When we first cast eyes on the Motorola Atrix and its Lapdock accessory we pondered if this was a one-off or the shape of peripherals to come. Looks like Asus has decided that it’s definitely the latter with this, the Padfone.
Announced at Computex 2011 in Taipei, the Padfone is exactly what you think it is; a smartphone that’s able to slip inside a larger touchscreen dock and transform into a tablet.
Like the Atrix’s laptop dock, the Padfone tablet is essentially ‘dumb’, at least according to Esato where we first saw these pics.
The official blurb (found here) confirms this, and says that the Padfone tablet features an additional battery that can be used to charge the phone part and will offer “seamless transition of applications between pad and phone”.
The Asus Padfone reportedly will run on Ice Cream Sandwich, the Android OS that will meld phone and tablet features, so we’re expecting that this seamless transition will be exactly that. Ice Cream Sandwich is due to be ready for Winter/Christmas 2011, so expect to see Asus Padfones on some people’s wish lists this year.
Aside from the screen sizes of the two devices, 4.3-inches for the phone and 10.1 inches for the tab, according to Pocket-lint, there’s little other available spec for the Padfone right now. Until then, let your eyes glaze over this video.
We particularly liked the font used at the end of the video (around 1:57). Very iPad don’t you think?
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