نسل دوم ZenFone ایسوس در راه است

2014 has already proven an interesting year for ASUS in the Android arena. Once the king of Android tablets with their Eee Pad Transformer line, ASUS now finds itself making more money off of budget-minded Android devices than anything else. In the Far East, their PadFone line of smartphone-come-tablet devices are proving popular but they’ve made little progress West. Another line of devices that have been something of a success for ASUS in the East is their ZenFone line of Android smartphones. They were announced earlier this year, way back in January during CES, and now it seems like ASUS is already working on the next line of devices. The ZenFone line is hardly one to get people’s hearts racing, after all they’re designed to be affordable more than anything, but the Intel-powered ZenFone 4, 5 and 6 were all devices that offered decent performance and pretty good build quality without breaking the bank. In fact, the ZenFone 5 was a pretty decent device with a 5-inch 720p display, 2GB of RAM and a fairly capable Intel chip. The Atom Z2580 at the heart of the ZenFone line is however, starting to show its age a little bit, and the new line of quad-core Atom chips from Intel will presumably be what ASUS is looking to for their next line of ZenFones. Focus Taiwan is reporting that ASUS’s CEO Jerry Shen has said the devices could be unveiled during next year’s CES in January, hinting that the devices will see upgrades throughout, including the user interface which was something ASUS seemed pretty proud of when unveiling their first generation of ZenFones. It’s unclear as to whether or not ASUS will be using Intel’s latest chips, but the two of them have proven very cosy partners in the past, and we can’t see them turning to anyone else. Also, considering that everyone else is still using the Snapdragon 400 for their mid-range devices, a quad-core Intel CPU might be a way for ASUS to stand out from the crowd.