Asus launches six ZenFone 4 dual-camera phones with the flagship ZenFone 4 Pro, Selfie and Selfie Pro for selfie enthusiasts, and budget-range Max and Max Pro
Do you like dual cameras on your phones? If so, Asus has six pieces of good news for you — in the form of six newly announced ZenFone 4 phones …
Context & Ripple Effects
The ZenFone 4 family is Asus doubling down on a bet it made earlier in 2017, when the ZenFone 3 Zoom went on sale at $329 with rear wide-angle and optical-zoom cameras. This launch stretches that camera-first identity across six price tiers at once — flagship Pro, two Selfie models, and two budget Max variants — rather than one hero device.
Seen against what followed, the breadth here marks a high-water point: Asus later narrowed its line to single-model flip-camera experiments like the Zenfone 6 with its 48-megapixel flip-top camera and the ~$950 ZenFone 7 Pro, before the company announced it will ship no new smartphones in 2026.
First-order effects
- Asus now fields a dual-camera option at every price band simultaneously, forcing buyers to choose between the ZenFone 4 Pro's flagship positioning, the Selfie pair's front-camera focus, and the Max pair's battery-and-budget play.
Second-order effects
- Splitting the lineup into six SKUs spreads Asus's marketing and inventory across four distinct value propositions, raising the cost of sustaining the portfolio that later single-flip-camera releases replaced.
Third-order effects
- The trajectory from a six-phone 2017 salvo to the flip-camera niche and then the reported 2026 halt traces how a second-tier Android maker retreated from scale competition toward differentiated hardware, and ultimately out of the category.
The trend: Second-tier Android manufacturers like Asus moved from broad multi-tier camera-led lineups toward niche mechanical innovations, and in Asus's case toward exiting smartphones altogether.