Some people carry tablets, some people carry phones. Asus is betting there’s a market for folks that want to carry a tablet that’s actually powered by their phone, making it seamless to get at data, apps and web services on either device. The PadFone 2 is the newest device combo from Asus that offers exactly that, and it launches in December.
The company announced the PadFone 2 on Tuesday and it improves on its predecessor in nearly every way. Yes, there was a PadFone from Asus that launched earlier this year, but the product was mainly sold in Taiwan. Reviews showed some technical glitches and a clunky phone and tablet package. PadFone 2 is sleeker and more powerful, making for a potentially good combination device.
The handset looks like most other high-end thin Android slabs these days, both inside and out.: It’s a 4.7-inch 1280 x 720 Super IPS+ display with Qualcomm’s 1.5 GHz quad-core processor inside. A pair of cameras adorn the phone with the rear shooter topping out at 13 megapixels. The 2140 mAh battery in the phone provides up to 13 hours of web surfing. But that’s only half the story; dock the phone into the PadFone 2 Station — a tablet shell — and you’ve got a full tablet running off of the phone’s hardware.
The Station is a 10.1-inch display and has a 5000 mAh battery of its own, meaning there’s enough juice to run for another two dozen hours. The entire tablet is powered by the phone and therefore shares the same memory, so there’s no need to sync any data, photos, music or other files between the two devices. Think of the PadFone Station as a tablet-like dock for the phone and not worrying about where you’re data or apps are.
Asus hasn’t yet announced a price and says the device will officially launch by end of year in Europe (Bulgaria, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, and Sweden) and Asia (Hong Kong, India, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, and U.A.E).
