Asus unveils the Padfone
By Johan Keyter 30 May 2011 | Categories: newsEarlier today at the Computex 2011 expo in Taipei, Taiwan, Asus unveiled its newest innovative hybrid device in the form of the Asus Padfone.
Asus chairman, Jonney Shih, took to the stage to unveil the new device along with a number of new Asus products, including new UX series notebooks, N series notebooks and new Eee Pad and Eee PC devices.
The one that stole the show was the Padfone though, a device which aims to truly meld your mobile communication and computing capabilities into a single, unified solution. In the Padfone we see the Asus trend of combining different devices continue, similar to that of the recently reviewed Eee Pad Transformer.
The Padfone has the ability to be either a smartphone or a tablet, depending on where you are, what you need doing, and what size screen you're looking for. This is possible thanks to the Padfone allowing a smartphone to physically dock with the tablet, with users literally slotting their smartphone into the device.
This solves the hassles of having to transfer data between different devices, and having to own multiple SIM cards and contracts. When a phone is docked with the device it can recharge itself from the tablet's larger battery, and the tablet can in turn utilise the smartphone's 3G internet connection.
This dual interface solution is set up to seamlessly work together, with dynamic display switching giving you the best interface possible, be it for reading emails, browsing the web or taking part in a video conference.
A couple of important details are still missing, for example which version of Android the device will run, seeing as it has both tablet and smartphone capabilities. At the moment it looks like a 10.1” tablet, with a 4.3” smartphone solution will be used, although specific specs aren’t available as of yet.
Check out the video below for a visual representation of how the Padfone will function.
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