By MoDaCo’s esteemed founder Paul O’Brien has apparently heard it from ASUS that they will be showing off the Padfone at Mobile World Congress. To be exact, February 27th is the date we should be circling.
The Padfone, as you might have guessed, is a combination of a smartphone and a tablet dock. The dock would just house things such as speakers, the display, an extra battery and your standard set of buttons, but the power comes from the phone.
The phone is said to be running Android 4.0 for both the phone and tablet side of things and will have a quad-core Tegra 3 processor. Another great feature is its ability to use the original Transformer’s keyboard dock. You pretty much have yourself a smartphone, a tablet and a netbook, all in one – is there some sort of award for ASUS having the first three-way hybrid?
We know we’re excited to see what the final results will be so circle back to Phandroid throughout Mobile World Congress as we’ll be covering it all live. [via Android and Me]
That is really tempting. The only thing that would make it better is if it was a nexus.
Asus updates their devices just about as fast as Google. If this thing materializes… I may go for it myself and ditch my Nexus and Xoom. It will be SERIOUSLY tempting. But of course, this all hinges on it being available on Verizon. And I don’t see Verizon being to happy with a hybrid device like this. Especially since it’ll be stock Android and Asus won’t want Verizon to tinker with the image.
Time will tell.
When I first saw this, I thought, “I so want one of these”. But then, as a matter of practicality, I started thinking about how I’d want to use it. There are so many times when it is handy to have both a phone AND a tablet. This looks like you can’t use both at once. There’s the practical problem of what if you’re doing some important tablet work and your phone rings. How would this work and not be completely annoying?
Bluetooth perhaps?
The possibility of it not having a camera flash could be a deal breaker. I might go with the LG X3 instead, and since Jellybeans may not have Flash support, I don’t be in a rush to get the update anyway.
The possibility of it not having a camera flash could be a deal breaker. I might go with the LG X3 instead, and since Jellybeans may not have Flash support, I don’t be in a rush to get the update anyway.
“first three-way hybrid” ooooo a “manajatwa” .
Saw a vid of someone playing with one at CES .
Cool idea , along with the Lapdock from Moto .
Cool idea, but Asus seems to be 0 for 2 on its tablet launches in the past year. I think I’ll pass on this one.
I know many people love Asus, but personally I’ve always had problems with their products. Nevertheless, I’m excited about the Padfone.
I am excited for what it opens up for the future of computing. My pipe dream is to have a central computing brain and basically a bunch of glorified docks. The Desktop Dock would have more resources (RAM, Storage, extra proc/gpu), since it is plugged into the wall and would not need to rely on just a battery. Maybe the tablet dock would have a spare battery. Dunno, dun care, it’s an idea I like.
I look at the door of the tablet, and wonder if it’ll take 5 or 15 minutes for it to break off… It just doesn’t strike me as something that will actually last.
change the name to “transformer phone” or apple will sue b.c. you said “pad” when talking about a tablet
To banjoonmyknee:
I’m guessing the issue you brought up would be dealt w/in the same manner as the MOTOROLA LAPDOCK.A split screen (75/25 or thereabouts) would enable computing & phone functions to operate simultaneously.
If you haven’t already,check out MOTO’S website,or,YOU-TUBE for a video demonstration.