ASUS released the new ZenFone 7 and ZenFone 7 Pro series last week, and today we are ready to publish the test results of the company’s newest flagship device.

This year, the ZenFone 7 series, made up of the regular ZenFone 7 and ZenFone 7 Pro, is sticking to a fairly well-received and innovative flip camera design, enhancing its performance by adding an optional camera module. We’ve also seen key performance improvements to the phone itself, including an important shift from an LCD screen to a new 90Hz AMOLED display, as well as the introduction of the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 and 865+ chipsets.

The company is also releasing two variants of the phone this year – apart from higher DRAM and storage configurations, the more expensive model features a SoC with more memory, and differentiates camera systems using OIS exclusively – which is an interesting way to segment things.

Since hearing about the phone, the ZenFone 7 and 7 Pro use the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 SoC and are thus 5G enabled devices thanks to the X55 modem. Here ASUS is using the newer high-performance Snapdragon 865+ on the 7 Pro, which brings 10% faster CPU and GPU performance thanks to the increased frequencies of these IP blocks.

Further differences between the regular ZenFone 7 and 7 Pro are in the DRAM and NAND storage department. The regular variant comes with 6GB LPPDR5 and 128GB of UFS 3.1 storage, while the Pro gets 8GB and 256GB respectively.

The key advantage and differentiator of ZenFone 7 over other phones on the market today is the fact that it uses a full-screen display with no notches or cutouts for the camera, which provides a smooth viewing experience without distractions.

The big upgrade this year from last year’s model is the move from LCD to OLED, making this year’s model significantly more attractive to users. The 6.67-inch screen has a 2400 x 1080 resolution with a 20: 9 aspect ratio and supports a 90Hz refresh rate.

While 90Hz isn’t the best choice for 2020, it’s still a huge improvement over other 60Hz phones, and ASUS has managed to use a 200Hz touch controller that has a big impact on smoothness and responsiveness. with phone.

On the back of the phone is a glass back, which can be either in “pastel white” (pictured) or in “black Aurora” colors. The phone lacks wireless charging.

It should be noted that this is a very large phone that matches the iPhone 11 Pro Max and Galaxy S20 Ultra in footprint, slightly larger and shorter than the ZenFone 6. This is something that ASUS actively admits. being a conscious design choice so that they can accommodate more components and a larger battery, and can also use the various antennas required for 5G connectivity.

Camera setup now includes triple modules. As the main main camera, we see a 64MP IMX686 sensor with 0.8μm pixels, which is reduced to 16MP by default thanks to a four-bayer color filter scheme. The optics have a large f / 1.7 aperture.

The ultra-wide angle lens also has the same setup as the ROG Phone III, with a 12MP IMX363 with 1.4μm pixels and dual-pixel phase detection focusing capability. The optics have an f / 2.2 aperture with a wide 113 ° viewing angle. Unusually, it has an autofocus function, which means that this unit can serve a dual function as a macromodule as it provides an ultra close focusing capability.

New to the setup is the 8MP telephoto lens, which offers 3x optical zoom that, thanks to multi-frame interpolation, can be digitally cropped and upscaled to a usable 12x zoom in the camera app. The optics here have an f / 2.4 aperture.

In the ZenFone 7 Pro, the main camera as well as the telephoto lens have optical image stabilization in their modules, while the regular ZenFone 7 does not. We haven’t seen such segmentation among manufacturers for a while, but this is one of the cost-cutting measures that ASUS has decided to do for the cheaper model.

The flip camera externally looks familiar to what we saw on the ZenFone 6, however ASUS has significantly improved the internal mechanism of the new generation module. The new module uses a new engine that is 2.2 times the torque of its predecessor, although it is 40% less.

ASUS has also replaced the intricate 49 signal and power cables connecting various camera modules to the phone’s motherboard with a new 18-layer PCB flex cable that promises to be twice as durable, although the total number of signal traces has increased to 110 outputs. ASUS claims that this is enough for 200,000 coups, which equals 100 coups per day for over 5 years.

I never had the pleasure of getting to know the ZenFone 6, but the 7 Series camera mechanism seems to be very solid and reliable.

A new feature of the flip screen is its ability to position itself at intermediate angles from the camera app, which gives you different capture angles, which is nearly impossible for any other phone on the market.

Aside from your typical 180 ° fully flipped setup where the cameras can serve as high-quality front-facing selfie cameras, the module can also be positioned at 90 ° or 135 °. The phone’s panorama capture function uses the flip module to view the landscape while holding the phone still.

The phone is quite thick at 9.6mm, but that’s mainly due to the included 5000mAh battery, which also pushes the weight of the device to 230g.

In this generation, ASUS ditched the 3.5mm headphone jack. Their explanation for the change was that due to the increased internal footprint required for 5G antennas, they decided to ditch the connector to be able to save on space.

What’s unique about the bottom of the phone is that there is a notification LED to the left of the USB-C port. Here ASUS stated that they had to remove it from the front of the screen due to the reduced size of the bezel, but they didn’t want to ditch the light entirely, so they just moved it to the bottom of the phone. This is actually a pretty useful and more energy efficient way to manage things than it always displays, so I appreciate that detail.

On the left side of the phone is a long SIM tray that can hold two nano SIM cards at the same time as well as a micro SD card.

On the right side is the traditional volume rocker as well as a three-function power button. ASUS opted for Goodix’s capacitive fingerprint reader built into the power button, one of the cost-cutting measures that allows ZenFone to achieve a lower price point. Besides the traditional one-touch power button function, double-clicking the button brings up Google Assistant and you can configure or disable this function.