The prevailing trend of full-screen smartphones is still being figured out. The eagerness to eliminate screen bezels over the last couple of years has been a troublesome journey, with that pesky selfie camera and earpiece speaker getting in the way of the austere, minimalist frontage that we so desperately crave.

Of course, that’s not to say we haven’t seen any attempts at eliminating this problem already. Solutions such as screen notches, vibrating displays and pop-up cameras have all been put forward, but oftentimes these aren’t implemented as well as we’d initially hoped, ultimately introducing their own set of problems.

READ NEXT: The best smartphones you can buy

Thankfully, Asus has put forward its own notch-less solution at a grand unveiling event in Valencia. The brand-new ZenFone 6 goes about tackling this problem by ditching the selfie camera altogether, with the rear-mounted camera unit being able to rotate towards the front of the phone instead. Confused? I certainly don’t blame you.

Asus ZenFone 6 review: Key specifications, price and release date

• 6.4in FHD+ (2,340 x 1,080) IPS HDR10 display
• Octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 processor
• 6GB or 8GB of RAM
• 128GB or 256GB of storage (microSD up to 512GB)
• Dual-SIM
• 48MP f/1.8; 13MP f/2.2 (wide-angle) cameras
• 5,000mAh battery
• Android 9 Pie
• UK price: £499
• UK release: May 2019

Asus ZenFone 6 review: Design, key features and first impressions

Let’s start with the stuff that isn’t unusual first. The ZenFone 6 is Asus’ all-singing and all-dancing flagship phone for 2019 and aside from that curious camera (which I’ll discuss in more detail in a moment) pretty much everything else is typical smartphone fare.

The ZenFone 6’s front is what dominates the first impression, with a massive 6.4in IPS display and a resolution of 2,340 x 1,080. That’s nothing out of the ordinary, and I can’t say anything for certain before putting it under the scrutiny of our screen calibrator, but what I can say at this early stage is that the screen looks lovely with deep, vibrant-looking colours.

What is particularly special about this display, however, is that the phone’s FHD+ panel supports the HDR10 standard. This means that it is capable of producing a wider-range of colours, with brighter whites and a deep, inky-looking black. Essentially, HDR-enriched content on Netflix should look rather good.

The phone itself is constructed from a single block of aluminium, sits nicely in the hand, and feels just as special to hold as any other modern flagship. Mind you, the ZenFone 6 can only be picked up in boring black or silver colour schemes at launch, and it doesn’t benefit from the same shimmering, reflective two-tone rear as its similarly-priced stablemates like the Huawei P30 Lite and Galaxy S10e.

There’s nothing out of the ordinary when it comes to the phone’s various physical elements, either. The power key, Google Assistant button and volume rocker sit on the right edge of the phone, with a USB Type-C charging port (which supports charging speeds up to 18W) sensibly placed on the bottom. Rather than following the in-screen sensor trend, Asus has instead opted for a rear-mounted fingerprint reader, which is suitably placed just above the middle of the phone.

Unsurprisingly, the ZenFone 6 is running the latest version of Google’s ever-popular mobile operating system, Android 9 Pie. It’s powered by Qualcomm’s latest and greatest mobile chipset, the Snapdragon 855 – no surprises there, of course. This is backed by up to 8GB of RAM and a generous 128GB or 256GB of expandable storage.

As for the lowdown on the Snapdragon 855, this is an octa-core processor that’s clocked at 2.84GHz, is built using a more efficient 7nm fabrication process and promises vastly improved speeds over last year's ZenFone 5Z. It certainly won’t have any problems running our performance benchmarks, should any of those other 855-fitted phones offer any indication.

Okay, it’s about time we discuss the ZenFone 6’s coup de grâce. Like I said earlier, there’s no selfie camera embedded into the front of the phone, which frees up the ZenFone 6’s frontage for a completely clean viewing experience but, of course, what exactly is a person to do if they want to post their Instagram vanity shots?

Well, Asus gets around this predicament by including a bizarre, movable camera. Yes, you read that right, the camera on the back of the phone can be flipped upwards, should you ever feel the need to show off your new haircut, or perhaps use Snapchat’s new gender-swapping camera filter.

The way this works is you simply open the camera app and tap the selfie button, or ask Google Assistant to take a selfie. This spins the camera on its axis 180-degrees. It’s as simple as that, it moves quite fast for the most part, and you can adjust the angle however you see fit using the manual controls in the camera app.

This also allows for automatic vertical and horizontal panorama photography, with the camera steadily moving upwards without having to move the phone itself. Of course, this enables you to use all of the shooting modes on offer when using the selfie camera, including time-lapse, night shot, wide-angle and 4K video recording at 60fps with electronic image stabilisation (EIS) enabled.

Asus says the camera mechanism has been tested for use over 100,000 times, which is supposedly the same as using the selfie camera five times a day, every day, for five years. It also has drop protection, retracting back into its hole if it identifies that the phone has fallen out of your hand.

Finally, as for the nitty-gritty technical specifications, the camera incorporates a 48-megapixel Sony IMX586 sensor with a relatively wide f/1.8 aperture. We’ve previously seen this high-megapixel camera unit in the Xiaomi Mi 9 and it also makes an appearance in the upcoming OnePlus 7 Pro. This works with a secondary, 13-megapixel camera unit, which is a wide-angle, 125-degree sensor.

Asus ZenFone 6 review: Early verdict

Asus’ ZenFone 6 is a bizarre mix of both the extraordinary and the conventional. On the one hand, you’ll find the usual flagship trinkets and niceties like Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 855 chipset, a HDR10 screen, a big battery and a 48-megapixel sensor. On the other hand, of course, there’s that odd rotatable camera.

Do I think that this is where notch-less phones are ultimately headed? No, not at this very early stage. It’s certainly good fun to play around with for a brief moment or two, and I’m sure it’ll draw admiring glances in phone shops, but I don’t think this is the ultimate solution to the notch problem. Those pin-hole cameras will simply have to do the job for the time being.

The Asus ZenFone 6 will be available to preorder from 17 May, starting at £499.