Computex 2012: Asus PadFone hands-on [video]

Android Authority’s Computex 2012 journey continues with another hands-on preview of an interesting Android device. This time around we’re looking at the Asus Padfone, a smartphone that quickly becomes a tablet, which in turn can be docked in its own, custom keyboard dock to be transformed into a laptop.
The device will cost around $900 when it launches, and while that may seem like a steep price, we’ll remind you that you’ll be getting not one, but two devices, an Android smartphone and an Android tablet. In case you want to purchase a decent smartphone and an equally powerful tablet from other Android makers you’ll probably spend around the same amount of money for both devices, if not more – especially in case you’d be getting any of the two with a new two-year contract.
Sure, you have to dock the smartphone inside the tablet to bring the second one to life, which means you won’t be able to use both of them at the same time – although when you think about it, once you dock the smartphone in the tablet, you are using them simultaneously.



The PadFone, which you can see in the video above, will offer you a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED touchscreen display with 960 x 540 qHD resolution, 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor, 1GB of RAM, 8-megapixel camera, VGA front-facing camera, HSPA+ support, 1520mAh battery, and Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.
Once you dock the PadFone in the PadFone Station, you’ll get to play with a 10.1-inch device with 1280 x 800 WXGA resolution, access a better 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera (the 8-megapixel shooter on the back stays the same) and enjoy an extra 6600 mAh battery. The Station Dock comes with its own battery pack that will increase battery life to 102 hours, up from 63 hours (PadFone + PadFone Station).
The PadFone may soon hit AT&T stores, although that’s still something that needs official confirmation from the carrier before you get too excited.