Asus ZenFone Pegasus 3 release date: Pegasus is entry-level addition to ZenFone 3 lineup

The new ZenFone Pegasus 3, the latest addition to the ZenFone 3 lineup.Weibo/Fone Arena

Asus has just released its new flagship lineup, the ZenFone 3. But the company has revealed that another, budget-friendly ZenFone 3 is coming out soon.

Asus has just announced on Weibo (via FoneArena) that a new iteration, the ZenFone Pegasus 3, is being added to the lineup. Although it shares similarities in design and build with the other iterations in the ZenFone 3 lineup, the new Pegasus serves as an entry-level version in the flagship.

In terms of form factor and design, it sports an all-metal build, and may even be mistaken for the ZenFone 3 at first glance. The new handset also enjoys some of the other specs and features of the ZenFone 3 family such as a fingerprint scanner, dual-SIM connectivity, and a 4,100-mAh battery, which is considered to be massive when looking at the low-power specs sheet. The ZenFone Pegasus 3 also runs on Android 6.0 Marshmallow right out of the box.

However, instead of the above-average and top-tier specs of the first three ZenFone 3 variants, the Pegasus has an entry-level specs sheet. Under the hood, the new addition is powered by an octa-core MediaTek processor clocked at 1.3 GHz, with two RAM options. Fans can either get the 2-GB one with 16 GB of onboard storage, or the step-up variant with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage. Both storage options are expandable via microSD.

However, there is not much in between the base prices for the Pegasus and the base model ZenFone 3. According to Phone Arena, it is interesting to note that the Pegasus is revealed to have a price of CNY 1,300 (almost $200) in China, while the standard model for the ZenFone 3 has a base price of only $249.99.