The ASUS Padfone: A Smartphone That Docks into a Tablet
by Anand Lal Shimpi on May 30, 2011 5:02 AM EST- Posted in
- Tablets
- Asus
- Smartphones
- Mobile
- Padfone
- Computex 2011
- Trade Shows
A number of you have asked for this innovation over the past few months: a smartphone that docks into a tablet. Given that the two platforms generally share the same hardware, it seems to make sense. ASUS has heard your calls and today announced its Padfone, and no, I'm not joking about the name.
Building off of the expertise with the Eee Pad Transformer, the Padfone is a smartphone that's dockable into a tablet. The intelligence is entirely inside the ph...er fone part, the pad is strictly a display and extended capacity battery.
ASUS didn't announce anything on availability, internal specs or even what OS it would run. In one shot ASUS had a Windows interface and in another shot it had a Honeycomb interface. Clearly this is a work in progress but it's an interesting concept. Update: ASUS tells us that the Padfone will run Android and that the Windows interface was simply a mistake in the demo video.
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Hok - Monday, May 30, 2011 - link
The phone looks honkin big though...marc1000 - Monday, May 30, 2011 - link
Anand, your coverage of events like this is gorgeous (and the asus products really interesting), but to keep things more simple I would suggest one thing: try to summarize news from the same manufacturer on the same "news" page on any given day. I believe this would make the front page more clear and focused.the news about the Padfone, X101 and UX notebooks are really similar in nature, so they could be put in the same article, for example.
best regards and keep up the good work (to all AT team!). I'm really eager to know what is coming down this year!
Simozene - Tuesday, May 31, 2011 - link
A phone that docks into a tablet that docks into a keyboard!lenghui - Saturday, June 4, 2011 - link
awful name. They should just call it i-wanna-be-apple-fone.