At an event in New Delhi, Taiwan based Asus showcased their upcoming ZenWatch, which is expected to debut in India by March, 2015. It is expected to be priced around Rs. 20,000. This Zenwatch will be the first wearable device from the stable of Asus.
The Asus ZenWatch has a curved display and comes with leather strap like a conventional watch. This smartwatch will be compatible with Android smartphones running on Android version 4.3 or higher. This smartwatch can receive the phone calls since it can be paired with your smartphone and the wearer of this watch will have the liberty to accept or reject or mute a call on this watch.
The Asus ZenWatch has a 1.63-inch AMOLED display with 320×320 pixel resolution. This smartwatch is powered by a 1.2GHz Snapdragon 400 processor coupled with 512MB RAM and 4GB internal storage. For connectivity, it offers support of Bluetooth 4.0. This smartwatch is waterproof and runs on Google Android Wear OS with Asus’s Zen Ui on it.
The Asus ZenWatch also incorporates fitness features and would be ideally suitable for fitness freaks. This ZenWatch comes with ZenUI Wellness app, which will enable users to monitor and track steps taken, calories burned, activity duration, heart rate, exercise intensity etc.
The ZenWatch of Asus will compete with Moto 360, LG G Watch, Samsung Gear Live etc.
At the event, Asus also showcased their recently announced PadFone mini smartphone-tablet hybrid, which is priced at Rs. 15,999. The PadFone Mini is available in two color variants – Black and White. This device runs on Android 4.3 Jelly Bean with Asus’ ZenUI on the top. Asus has promised an Android 4.4 KitKat upgrade for this in due course of time. The PadFone mini is a 4-inch smartphone that transforms into 7-inch tablet.
The PadFone Mini has 4-inch (800 x 480-pixel) display and the tablet has 7-inch (1280 x 800-pixel) display. To ensure a seamless experience when switching between smartphone and tablet modes, PadFone mini’s exclusive DynamicDisplay technology ensures that apps are correctly — and instantly — resized for the appropriate screen size.
The PadFone Mini is driven by a dual-core 1.6GHz Intel Atom Z2560 processor, coupled with 1GB of RAM and 8GB of internal storage, which can be expanded upto 64GB. This phone is equipped with primary 8MP Sony camera with BSI (backside-illumination) and wide-aperture f/2.0 five-element lens with exclusive ASUS PixelMaster technology. It also houses a 2MP front snapper. The PadFone mini is packed with a total battery capacity of 3270mAh (12.8Wh).
For connnectivity, the PadFone Mini offers options of Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth v4.0, Micro-USB, GPRS/ EDGE etc.
On this occasion, Asus also announced a special campaign for its Zenfone Series of smartphones ‘Live the Zen life with Rannvijay’. Under this campaign, ASUS challenges Rannvijay – a star of all adventures to experience the zen life with the Zenfones. This campaign spreads across five weeks and Rannvijay will face five different challenges across the next five weeks which will be revealed as the initiative moves ahead per week. He will constantly update his #Zenlife and experience with the world through Youtube, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
