Virtual reality in the palm of your hand: ASUS ZenFone AR ZS571KL smartphone

Virtual reality technologies have long ceased to be something fantastic and have recently become quite a familiar phenomenon. Augmented reality has become widespread not only in the gaming segment, but also in medicine, tourism, education and many other areas of human activity.

Modeling of virtual objects is gradually finding more and more widespread use, and ASUS decided to do its bit and launched a smartphone with VR and AR support - ASUS ZenFone AR ZS571KL. The novelty caused a great stir among interested parties, because the model promises to be really interesting. Is she worthy of such a hype, let's figure it out.

Design and display

The phone has a rather simple and strict design.On the lower front panel on the sides are buttons "back" and "recent applications". In the center is a mechanical button "Home".

On the bottom there is a USB Type C port, a speaker, and a 3.5 audio output. The right side houses the volume rocker and the power button.

The case is made on the basis of a metal frame, and the back panel is trimmed with leather. And on the same rear panel, closer to the top, is the camera, which is probably the most unusual part of the smartphone.

The phone screen is amazing. This is Super AMOLED with a resolution of 2.5K, which is also called WQHD and is 2560x1440 pixels. However, even at this resolution, individual pixels on the display may be visible during VR interaction.

This display has excellent color reproduction with 100% NTSC color gamut and good contrast and vibrant colors, it also has good blacks and is quite rich and deep.

Nevertheless, the brightness parameters leave much to be desired, the maximum value is only 374 cd / m². This is a fairly low setting, so it can be problematic to use it on a sunny morning.

However, within the apartment, and even in a special device for VR, this will not be a problem.

Main characteristics

Brief characteristics are given in the table. We will go into more detail on each below.

CPU

The smartphone is made on a single-chip Snapdragon 821 system of the flagship processor line. At the time of release in 2016, it was a fairly nimble flagship processor, which was installed only on top models.

Since then, of course, 8-core models such as Snapdragon 845 and others have appeared, however, its performance is still at a fairly high level.

Many network resources write that the processor is made using BIG.LITTLE technology, where two high-performance Kryo cores with a frequency of 2.4 GHz are responsible for running heavy applications, and 2 cores with a performance of 1.6 GHz are responsible for performing undemanding applications like checking mail or communicating in social networks to save battery.

However, the processor can safely use all of its cores, so this is a fairly common quad-core single-chip system.Its disadvantage is that all 4 cores will operate at the minimum frequency.

Despite the fact that the new chip had problems with multi-threaded operation, it performed well in browser tests, and it also has an excellent graphics accelerator, which is especially important for virtual and augmented reality simulations.

The disadvantages of the system include throttling and strong heating, however, the processor performance is still at a high level.

RAM and built-in memory

As for RAM, there is a choice between 6 and 8 GB versions. It is preferable, of course, to take 8, not even so much on the principle of "more - not less", but due to the fact that such a processor works well with large amounts of RAM and will significantly increase performance.

The built-in memory also pleases with its quantity. There are versions for 32, 64, 128 and 256 GB. Built-in memory slot - double. You can put 2 SIM cards or a microSD card up to 2 Terabytes in it, sacrificing a second SIM card.

OS and Software

The device runs on the Android 7.0 operating system with a special shell ZenUI 3.0.

Asus has messed around a bit with google's default user interface and now it has some nice features.

These include the ability to drag the notification center to the desktop from either side of the screen. The firmware also has its own settings menu called "ZenMotion" through which you can, for example, set certain gestures that will launch selected applications directly from the lock screen.

When you first start, you will also find third-party applications, which, fortunately, can be removed, they are not tightly embedded Chinese software.

Camera

This is probably the strongest part of this phone. A 23 MP high-resolution optical sensor is installed here, in addition, there is a whole bunch of photo settings, allowing you to bring the photo quality closer to a professional one with the right skills. What will be even more convenient thanks to 4-axis optical stabilization and f / 2.0 aperture.

In addition to the main one, a camera with a fisheye lens is also built into the Tricam system, which is necessary to track the movement of the phone in space.

