Unlike most other smartphone makers, Taiwanese tech company, Asus only launches a handful of smartphones every year – including the ROG Gaming phone and the ZenFone lineup. Even the ZenFone lineup consists of only a couple or at max three phones.
All of these phones are unique in their own space and set the company apart from most other brands. That being said, it looks like Asus is working on another smartphone but this time along with Qualcomm.
A rather unknown Asus smartphone carrying a model number ASUS_I007D has been spotted by the keen eyes of folks at XDA Developersat the TENAA certification website. This model number was assigned to a device codenamed Vodka that was recently spotted in the kernel codes of Asus’ latest gaming phone – ROG Phone 5.
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While there were a few more phones spotted in the Kernel codes namely, SAKE and PICASSO. However, both these phones were released recently as the ZenFone 8 and ZenFone 8 Flip.
Another key thing is that the renders on TENAA’s website show a prominent Snapdragon branding at the phone's rear panel. Additionally, a triple camera setup and a fingerprint sensor located at the rear panel can also be spotted while the volume and power button can be seen placed on the side.
In terms of specifications, TENNA reveals that the phone may come with a 6.78-inch OLED display, could feature a Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 chipset coupled with 16GB of RAM and 512GB storage. A 3,840mAh battery could power the phone and the camera setup may have 64-megapixel and 12-megapixel sensors.
This suggests that the phone we may be looking at Qualcomm’s gaming phone that has been doing rounds for some time. Some time back, a Taiwanese publication hinted that Asus and Qualcomm are collaborating for an Android-powered gaming phone; however, it reported that the upcoming phone could sport Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 875 SoC.
Asus will be responsible for hardware and design in this partnership while Qualcomm took the responsibility of “industrial design” and “software integration optimizing its Snapdragon 875 platform.” Though since the latest Snapdragon 888 chipset is already out, the phone may launch with the latest chipset rather than the Snapdragon 875 SoC.
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