See What Others Can't See with Asus @ CES

When it comes to CES 2015 announcements, some manufacturers are keeping us in the dark, others have been delivering vague teasers, and others still have been a little more direct in filling us in on what to expect. Take ASUS, for instance, which is managing to keep a few secrets under wraps as it lets us know to expect some sort of handset with exceptional imaging capabilities. There were those series of teasers a couple weeks back, talking about being able to “see what others can’t see” (while notteasing dual rear lenses, despite some far-flung misinterpretations), and now ASUS is getting a little more direct, hiding a key feature for one of its CES devices.

Well, “hiding” may even be too strong of a word, as all ASUS is doing here is spelling that feature out, plain as day, but in Morse code. If you wanted to remain in the dark, and have CES be a surprise, you could simply ignore it, but just a few seconds of Googling gives us our translation: optical zoom.

That’s very interesting, as despite a renewed focus on smartphone camera tech over the past few years (as opposed to just a blind race towards higher and higher megapixel counts), optical zoom systems have failed to make a strong showing. There are several good reasons for why that is, from increased physical complexity.

If a manufacturer ever manages to deliver a phone with a camera that does optical zoom without also making a lot of compromises, it’s bound to get a lot of attention; will that be what ASUS pulls off this year at CES? We can’t say just yet, but we sure are excited to find out. The ASUS CES press event takes place this coming Monday – check back with us then to learn just how this optical zoom system factors into the manufacturer’s latest products.