Screenshots showing Asus Zenfone 3 Max running Android Oreo surface online

Several Android OEMs committed earlier this year that they would bring Android 8.0 Oreo to a bunch of their smartphones ‘soon’. Some even claimed they will be rolling it out before the year’s end. Among those OEMs was the Taiwanese technology firm Asus and it looks like the company is testing the OS version internally before promising any roll out dates.
To be precise, the company claimed to give Zenfone 3 and Zenfone 4 smartphone users a taste of Oreo at some point. Although no ETAs were allotted, few screenshots claiming to show the Zenfone 3 running Android Oreo indicate the arrival of the OS update soon.
Few images shared by the Asus Zenfone Blog, purportedly show the Zenfone 3 (ZE520KL) running Android Oreo. Mind you, the Zenfone 3 (ZE520KL) is the same model that is available in India right now at Rs 13,999.

There are no major cosmetic upgrades from the looks of it. However, native Android Oreo features are there including the Picture-in-Picture mode, improved background limiting and some ‘notification updates’, says the report.

While the blog doesn’t really go into the details on what’s there to come and what’s not, we assume other obvious Android Oreo features like Notification Dots, Autofill and Smart Text Selection. Since there is no official rollout date, one can only wait for now.

Not much action has been seen lately on the smartphone side of things when it comes to Asus. The company’s last major launch was the Zenfone 4 line up few months ago. In India, it recently slashed the price of the Zenfone 3 Max (5.2-inch screen variant), from Rs 12,999 to Rs 9,999. As the name would indicate, the smartphone’s key selling point is its 4000mAh battery, which also acts as a power bank for other handsets. It launched in India in November 2016.