When Asus brought the Zenfone 2 to the United States earlier this year, the company offered two models: a $199 version with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of storage, and a $299 model with 4GB of memory, 64GB of storage, and a slightly faster processor.

Now there’s another option: You can buy a $229 Zenfone 2 with 4GB of RAM and 16GB of storage.

asus zenfone 2_01

For the most part, the new model is just like the $199 version, except it has twice the RAM.

Other features include a 5.5 inch, 1920 x 1080 pixel IPS display with Corning Gorilla Glass 3, 802.11ac WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0, 4G LTE, dual SIM card slots, a microSDXC card reader, a 13MP rear camera, and a 5MP front-facing camera.

This model has a 1.8 GHz Intel Atom Z3560 Moorefield processor, while the $299 model has a faster 2.3 GHz Atom Z3580 chip. In other words, if you want the best performance available form a Zenfone 2, you should pay for the more expensive model.

But if you want a model that has enough RAM to load 4 or 5 games into memory and allow you to switch back and forth between them, now you can save some money.

At $229, the Zenfone 2 might be one of the most affordable smartphones available with 4GB of RAM.

 

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15 replies on “Asus launches $229 Zenfone 2 with 4GB of RAM, 16GB storage”

  1. Good luck trying to buy one of these, even the older 2/16GB model. Jakarta – no stock. I just came back from Singapore, even the ASUS store Funan is NO STOCK

    Anyway, doesn’t matter to me. I hate the crappy ZenUI overlay and bunch of unremovable Bloatware that comes on the device.

  2. My Zenphone with Intel processor had major issues from the moment I got it…

    Slowing down abnormally, becoming unresponsive, reboots taking forever…

    I think there’s something they haven’t quite worked out yet with Android on x86.

    Another annoying issue is touch recognition: Its precise enough, but much of the time, you find yourself tapping the screen over and over to get something to activate. This could be just the system being too busy to process any touch input or a problem with touch input itself, no idea. But compared to any other devices from major brand names I’ve used, this one was annoying.

  3. Well obviously this model has been out for sometime, but they decided to make it available to the US market. i just bought the $199 version last week and maybe would’ve bought this instead. Grrr

  4. my oneplus one is still going strong but this is a hot contender for the best sub-300$ handset on the market right now.

  5. I bought the $299 version. First the SIM card broke. Then it became effectively bricked after an update — can’t get beyond the Flip Cover app. Also recall that Asus has a fire-and-forget policy with hardware: once sold, forget getting OS updates etc. And the thing shipped with a shocking amount of crapware.

    So it’s the usual Asus thing: good specs on paper, crappy quality control, no ongoing support.

    I say stick to Apple and Nexuses.

    1. Gotta disagree – I have that same phone. I get an update almost every week to every other week from Asus fixing things, or adding performance increases. Also, it’s widely known they are working on the 5.1 Lollipop update. I have taken every said update without issue (Perhaps yours was an anomoly?)

      I’ve had nothing but pleasure using this phone..Yes it’s full of bloatware, all of which I disabled using the OS. This is probably why there’s a $300 price point.

      It literally plays every game or app I’ve thrown at it. Not worth paying $700 for a phone when a $300 Zenfone 2 works just fine…

      1. Lucky you. I had an Asus 10″ tablet that they simply dropped — no real Android updates. Meanwhile my son’s Nexus 7 has all the latest code running.

        I’d be surprised — pleasantly — if Asus ever pushes Marshmallow to the Zenfone 2.

        1. Well, the ZenFone 4, 5, and 6 product lines are not considered to be Asus’ flagship devices but back in June they were still updates to Android 5.0 with an OAU…

          The ZenFone 2 is a higher end new product release that’s more likely to be updated than their older, regional, models… Though, it depends on how well it sells and whether they plan to replace it anytime soon… but there’s a chance they will…

          Asus is mainly inconsistent in their support but they still do provide support for certain products that do well in the market… but how well also depends on what region you’re in and which service outlet you’re dealing with as some are better or worse than others and is part of the inconsistency…

          While, in some cases it’s better to just use the warranty from the store you bought the device from and simply get a replacement when dealing with a manufacturer defect or other issues that will take a long time to get fixed otherwise…

          They’re hardly the worse out there though, but your proverbial mileage will vary and even the best OEMs have customer horror stories…

      2. Is the crapware why the price is $300? Seems to me most of it is software developed by Asus that replaces features that stock Android already bundles.

    1. Mobile market leverages the storage capacity for justifying profit margins, which is why you usually see a $30 to $50 difference when they double storage capacity instead of the $8 to $16 BOM difference it actually costs them…

      So, you’re far more likely to see them lower other specs before they raise the drive capacity and not also raise the pricing… and they also try to target specific price ranges to maximize the chances the product will sell well, such as to impulse buyers…

      Besides, they’re already providing many features you would normally find in pricier phones… Things like 802.11ac is still not very common on mobile devices, dual sims, 4GB of RAM, etc… not everything but enough that most would still consider it a pretty good deal for the price…

      1. I’d agree that its a good deal… but see my other post…
        What’s the point of a good deal if the device turns out to be problematic….

        1. Probably just your model or you got one before they fixed the bugs, some early Zenfones definitely had issues but so far the Zenfone 2 has been getting good reviews… but we’ll see if anyone reports any long term issues that may not show up in the reviews…

  6. Wow, this is a great deal. Throw in a 64 or 128 GB micro sd card and this phone rivals other phones 3 to 4 times the price.

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