With smartphones like the ZenFone 2 and its spinoffs becoming hugely successful in most major markets around the world, Asus is now looking to introduce a new handset to its lineup. The device will apparently be called the Pegasus X005, and will be a follow-up to two other handsets the company had launched earlier as part of its growing Pegasus range. While the Pegasus X002 was launched back in December last year, the Pegasus 2 X550 was announced by Asus in July this year. While there’s no word on when the latest Pegasus handset might see an official launch from the company, seeing as it has now been certified by Chinese electronics equipment certification center, TENAA, the commercial launch probably shouldn’t be a long way away.
The listing of the Pegasus X005 on the website of the Chinese regulatory body gives us a pretty decent look at the hardware specs of the upcoming smartphone. As per the listing, the upcoming handset will feature a 5.5-inch (1920 x 1080 pixels) TFT display, and will be powered by a 1.3 GHz octa-core, 64-bit processor of unspecified make. The device will come with 2 GB of RAM and 16 GB of internal storage, which will be further expandable by up to 32 GB via a microSD card. The Pegasus X005 will sport a 13-megapixel rear-facing camera with LED flash and a 5-megapixel front-facing selfie-cam. The device will be 155 mm long, 76.4 mm wide and 9 mm thick, and weigh 176.7 grams. The upcoming smartphone will also support 4G TD-LTE, 3G HSPA+, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0 and GPS, and run Android 5.1 Lollipop with Asus’ trademark Zen UI on top. The smartphone is expected to be offered in three color options – Blue, White and Gold.
Asus is one of those smartphone vendors that is believed to have had a pretty decent 2015. Although the company is yet to come out with its final sales figures for the year, it is understood that the company’s smartphone business is growing fast enough to compensate for the downturn in its bread and butter PC business. Reports even indicate the company will look to sell as many as 30 million handsets next year, which will be an almost 50 percent jump from the 21 million units the company was reported to have targeted this year, according to prior reports. It remains to be seen as to whether the Taiwanese vendor is able to actually achieve its lofty goals, but the company certainly isn’t sitting on its laurels, as is evident from the slew of launches the company has planned for next year, including the upcoming ZenFone 3.
