So far, the stars of the Mobile World Congress show, currently underway in Barcelona, appears to be tablets with phone functionality. First it was Samsung’s Galaxy Note 8, and then Asus announced its own 7” tablet with phone functionality, the FonePad.

 

One reason to get excited about the announcement is that the FonePad appears to be the company’s follow-up to last year’s excellent Nexus 7 tablet.

 

Rather than a Tegra 3 or Tegra 4 processor, for that matter, the FonePad will instead boast Intel’s 1.2 GHz Atom Z2420 processor, 1 GB of memory and run on Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean). The device’s screen resolution is also looking set to be a not too shabby 1280 x 800.

 

 

While the FonePad will only have 16 GB of internal memory, unlike the Nexus 7 (review), it will offer a microSD card slot, meaning that its storage can be boosted by up to a further 32 GB.

 

Additionally, according to Engadget, the device will boast a 4270 mAH battery and an operating time of up to nine hours. However, like with the Nexus 7 that preceded it, the real kicker is the price of $250. Although there is no mention as yet as to when, whether and at what price point it would be made available locally, we suspect that when it does, this would give users a bit more choice at a similar price point as currently offered by the Nexus 7.   

 

The announcement of FonePad followed on from the company’s new PadFone Infinity, which though similarly named, is a different beast. This takes the phone/tablet hybrid experiment a little further, as it enables users to dock a 5” smartphone into a 10.1” tablet screen, which itself has an impressive 1920 x 1200 resolution.