Asus Zenfone 8 Mini may be iPhone 12 mini rival with flagship features that buyers may not need

Zenfone Mini specifications are interesting, somewhere along the lines of what the Apple iPhone 12 mini brings.

When Apple launched the iPhone 12 mini last year, it, kind of, again inspired the Android phone makers to go small. Not that no one tried that before -- Samsung launched Galaxy S10e and Sony introduced the Xperia Compact. Now, Asus is jumping into the fray with its own small phone. It was reported back in February that Asus might have a Zenfone Mini up its sleeve and it is supposed to be a flagship-level phone with Snapdragon 888 chipset. Now, a new XDA Developers report brings additional information about the Asus Zenfone Mini. Folks at XDA Developers tinkered around with the brand new ROG Phone 5 and found some interesting information about the upcoming Zenfone 8 series. The kernel source code of the ROG Phone 5 has references to three phones codenamed “SAKE”, “PICASSO”, and “VODKA”. The codename for the Zenfone 7 series was “TEQUILA”, which indicates the three names are related to Asus’ next flagship series. The “SAKE” model is expected to be the Zenfone Mini because of the kind of specifications that were found next to it in the source code. Moreover, the Asus’ software mentions this device as a “small phone”, which is what the Zenfone Mini is going to be. The specifications of the Zenfone Mini are interesting, somewhere along the lines of what the Apple iPhone 12 mini brings. According to the report, the Asus Zenfone Mini may have a 5.92-inch OLED panel manufactured by Samsung. This screen is going to have a Full-HD+ resolution of 1080x2400 pixels while there will be the 120Hz refresh rate on the Zenfone Mini, which is in line with what you would expect a 2021 flagship phone to have. The Zenfone Mini will have a Sony IMX686 sensor powering the 64MP camera as the main one while a second camera will use a Sony IMX663 sensor. And finally, the phone will have a Snapdragon 888 processor inside.