Evan Blass (aka @evleaks) has just released a bunch of images showing a rather interesting device, one of ASUS’, it seems. This handset is ASUS’ “5G dual-slider”, says Mr. Blass, and he also added that this device is presented in two different designs which come from one of ASUS’ ZenFone 5 designers.
As you can see, there are two different phones presented here, though both of them have rather interesting functionality, you can slide them both up and down, which is not something we’ve seen on other phones. In the case of the OPPO Find X, for example, you could slide the display up in order to unveil the phone’s rear-facing cameras, while the Xiaomi Mi MIX 3 was the opposite, as you could slide the display down in order to reveal the phone’s front-facing camera setup.
Well, in the case of these newly-leaked designs, sliding the display up and down has its uses. In the case of the first design, for example, sliding the display down will reveal the phone’s front-facing camera setup and also huge LED lights. Sliding the phone’s display up, however, will reveal a large Harman / Kardon speaker. In the case of the second design, sliding the phone’s display down will also reveal front-facing cameras and LED lights, but sliding it up seems to reveal a touch-sensitive panel, a secondary display, if you will.
These two phones both sport extremely thin bezels, they do have a “chin” below the display, but other than that, their bezels are more or less non-existent. The first design actually shows a phone that is more rounded in the corners, than the second one, considerably more, actually. Both phones included buttons on the right.
Now, Evan Blass did share an image in which these two phones are actually shown in real-life, so ASUS’ designer already created mockups, maybe even working units, who nows. The display is powered on here, but it’s possible we’re looking at mockups only. In any case, that image reveals that both devices have two cameras on the back, and that both include rear-facing fingerprint scanners.
It is still unclear whether ASUS plans to utilize these designs for actual phones that will launch in the future, but the content is fairly interesting. We’ve already seen quite a few sliding smartphones in the market, but not a single one was able to utilize its sliding mechanism to this extent. If utilized properly, this sliding mechanism could become quite useful, though who knows if consumers would be interested in that concept. We have seen a number of sliding smartphones out there, but they did not manage to become mainstream, as smartphone manufacturers seem to be more interesting in phones with notches, display camera holes, and pop-up cameras, than they are in phones that feature full-fledged sliding mechanisms.
Chances are that ASUS will release at least one of these two smartphones, and it’s also quite possible that we’re looking at high-end devices. ASUS announced its ZenFone 5 series of devices last year, and even though the company was expected to announce their successors in the first quarter of this year, that did not happen. It is possible that the ZenFone 6, or whatever the company opts to name its name series, will be somewhat different than the ZenFone 5 series, and perhaps even feature a sliding system like the one shown in these concepts.
