Asus's Zenfone 2 was expected to have Atom SoC in the firm's handsets. Now it seems that the Asus might be preparing to head back to the arms of Qualcomm.

Yugatech, Chief Executive Jerry Shen has stated that instead of Intel's chipsets, Qualcomm's Snapdragon 615 SoC will be preferred for the next Zenfone smartphone lineup.

This is a little odd as Intel's Atom chipsets are superior to Qualcomm's Snapdragon 615 so it might be that the chips were headed into the company's lower performing Zenfone models.

Asus has not confirmed anything and it might stick to Intel's 'system on a chip' when its higher performing Zenfone 3 lineup is concerned. Currently, the highest performing Zenfone 2 features Intel's Atom Z3580, which is running a 64 bit capable quad-core processor at 2.3 GHz. Additionally, the smartphone is also running 4 GB of RAM and a lithium polymer 3,000 mAh battery.

There are a few Zenfone 2 models on the market now so it is unlikely new model will be seen this year. If Asus is being lured away from the Atom at the lower end, it might be that all bets are off for Intel at the higher end versions of the Zenfone 3.