One of the products practically begging to hold our hands – and not let them go for the rest of our time here in Computex, Taipei – was Asus’ newest phablet, the Zenfone 6.

Suffice to say, it impressed us no end, as despite boasting a whopping 6” screen, it both looked, and felt, sublime in the hand. Sleek and slender the Zenfone defied the assertion that phablets are inappropriately sized to be a phone. In fact, we actually have to admit that we could more comfortably stretch our thumb across the screen when holding it in one hand than we can our now old Samsung Note, as Asus has seen fit to make the phablet quite slender, as well as thin (5.5 mm) and light (196 g).

Even though it was right next door to the Zenfone 5 - a five incher, if the name didn't give it away - we actually preferred the 6” version. Both new phones though had two things in common - namely premium feeling build and fantastic looking screens; to the point of being surprisingly sharp and clear despite ‘only’ having a 1280x720 resolution. Getting back to the Zenfone 6 though, we were particularly impressed by how fast the device seemed to respond.

This is thanks to the presence of an Intel Atom multi-core Z2580 processor clocked at 2.0 GHz. Say what you will about this particular processor; from our time with it, we were mightily impressed so far.

Although the phone only has Android 4.3 onboard, apparently it will be receiving an Android KitKat update shortly. Also worth watching out for is the new ZenUI. The interface not only felt snappy, it looked fantastic and even more importantly, didn’t feel obtrusive in the ways that some custom Android UI’s tend to.

As for as the camera is concerned, a 13 megapixel back snapper is onboard for the ride, as is a 2 megapixel front one. Naturally, we haven't had a chance as yet to see how this performs out of the show grounds; hopefully a full review will become feasible in due course.  

There is no word as yet as to when or whether the Zenfone 6 will storm into the South African market; if and when it does though, our advice to the competition: 'watch your six' very closely, and maybe start practising zen meditation if competition scares you.