ASUS ZenFone 8 Mini has a 5.9 “OLED panel and flagship processor

Earlier this month, ASUS launched its first flagship phone of the year: the ROG Phone 5. It was launched earlier than expected, but still made many improvements to last year’s ROG Phone. However, the ROG Phone 5 is not the only ASUS flagship phone to be launched in 2021. We expect the sequel to ZenFone 7 from last year to make an appearance this year, and new details we saw from a core source code and firmware analysis shed some light on what we can get from the ASUS ZenFone 8 series expect.

For a bit of context, we expect several phones to launch as part of the ASUS ZenFone 8 series. While ZenFone 7 added a “Pro” model to the range last year, the successor is reportedly going for a “Mini” version that will include premium specs in a more compact form. There’s also the mysterious “ASUS ZenFone 8 Flip” that appeared in a Google support document a few days ago, but we do not know if the rumored “Mini” and “Flip” are actually the same. Still, we can expect there to be at least two phones in the ZenFone 8 series, with the core source code and firmware files pointing to a possible third model.

Thanks to a tip from XDA Recognized Developer Freak07, we looked at the core source code of the ASUS ROG Phone 5 and discovered references to potentially three new flagship ASUS phones. The three phones have the names “SAKE”, “PICASSO” and “VODKA”. For reference, the ZenFone 7 series had the code name “TEQUILA”, while the ROG Phone 3 and ROG Phone 5 had the code “OBIWAN” and “ANAKIN” respectively. We’ve also spotted a reference to ‘SAKE_PLUS’ and ‘VODKA_PLUS’ in a single file in the kernel source code, but we do not know if these are actually different models as there are no other references elsewhere.

Although we do not know which of these three phones belong to the ASUS ZenFone 8 series, we saw explicit references to the ASUS ZenFone 8 and ASUS ZenFone 8 Flip in the latest version of the ASUS PixelMaster Camera app. However, all three of these phones should be based on Qualcomm’s flagship Snapdragon 888 mobile platform, at least according to the core source code.

At the very least, we expect ‘BUSINESS’ to be the rumored ZenFone 8 ‘Mini’, as it is defined with an OLED screen of 5.92 defined and called ‘small’ phone in ASUS ‘software. The configuration file for the panel also mentions that it will support 120Hz refresh rate and full HD + (2400 × 1080) resolution. As for cameras, we only saw two image sensors for it: a 64MP Sony IMX686 and a new Sony IMX663.

On the other hand, ‘PICASSO’ seems to have the same panel as the ZenFone 7 series: a 6.67 OL Samsung-made OLED panel with full HD + resolution. PICASSO also has very similar camera hardware to the ZenFone 7 series, with the exception of an additional 24MP image sensor that is oddly defined as the “front” sensor in the core. Although, given the peculiarity of the ZenFone’s flip camera setup, this may not mean that it actually has a traditional camera on the front. Lastly, we know nothing about the rumored “VODKA” device. This is the most elusive of the three, with very few references to it in the core source code and in the latest firmware.

Here is a summary of the information we learned about the three phones:

Thanks to PNF Software for giving us a license to use JEB Decompiler, a reverse engineering tool for professional quality professional applications.