Up to this point, the ASUS PadFone is the most innovative device of 2012, because it is a crossover of a smartphone and tablet and can be utilized with a docking station which comes together with a headset and stylus as well. However, there were shipping delays with the PadFone due to the production of Qualcomm's Snapdragon S4 chipset. The Snapdragon apparently has huge demand from leading smartphone manufacturers because it is said to be the best processing solution for now.
The PadFone has become available to the public in Taiwan starting last April 20. Moreover, it will be also available soon in Hong Kong, Singapore, Germany and several European nations. Reports state that it will cost €699 and the docking station will cost €149.
The smartphone part of the PadFone features a Super AMOLED qHD screen display of 4.3 inches and a processor of 1.5 GHz. The smartphone can be placed into a slot in the tablet, or PadFone Station. The tablet features a display of 10.1 inches and users can also plug-in a QWERTY dock-in keyboard much like the tablet models from ASUS.
Asus Padfone
There is also the option to use the Stylus Headset for the Padfone. The accessory acts as a headset and stylus either for voice commands or voice calls.
During the Mobile World Congress 2012 held in Barcelona, Spain last February, the PadFone was actually discussed to the public and there was also a demo.
The main feature of the PadFone is the smartphone. It comes with a high quality 8-megapixel camera, 5-element lens and Fuji image processor. For its operating system, it is integrated with Android's latest Ice Cream Sandwich. In terms of memory, it has a RAM of 1 GB, a storage capacity of 16/32/64 GB and a slot for a microSD card that can support a maximum of 32 GB.
Some of the other features of the ASUS PadFone include Wi-Fi, microUSB 2.0, Bluetooth 4.0, , HSPA+ and HDMI.
