Asus Zenfone AR ZS571KL

Dimensions: 158.6 x 77.7 x 8.9 mmWeight:  170 grams

The ASUS ZenFone AR is the second smartphone after the Lenovo Phab 2 Pro offering AR capabilities via Google Tango. If you’re unaware, Tango is the Alphabet-owned company's mobile-based AR computing platform. With the help of a variety of sensors, it can detect the relative position of the smartphone, and thus enable indoor navigation, virtual measurements, and gaming (remember Pokémon Go, the game that utilises augmented reality in its simplest form).The ZenFone AR comes packed with a motion-tracking sensor and depth-sensing camera, which along with the 23MP primary camera, helps in tracking its relative position in the room. ASUS has added quite a few apps that demonstrate what all one can do with augmented and virtual reality. Measure for instance, makes it dead easy to measure the distance between two real-world objects. iStaging is slightly more useful as it lets you map your room by trying out different furniture and envision its placement anywhere. The BMW i Visualiser is more interesting as it lets you place the BMW i3 or i8 in front of your eyes and analyse the cars from all angles. It also lets you see their interiors. It’s not all work though, as the Slingshot Island game lets you throw slings to destroy obstacles. It also has the Towers for Tango app, but it’s odd that even though it’s preloaded, you’ll need to buy it from the Play Store.While these apps are interesting to use, the novelty wears off soon. None of them really have stickiness as such. There aren’t that many apps on the Play Store either, and many of them aren’t available in our country. Using these apps not only results in the ASUS ZenFone AR heating up, but also take a toll on the battery life.Overall, the idea of Tango is good, but the implementation isn’t. That’s why Google has recently announced Tango's spiritual successor in the form of ARCore. Just like Apple’s ARKit, this will allow any Android-powered device to offer augmented reality features (without having too much dependency on hardware), and developers will also have wider user base for their apps.

Google’s Daydream platform on the other hand, is more evolved. All you need is to insert the ZenFone AR inside the Daydream View headset, follow the initial setup, and voila. There are a plenty of apps on the Google’s storefront, focussing on multimedia consumption or games. Speaking of games, you can use the Bluetooth remote controller to play them.As mentioned in our first impressions, the Daydream headset is extremely comfortable to wear, and the its fabric makes it lightweight too. 2K resolution on the ZenFone AR's large 5.7-inch canvas offers an immersive and sharp experience. However, the smartphone doesn’t offer anything over and above other Daydream-compatible smartphones. Neither it’s optimised really well, as it starts heating up within just 15 to 20 minutes of VR usage. 

Primary camera:  23 MPFlash: Dual-color LED FlashSecondary camera:  8 MP

CPU:  Dual core, 2.35 GHz + Dual co...GPU: Adreno 530RAM: 8 GBMemory: 128 GB + Up to 2 TBSIM Slots: Dual SIM , GSM+GSMBattery: 3300 mAH