Asus Zenfone 5 LTE – From $249 @ COMEX

The ZenFone 5 LTE (2GB RAM and 16GB internal storage) is now available and priced from $249. There are three variants, the $249 is the 1GB RAM with 8GB storage, followed by 2GB RAM with 8GB storage at $269 and 2GB RAM with 16GB storage at $299.

The LTE-enabled ASUS Zenfone 5, may look similar to the original Zenfone 5 but internals are totally different. Instead of the Intel Atom Z2560 processor, the Zenfone 5 LTE has gone the traditional route of adopting the Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor at 1.2 GHz, four ARM Cortex-A7 which is similar to that in the Redmi 1S but it is clocked at 1.6 GHz. That’s strange to select such a slow clock speed for the device and to continue from our previous comparison, Zenfone 5 vs Redmi, the Zenfone 5 LTE-A should clocked at around 18K in Antutu scores, while the Redmi 1S is around 21000. Dual SIM connectivity is also dropped on the Zenfone 5.

The unique selling point for the Zenfone 5 LTE then is that it comes with LTE and it is the most affordable 4G phone at the moment. In view of the three models currently on offer, the sweet spot is the Zenfone 5 LTE with 2GB RAM and 8GB of storage at $269. The phone is targeted at budget consumers or a second phone, and the need for more storage is less likely. In case that more storage is required, the phone is memory expandable with a microSD card. It is stated to accommodate sizes up to 64 GB, but larger sizes should work too.

Besides the Snapdragon 400 1.2 GHz Quad Core, there is also a 450MHz Adreno 305 GPU within the processor. Final features to round up are 5-inch 720p display, 2GB of RAM, 16GB internal storage, 8-megapixel PixelMaster rear camera, 2-megapixels front camera and 2110mAh battery.

Interested buyers can head down to Comex this weekend or purchase from Asus retail online.