There’s more than one way to free up screen space on a flagship phone. While the iPhone 13 is rumored to be shrinking down the notch that houses its front camera and Face ID sensors, Asus look like its taking a different approach with upcoming Zenfone 8 family. And it should be familiar if you’ve been following recent Zenfone releases.
In advance of the Zenfone’s release, 91mobiles has published a series of photos along with detailed specs for the new Zenfone 8 and Zenfone 8 Flip. It’s not clear when these phones will ship, but the Zenfone 8 Flip will stand out from the smartphone crowd with a fairly unique camera design. Well — unique for phones not built by Asus.
- Best camera phones
- Read our Asus ROG Phone 5 review
- Plus: iPhone 13 Pro Max leak just revealed smaller notch
According to intel from leaker Ishan Agarwal, the Zenfone 8 Flip will feature a triple camera setup that’s housed in a flipping mechanism that allows the cameras to rotate over the top edge of the phone.
In other words, you’re taking selfies with the same cameras you’d use for other images shot by the phone. This should help with taking selfies, in addition to looking a bit strange, since the camera flips upward and sits atop the phone's frame.
You’ll be familiar with this approach if you saw last year’s Asus Zenfone 7 Pro, which also featured a triple camera display that flipped around when it was selfie time. The Zenfone 6 offered something similar, but just with wide angle and ultrawide angle lenses.
Agarwal’s leak also includes the specs for those three lenses on the Zenfone 8 Flip — a 64MP main camera joined by an 8MP telephoto lens and 12MP macro shooter. In other words, the macro lens replaces the ultrawide angle camera on the Zenfone 7 Pro.
| Row 0 - Cell 0 | Zenfone 8 rumored specs | Zenfone 8 Flip rumored specs |
| Screen size | 5.82 inches | 6.67 inches |
| CPU | Snapdragon 888 | Snapdragon 888 |
| RAM | 8GB | 8GB |
| Storage | 128GB | 256GB |
| Rear cameras | 64MP main, 12MP macro | 64MP main, 12MP macro, 8MP telephoto |
| Battery | 4,000 mAh | 5,000 mAh |
Meanwhile, the Zenfone 8 sounds like it will sport a more conventional design, with two rear cameras (the 64MP main shooter and 12MP macro lens). Renders show a phone with a punch-hole cutout to house the front camera, so there’ll be no flipping with this phone.
Additional specs suggest that the Zenfone 8 Flip will offer the bigger of the two screens — 6.67 inches versus 5.92 for the Zenfone 8. Both phones will offer FHD+ resolution, though in the 91mobiles report, only the Flip is listed with a fast refresh rate — 90Hz in this case.
The same Snapdragon 888 powers both Zenfone 8 models, with the Zenfone 8 Flip expected to offer more storage at 256GB to the Zenfone 8’s 128BGB. The Flip will have a bigger batter too, Agarwal says — 5,000 mAh vs. 4,000 mAh.
Unfortunately, this leaked report doesn’t include pricing or release info. A countdown clock on the Asus website, however, points to a Zenfone 8 launch event next Wednesday (May 12) at 1 p.m. ET. We imagine that any and all questions about the Zenfone 8 and Zenfone 8 Flip will be answered then.
