02. March 2012

Marco Attard

Asus announces an April 2012 launch for the PadFone at Mobile World Congress 2012-- the 4.3" smartphone with a 10.1" docking tablet, which in turn slots into an optional keyboard dock.

Padfone Think of it as a smartphone-tablet-notebook combo... or an excuse to sell lots of different docks.

Inside the PadFone are a 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon processor together with an Adreno 225 GPU and 1GB of RAM. The display is a Super AMOLED handling 960x540 resolution, while the OS is Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich).

The tablet dock (or PadFone Station) has a 10.1" 1280x800 capacitative multi-touch display, with a battery Asus says boosts PadFone life by 500%. Using "Dynamic Display technology," it should alow seamless transition between regular phone and tablet displays.

Meanwhile the keyboard dock is very similar to the one the Transformer Pad Prime uses.

A rather unexpected announcement at MWC is the stylus headset-- allowing users to use the tablet as a sketchbook while handling phone calls (via Bluetooth-connected mic and speaker) when the Padfone is docked.

Go Asus PadFone

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