Since the ZenFone AR was released, a lot of people got interested and some were somehow amused with its ridiculous 8GB RAM power. This result to praises for the new phone especially with its AR capabilities.
But why does the ZenFone AR have 8GB of RAM? Is 6GB not enough? Experiencing AR ourselves with the Lenovo Phab 2 Pro, we can honestly say that the Augmented Reality (AR) world needs a lot of RAM and here is why.
What is Google Tango?
Yes, Google Tango is the name of the Augmented Reality platform that the ZenFone AR uses. Augmented Reality is a technology that is long existent but only available for a few industries before. As smartphones become smarter, we started to see Augmented reality applied in cameras such as putting dinosaurs, grass fields into the screen, or any element in particular.
Technically transforming your face in Snapchat is also augmented reality but in a very basic level. Catching Pokemon using the camera with the gyroscope is also AR as you navigate around your environment to see your Pokemon.
The ultimate goal of AR (augmented reality) is to have an additional layer of interaction with your surroundings.
Learning your surroundings
As compared to the previous AR in smartphones, there isn’t any way to control the size as it’s already a preset element. Thus the experience for the AR is very limited.
With Google Tango, it learns your surroundings using the triple camera setup (Main Camera, Depth sensing camera and fish-eye lens)
So within your surroundings of around 10-15ft, it can learn the space like chairs, table, ceilings and even more. The level of detail or information it collects results to a huge data needed to be stored into the RAM.
This is not to mention that Google Tango apps have huge storage which apps in average takes more than a gigabyte to store. Plus, loading all of that data needs powerful processing power which is why the ZenFone AR has a Snapdragon 821 processor dedicated for Google Tango.
Our experience with the Phab 2 Pro was slow in loading due to the mid-range Snapdragon 652 processor, and applications with multiple elements will start to stutter.
Fortunately, the UFS 2.0 storage of the ZenFone AR takes care of the bottleneck of loading apps due to big file size.
Augmented Reality based applications take up huge processing power as the sensing of the environment and applying of augmented elements is done both at the same time.
Potential of Google Tango
The 8GB RAM won’t be felt too much if you’re not using the Google Tango apps, technically there isn’t any point to go further than 6GB with today’s app usage.
But before you venture into Google Tango, just make sure you have the resources to utilize it well like ample internet connection, spacious environment and possibly ready to venture into AR / VR like investing on a Google Daydream headset to see your output.
ZenFone AR Specifications
- 5.7″ WQHD (2k) 2560×1440 resolution, SuperAMOLED
- Corning Gorilla Glass 4
- 2.35GHz Octa-Core Snapdragon 821 Processor optimized for Google Tango
- Adreno 530 GPU
- 8GB RAM (World’s First)
- UFS 2.0 32/64/128GB Storage | Expandable up to 2TB
- 23MP f/2.0 Rear camera with Laser Auto Focus & RGB Color Sensor
- Dedicated Depth sensing and Fish-Eye camera for Google Tango AR
- 8MP Front Camera
- 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac 2.4GHz & 5GHz Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.2
- 3,300mAh battery with Quick Charge
- Google Tango & Google Daydream ready
- Android 7.0 Nougat with Zen UI 3.0
- 170g
Ultimately the ZenFone AR is a worthy smartphone of its specs even without the Google Tango because of its Processor, RAM, storage and display. But of course, the phone was designed to enable a new world which is augmented reality.
We are very glad to see that the world of AR is slowly emerging and hopefully to catch up with virtual reality. No price for the ZenFone AR is yet announced and its availability will be this Q2 2017.
Though for the Philippines, we honestly think that applying AR won’t be too much use as we need more developers to localize apps like creating AR apps to malls, places or even creating localized AR apps for faster adaptation.
