extreme clarity and contrast. It also features a color gamut that is more than 100% of the NTSC color space and a blue-light filter that prevents eyestrain over long periods of viewing.
ZenFone 3 Zoom is also one of the first smartphones to have a Corning® Gorilla® Glass 5 display cover panel that is 70%-more resistant to drop damage compared to the previous Gorilla Glass generation. This panel has been crafted and shaped to fit within the phone’s beautifully small, sandblasted aluminum-alloy body. A fingerprint sensor is conveniently placed at the back of the smartphone for easy accessibility.
