It has reportedly been confirmed that the new ZenFone 3 will launch next month. However, although the new lineup will still target the mid-range market, it is said that Asus will give the new iterations higher prices than the current-gen ZenFone 2.
According to DigiTimes, Asus CEO Jerry Shen revealed that a major update will be coming with the ZenFone 3, particularly in its hardware. This may account for the ZenFone 3 lineups being priced higher than the current ZenFone price ranges. According to Shen, the ZenFone 3 will switch over to Qualcomm, so it can be expected that the new lineup will include Snapdragon-powered units, as well as MediaTek ones. The current ZenFone 2 lineups have MediaTek and Intel chipsets.
Reportedly, although the ZenFone 3 will still be focused on the mainstream mid-range market, there will also be new products that will penetrate the $260-$307 price range, as well as the above-$300 market in China.
Meanwhile, the statement also confirmed that the ZenFone 3 will launch as a full lineup.
Shen added, "... sales of ZenFone 3 Max will account for nearly two-thirds of total ZenFone 3 shipments, and ZenFone 3 Deluxe and ZenFone 3 for the remaining."
While Asus has yet to come out with details on the ZenFone 3, at least two variations were already reported to have appeared online. The base models ZenFone 3, as well as the ZenFone 3 Deluxe, already have renders circulating. There are also supposed sheet leaks via benchmark sites, detailing that the ZenFone 3 may have at least a Snapdragon 625 processor, 2.8GB of usable RAM, and 16GB of onboard storage. Since the ZenFone 3 is reported to be launching next month, it is expected that the lineup will launch with Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow already onboard.
