Some people aren’t sure whether they need a phone and a tablet, so Asus is trying to bridge those more than ever, with the announcement of the PadFone coming to Australia.
First announced mid-2011 at the Computex show in Taipei, the PadFone concept threw together a 10.1 inch Android tablet with a special dock designed to take an Asus phone, an area we haven’t seen Asus dabble in for quite a while.
We had an update about the PadFone earlier in the year, when Asus announced just what the specs would be for the phone itself: Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, dual-core 1.5GHz processor, 32GB storage, microSD slot, 4.3 inch Super AMOLED screen with 960×540 resolution, WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, 8 megapixel rear camera, and VGA front camera.
The tablet – called the PadFone Station – is a 10.1 inch 1280×800 touchscreen covered with Corning’s scratch-resistant Gorilla Glass, and a special dock that allows the tablet to play media from the phone, use its 3G connection, and even recharge the battery life, similar to how the Asus Transformer keyboard dock recharges the touchscreen slate that plugs into it.
At the moment, only one retailer is planning to sell the converged device, with Harvey Norman grabbing the Asus PadFone from August 14 for $999 RRP.
