The ASUS ZenFone 3 for $429.99 was available in Canada since late September. Then, in mid-October, ASUS announced that the ZenFone 3 Deluxe model would make it to Canada sometime in November for $699.99 at some of the usual retail stores and certain online stores, such a Newegg.ca. NCIX and Staples were taking pre-orders, and it looks like they still have the ZenFone 3 Deluxe on their website. The Canadian spokesperson said that while they were selling the ZenFone 3 Deluxe in the US, they were not selling the plainer ZenFone 3 model as if that would make Canadians any happier.
It is a shame that the Deluxe model will never hit Canada. ASUS did a great job on the ZenFone 3 Deluxe with its looks and design. The device is an all-metal beauty that buries its antenna in the frame of the ZenFone 3 Deluxe – what a great idea. It is an overall smooth and clean looking device. While the 5.7-inch display is only Full HD, it uses a Super AMOLED display to make up for the resolution. Even with the screen this large, you still get a respectable 386 pixels-per-inch, which is still more than an iPhone 7 Plus. They also included the ‘always-on’ display to help save battery life.
Originally, the ZenFone 3 Deluxe had a Snapdragon 820, but a later edition has the Snapdragon 821 – they are clocked at 1.6GHz and 2.15GHz respectively and are using an Adreno 530 GPU for excellent graphics. It packs 6GB of DDR4 RAM and comes with 64GB of the faster UFS internal storage that can be expanded via a microSD card. For its primary camera, there is a 23-megapixel sensor with a roughed sapphire crystal lens cover. The lens is supported by an aperture of f/2.0, dual LED flash and 4-axis OIS and 3-axis EIS for steady shots. It has a large 8-megapixel front-facing camera for selfies and video chatting. It packs a 3000mAh non-removable battery with Quick Charge 3.0 when a fast charge is needed. The ZenFone 3 Deluxe has a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor and is running ZenUI 3.0 over top of Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow. It measures 156.4 x 77.4 x 7.5mm and weighs in at 170 grams. It is not entirely clear why ASUS made this move, but from it seems that Canada is a smaller market when compared to China, Asia, India, Europe and the US, that they figured they would not sell enough to gain any profit. This decision could be especially true because of its $700 price tag. However, ASUS is definitely aiming to give Samsung and other high-end manufacturers a run for their customers.