Most top-tier Android smartphones ship with 2GB to 3GB of RAM, but the Asus Zenfone 2 offers up to 4GB of memory. But it looks like Asus isn’t content to offer a phone that has as much memory as a typical laptop. The company also has a model with a laptop-like amount of storage.
Indian retailer Flipkart has posted a product page for an Asus Zenfone 2 smartphone with 4GB of RAM and 128GB of built-in storage.
It’s expected to sell for about $470 in India, which makes the phone more affordable than many top-tier phones. But it’s more than twice as much as a model with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of storage and about $155 more than a model with 4GB of RAM and 32GB of storage.
Want to get your hands on that model in the US? You may have to order one from overseas.
Update: The Zenfone 2 is now available in the US for $199 and up.
Asus hasn’t started selling the Zenfone 2 in the United States yet. The company had scheduled a launch event for April 28th, but it’s been postponed until May 18th.
When I asked my contact at Asus whether the company would offer the 4GB/128GB model in North America, I was told that it’s not likely (although nothing is written in stone yet).
Asus already sells several Zenfone 2 models in Taiwan, Europe, and other markets, with the most affordable models featuring 5 inch, 720p displays. Intel Atom Z2560 processors, and 2GB of RAM and the highest-priced models sporting 5.5 inch, full HD displays, 4GB of RAM, and Intel Atom Z3580 chips. There’s also a mid-range model with a 5.5 inch screen, 2GB of RAM, and an Atom Z3560 chip.
It’s possible that only some of those models will be made available in the US, where prices are expected to start at $199.
Note that you can purchase an international Asus Zenfone 2 and use it on GSM networks in the US including AT&T and T-Mobile, but the international version may not support all of the 4G LTE bands used by those networks.
via GSM Arena
I bought the ze551ml with 2gb of ram and 32 GB of storage from Expansys.
The phone is pretty incredible overall from the price.
Asus Zen UI while not as nice as stock Android, isn’t nearly as offensive as TouchWiz and is quite pleasant to use.
There are a lot of crapware apps however most of these can be disabled.
Their stock keyboard layout was particularly annoying but that was easily replaced.
LTE works great in Canada but keep in mind the 2nd Sim can only be Rogers or Fido since only they run a GSM network.
This leads me to my other beef with the device. The 2nd SIM will not use data at all. No internet or even MMS as that apparently requires data. I’m not sure at this point if this is an ASUS limitation or an Android one.
Asus is also cranking out a lot of firmware updates. I’ve received 2 in the last month however none of those have been Android 5.0.2 or 5.1. Not sure how long we’ll be waiting for those.
Overall though, i’m really enjoying this device. It’s solid.
Has anyone run this through benchmark test? I want to see if 4Gb of Ram is just a gimmick or actually help make the phone processed faster. I know that Galaxy S6 uses now memory ram and those are the beast!!
it just helps you run more apps in the back ground ,
But it has an sd card slot right? 64gb internal with sd card slot should be plenty.
If only my oneplus one had an sd card slot…
I’m pretty leery of a phone with an Intel processor, but I keep seeing them more and more.
How does battery life on these compare to a modern quad core arm? I currently get a couple of days easily of screen off time (I get 4 days with only occasional use) and probably 5 or 6 hours with the screen on.
Fyi, Asus announce a Zenfone 2 event in NYC for May 18.
“Note that you can purchase an international Asus Zenfone 2 and use it on GSM networks in the US including AT&T and T-Mobile”. Can someone give me the web links of the stores?
Here are a few options… but I’m still holding out for a US launch because it’s not entirely clear if the US model will have any different features from the international model.
https://www.geekbuying.com/Search/?keyword=zenfone+2
https://www.pandawill.com/search/result/?c=&q=zenfone+2
https://www.gearbest.com/zenfone-2-_gear/
https://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?catId=0&initiative_id=SB_20150430122807&SearchText=zenfone+2
” the international version may not support all of the 4G LTE bands used by those networks”. AFAIK the Zenphone2 comes with Intel XMM7260 LTE, which is the exact same on all GEO.
I’m kind of taking a wait and see attitude, because according to https://www.willmyphonework.net/ the Taiwan versions supports AT&T and T-Mobile, but the China/India versions do not.
Sounds tempting, but with the new changes to the way SD cards are handled in Android 5.0, I am satisfied with using a MicroSD.
1-2 years ago, this would have been something I would have jumped at. In ice-cream-sandwich and kit-kat versions of Android, the OS was very limited (unless you rooted) in allowing you to do much with an SD card.
In the past, emmc storage was pretty slow and using a high end MicroSD card was as fast if not faster than using eMMc. Now, it’s a different story. Phone maker don’t want ppl complaining about performance of the phone because ppl decided use a slow MicroSD and store their apps there.