Asus ZenFone 5 Max is likely to be an upper mid-range device running Android 8.0 Oreo out of the box along with support for Wi-Fi 802.11 ac.
Asus has not revealed any information about the next generation of its ZenFone series, likely to be ZenFone 5. However, with Mobile World Congress (MWC) approaching, rumours have started flying on the internet about when the ZenFone 5 lineup will launch.
Asus ZenFone 4 Pro. Representational image.
According to a recent report by GizmoChina, the Wi-Fi Alliance has certified a mysterious Asus smartphone with the model number ASUS_X00QD. The report claims that this device is likely to launch as the ZenFone 5 Max in the market. The device is reported to run Android 8.0 Oreo out of the box along with support for Wi-Fi 802.11 ac. The timeline of the certification approval is in line with the plans by Asus to unveil the line-up in March 2018.
The report also speculates that the device is likely to be an upper mid-range device. The company has not revealed any timeline for the launch of the lineup as pointed previously. This comes weeks after ZenFone 5 Lite, a mid-range smartphone by Asus that was certified in Russia. The ZenFone 4 lineup is not the only thing that Asus is focusing on. As reported previously, the company launched its ZenFone Max Plus (M1) late last year in Russia.
M1 packed a MediaTek 6750T SoC with eight Cortex A53 cores built using older 28-nm manufacturing process which was earlier used in the Zenfone 3s Max. The device launched in two variants with the first one packing 2 GB of RAM with 16 GB of onboard storage and the second one packing 3 GB RAM along with 32 GB of storage.