Earlier this morning, while we were all still asleep in our nice soft (or firm if you like it that way) beds, a pretty sweet concept, which is turning into a reality pretty quick was introduced. We’ve all seen the Motorola Atrix 4G, and the add-on dock that you can purchase with it; well ASUS has taken it a step further and turned their dock into a tablet.
Introducing the Asus Padfone, a high concept tablet/phone combination that was announced at Computex 2011 this weekend. A package consisting of an 4-inch Android smartphone which can dock into a companion 10.1-inch 1280 x 800 tablet. The tablet’s separate battery can be used to recharge the phone, while the phone’s 3G connection can get the slate online when away from a WiFi hotspot.
ASUS is promising a “seamless” transition from the phone to the tablet UI, with whatever you’ve been looking at on the handset automatically expanding to suit the slate, along with the improved web browsing experience you’d expect from a bigger display. If a call comes in while the phone is docked, then it can either be removed or answered with a Bluetooth headset.
Phone and slate can access the same storage in the handset, and since there’s only one 3G radio then you don’t have to swap your SIM between two modems or sign up for a second data connection. The UI has been modified to suit both displays, either showing mobile sites on the phone or full sites on the tablet. The phone itself has two cameras, a front-facing webcam – just like the tablet – and a 5-megapixel camera on the back which can also be used through a hole in the PadFone dock.
ASUS is saying that finalized hardware specifications haven’t been decided on yet, and nor have pricing or availability, so don’t get your hopes up too much. Still, as concepts go, this is an intriguing one.
Source: Tracy and Matt
