14 DAY TRIAL // The ASUS Padfone is essentially what its name implies, a phone-tablet hybrid, but ASUS went for a fairly unusual choice of design elements in its making.
The company has, in a way, mimicked Motorola's treatment of the “phone in tablet clothing” idea, the one that spawned the Lapdock.
While the Padfone is, essentially, just a smartphone (albeit a very strong one), it can change into a tablet at will, provided a certain accessory is present.
Exhibiting the so-called “3-in-1” innovation, it can slip into the special compartment of the tablet-like dock.
Upon doing so, a direct link is established between the touchscreen LCD and the phone itself.
In other words, the Padfone shapeshifts fully into a tablet, one that can even hook up to keyboard docks.
There is even a special stylus that doubles as a headset, for taking phone calls without having to remove the little thing from the tablet.
"The time has finally arrived when every screen in your lives could transcend into a portal with real time access into your digital world," said Chairman Jonney Shih at the Mobile World Congress 2012 event in Barcelona, Spain.
The Padfone features a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED qHD display and the new dual-core Snapdragon S4 CPU from Qualcomm, plus an Adreno 225 GPU.
An 8-megapixel camera lies at its back, for photos, while a front VGA camera helps with video chatting and the like.
Furthermore, the phone has 16 to 64 GB of built-in storage, Bluetooth 4.0, HDMI, GPS, A-GPS, a gyroscope, a compass, a 1,520mAh battery and multiple connectivity options.
The list is made up of HSPA+, WCDMA (900, 2100 MHz) and EDGE / GPRS / GSM (850, 1800 and 1900 MHz).
Some of our colleagues are on site at ASUS's booth in Barcelona, Spain, so we have quite a few photos to show you. We'll update this post as soon as we have our hands-on article up.
UPDATE: As promised, our hands-on gallery is ready to be perused.