The third component in the system is a depth sensor with a built-in infrared projector. It acts as a scanner. By interacting with real world objects using this sensor, you can create virtual 3D models of these objects.

In addition to everything else for the main camera, there is a second-generation laser autofocus that complements phase and tracking autofocus, a dual-color LED flash and zero shutter lag.

This makes it easy to take great photos:

The front camera is also very personal. OmniVision OV8856 with 8 MP sensor resolution, f/2.0 aperture and HDR mode will make your selfies clear and rich, and the 85-degree field of view will cover a large area.

Battery

The phone has a 3300 mAh battery, however, it consumes a charge very quickly. In high load mode, the battery loses about 1 percent per minute, which is very sad, since you won’t be able to enjoy the effects of augmented and virtual reality for a long time.

Even online tests are not impressive.In Internet surfing mode, the battery lasts only 7 hours.

However, this is slightly compensated by the Quick Charge 3.0 fast charging system, which allows you to fully charge the phone in just 2 hours.

Virtual and augmented reality

Google Tango

First of all, let's pay attention to the object scanner, because it measures not only the distance to objects, but also its dimensions. It turns out such a three-dimensional ruler that can be used, for example, to create furniture models, and then place them in a room in AR (augmented reality / augmented reality) mode to see how it will look like, and based on this estimate how they can be arranged later. The popular furniture brand IKEA is already using this service with might and main.

Thanks to the built-in Google Tango service, you can now play games right on the wall of the room (Hot Wheels especially excelled here, creating an application with which you can build a virtual track), create a model of the universe, or sit in the new BMW i8.

The application, created by BMW, allows you to see in detail their new, at the time of the release of the phone, the car. Moreover, the detail does credit to the creators of the application. All components are drawn as clearly as possible, the image of the car is fixed in one place and does not disappear, even if the user takes the camera to the other side.

The good news is that the Google Tango application does not need cards for modeling objects of augmented reality, the phone system scans the room and creates its own markers. However, minor glitches do occur, as a result of which the program may ask you to rescan the room.

Google Daydream

The phone comes with a special cardboard, which is a cardboard box with lenses that fits over your eyes like glasses and is designed for complete immersion in virtual reality. However, if you don't like the cardboard box that comes with it, there are a lot of tricky gadgets on the web instead, in which you can put a device to create virtual reality.

Instead of a screen, the smartphone itself is installed here, and applications are downloaded from the pre-installed Google Daydream service. A special remote control included in the kit is needed to control games in VR mode.

Price

The cost of the phone in Russia starts from 37,000 for a model with 32 GB of built-in and 6 GB of RAM.

In Belarus, the price tag starts from 1500 for version 6/64

Advantages and disadvantages

• Augmented reality is the main advantage of this device, for interaction with which the entire phone system is sharpened. All sensors that provide the creation of VR and AR work flawlessly.
• Great camera. The developers from ASUS have surpassed not only themselves, but probably other flagship manufacturers. The camera here is probably one of the best we've seen in a smartphone ever.
• Elegant design and convenience. The phone fits comfortably in the hand, and leather trim adds a pleasant feeling when using.
• Good processor and fast system. Since VR in general needs good hardware, manufacturers were forced to install a powerful flagship processor.

• First of all, this is throttling and heating of the processor. Both the 820 and 821 Snapdragons suffered from this. There's nothing you can do about it, you'll have to deal with it. The processor heats up quickly and the heating is felt quite noticeably.Nevertheless, the performance of the chip is still at a high level.
• Low battery life.
• The number of applications for VR and AR services is small.

Conclusion

The era of virtual and augmented reality is getting closer, technologies in this area are rapidly developing, and this smartphone is another brick in the foundation of building a new world in which virtuality will be more and more closely connected with reality.

It seems to us that the moment is not far off when, using a smartphone or other device, it will be possible to find out information about a building or a road simply by pointing a sensor at it.

Such a future is not only possible, it is already close. In the meantime, developers are testing their special software on special hardware, slowly bringing it closer.