Phone + Tablet : not a phablet!! Its a padfone. Review on Asus Padfone 2

The iphone 5 and the ipad mini was released at the same time which put me under a huge dilemma, because my pocket’s too small and I wanted both because I loved both. For me and many others with the same dilemma Asus brings us  a very good solution with the padfone. The 1st version of this device was released in September which almost went un noticed due to errant pricing but the padfone2 is here and with a price tag which is sure to make it one of the hottest gadgets in the ,market.  Its both a tablet and the phone at the same time. No, I’m not talking about a phablet. This device is a tablet + phone in real sense. Whenever you need a tablet convert the phone into one thats it. Lets continue with the specs review

Disclaimer –  This is a specs review and not a user review. This device will be released in December in India.

Design –

In case you don't know, the Padfone is an original Asus concept that brings together a tablet and a phone; the tablet itself is essentially a dummy device which the phone slots into. There is a battery for extra life inside the tablet, but otherwise all the processing power, memory and more comes from inside the phone. The company says it has listened carefully to the customer feedback on the original Padfone and has made some significant improvements for the device's second generation – notably the introduction of a rather special slotting mechanism. The tablet dock is styled in a similar fashion to the phone, but when held side by side it lacks a little of the phone's refinement – the glossy Corning glass looks smart, but smudges really easily. The phone itself is considerably sleeker than its older brother, measuring in at 9mm at its thickest point and tapering to just 3mm at its tip. It's unbelievably light. The phone and the tablet part – known as the Padfone station - weigh a combined 609g (the phone weighs 130 gms ). That's lighter than iPad 4.

Screen -

The 4.7-inch, 720p, Super IPS+ LCD screen is certainly a step up from its predecessor, but somehow feels considerably smaller than the Samsung Galaxy S3's 4.8-inch offering than you might expect. The 10.1-inch tablet screen isn't Full HD (presumably to keep manufacturing costs lower) From afar, the PadFone 2 could be easily be mistaken for its predecessor that sported the same design language. But put the two together and you'll easily spot that the screen is  larger, sharper and brighter .

Chipset -

There's no two ways about it – this is an extremely powerful smartphone. The PadFone 2 is powered by Qualcomm's latest and greatest Snapdragon S4 Pro , 1.5GHz quad-core based on the Krait architecture (which outperforms Cortex-A9 in many ways). Couple it with 2Gb’s of RAM and It simply roars along and spells out where Asus sees the Padfone 2 going – into the hands of early adopters and power consumers; there's nothing low end about this package.

Battery –

The tablet has 5,000mAh battery  in addition to the 2,140mAh battery in the phone itself. The tablet and phones have independent batteries which is very good and  the phone can be charged while docked in the padstation. Battery life has a big push for Asus, with the company boasting that when the phone is docked in the tablet it has a 3G standby time of six weeks. In terms of the phone itself, Asus claims 3G talk time of 16 hours, browsing of 13 hours, video of nine hours and 3G standby of two weeks. Without the tablet, Asus claims 3G talk time of 16 hours, browsing of 13 hours, video of nine hours .

Camera –

While I was  fairly impressed by the 8-megapixel camera on the first PadFone, but compared to the competition, it fell behind in speed and night time performance. This is no longer the case with the PadFone 2's beastly 13-megapixel, f/2.4 imager. Thanks to the Sony BSI sensor and its dedicated image processor, not only can the camera handle zero shutter lag, but it can also shoot up to 100 continuous shots at 6 fps in full 13-megapixel resolution -- easily beating the HTC One X (eight megapixels, up to 99 shots at 4 fps) and the Samsung Galaxy S III (eight megapixels, capped at 20 shots at 3.3 fps). While there's no dedicated camera button, you can use the volume keys to take stills, but neither offer the proper two-stage click for pre-focusing.

Memory –

In Asia, the new PadFone is offered in flavors of 16GB, 32GB and 64GB, whereas in Europe it'll only have 32GB and 64GB options. Unlike its predecessor, however, there's sadly no microSD expansion. Buyers do get a generous 50GB of free ASUS WebStorage service for two years, which is no doubt to help push the ASUS Open Cloud Computing initiative.

OS -

The padfone runs on the Android 4.0.4 ICS which is quite a disappointment as a jellybean was expected. But the company confirms that there will be a jellybean update soon.

Price -

The Asus PadFone 2 is expected to be priced almost the same as the older models. For example, in the 16 GB version of the tablet, the cost of the smartphone costs about Rs 33,000 while the docking station would cost another Rs 10,000 - so almost Rs 43,000 in total for the 16 gb version.

Verdict –

With the Padfone 2 Asus has presented a hardware combination that delivers on much of the unfulfilled promise of the original Padfone. If you're investing in a high end smartphone, it may be a tempting option. It's expensive when you think about it in terms of a single product, but when you think of it as both a smartphone and tablet it becomes a lot more reasonable. It's unlikely Padfone 2 will be a truly dominant force and it probably won't see Asus taking Apple and Samsung head on just yet, but the Padfone 2 does see Asus offering something unique and doing it with a good deal of style. It seems like there's a huge mountain to climb here, but on the flip side, ASUS' innovative differentiation does have some advantages. you get to keep the same data in one place instead of having to duplicate them and you can pretty much instantly switch between a small screen and a large screen for the same content. Not to mention that there's also the added functionality of charging up the phone while it's sitting inside the tablet. Alas, the original PadFone and PadFone Station didn't quite hit the spot: the combined weight and bulk made it tough to justify the phone-in-tablet idea. Let's see if ASUS has done it right this time 'round.

Excerpts from the Verge, Endgadget and mobileindian.

Comments and criticism are welcome.

Additions to the review are more than welcome.

Regards,

SlightlyDrunk