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  • HMTK - Monday, May 30, 2011 - link

    If there aren't any mechanical problems with this thing this is a good idea. And why not make it more general in the future? Touchscreen + battery to connect to ANY smart phone.
  • hughlle - Monday, May 30, 2011 - link

    Certainly seems to be a much better idea than the laptops with removable tablets.
  • ahmedz_1991 - Monday, May 30, 2011 - link

    absolutely agree with u
  • marc1000 - Monday, May 30, 2011 - link

    anyone noticed that the PORT arrangement on this phone is very similar to the one on Motorola Atrix? if this placement and port types create some kind of "standard", we could see interchangeable "screens" to attach to our phones in the near future!
  • Shadowmaster625 - Wednesday, June 1, 2011 - link

    Does asus have the kind of leverage needed to concoct a standard padfone docking interface, and actually get the phone makers to adopt it? If they do it right we could see tablet docks for under $100, and with a dockable phone you can then start cutting out some of the display costs on the smartphone.

    They need to keep the phone's screen outwardly accessible to use as a rear touchpad for the tablet.
  • jjj - Monday, May 30, 2011 - link

    Not thin enough and the docking system is not simple enough,it is however good that at least they are trying.Curious what they'll do about the software,wait for Ice Cream Sandwich,dual android (unlikely even it might be the best option) or go for 2.3 (Windows doesn't seem like a vialble option (anytime soon) at all if you take 2 seconds to think about it and MeeGo could use some more mainstream products first).
  • warisz00r - Monday, May 30, 2011 - link

    It's not the final design.
  • jjj - Monday, May 30, 2011 - link

    Engadget is talking now about a dec release and assuming Ice Cream Sandwich.As for the docking solution,if it's not the final design, it would be nice if the phone could easily slide in and out.
  • mesiah - Monday, May 30, 2011 - link

    The docking solution looks simple enough to me. Open the door, snap it in, close the door. You don't want a simple slide mechanism if you are going to be tossing a tablet around. The phone could easily detach its self. If this had a keyboard like the atrix it would be different, you aren't holding a netbook in your hands and or changing its orientation constantly. The door keeps the phone nice and secure, and if the extra 2 seconds to open and close a door is too much, then apple really has melted everyones brain.
  • jjj - Tuesday, May 31, 2011 - link

    It's nice that you feel the need to insult people for no particular reason .
    Besides that,yes 2 seconds matter and it's a pain in the a$$ compared to a sliding mechanism that secures the device properly when docked (sliding and secure are not mutually exclusive).How would you like it if every time you had to use your laptop you would have to first insert the battery and when you turn it off , take it out again? The solution Asus decided to adopt is not convenient enough,especially when there are far better options
  • mesiah - Tuesday, May 31, 2011 - link

    I'm sorry if you got offended by common sense. If I wanted to be offensive I would have said something like "You know, its just too hard to open my car door, I wish they would get rid of car doors all together."

    Technically, a sliding mechanism can be just as much of a hassle as the door, especially if it needs to somehow lock the phone in solid. Getting it lined up could take just as much time as opening a door. On top of that, it just doesn't look as sleek to have a phone slapped on the back of your tablet.

    You are right though, your opinion is the only one that matters. Anyone pointing out problems with it is obviously just trying to insult you.
  • warisz00r - Tuesday, May 31, 2011 - link

    No, I mean the production PadFone may work in the same way is is now wrt it's docking mechanism, but the aesthetics and physical measurement may be different.
  • Knifeshade - Monday, May 30, 2011 - link

    Next up they should make it so the smartphone can dock into an EeePad Transformer shell which in turn can slot into a laptop dock. THE ULTIMATE COMBO.
  • dananski - Monday, May 30, 2011 - link

    Exactly what I was thinking. I'd probably buy that if they named it something better than Padfone... How about continuing the Eee brand and having an Eee Phone Transformer?
  • BugblatterIII - Monday, May 30, 2011 - link

    And me; I've been waiting for that ever since the idea first occurred to me a couple of years ago. Thought we'd have to wait longer for phone tech to get powerful enough to make it a viable proposition but by the end of the year I reckon it'll be there (in fact it's pretty good now).

    Also, if they added wireless HDMI to the tablet I'd marry it! Imagine using the tablet and dragging windows to your TV or monitor! May not fit everyone's usage pattern but would be perfect for mine.

    In theory it should be possible to have another gfx chip in the tablet part and SLI with the one in the phone; after all tablets need more gfx power than phones.

    I'm guessing the pad wil have to be bulkier than most to house a phone though. Also it means you're tied to that particular phone. Both things I could live with however.
  • khimera2000 - Monday, May 30, 2011 - link

    0.o with that kind of set up I could play music on an overnighter for the entire time there and not worry about it going dead o.0
  • PubFiction - Monday, May 30, 2011 - link

    lol so we are making a rube goldberg mechanism to finally get us back to the good old (now called) convertible tablet?

    Its funny how the market works. Take a single feature blow it out of porportion and convince everyone to switch over to it. Then slowly add back features they had in the product they gave up. Eventually after a decade they have reinvented the convertible tablet and called it innovation.

    This is what happened in the TV market. Everyone was convinced to give up their CRTs in the name of thin. But they sacrificed everything to get it. Then every 2 years they tried to sell you a new TV that was slowly adding back 1 by 1 features of the CRT.

    In this case I guess its all about battery life. We traded everything to get phone type battery life. About 8 hours or so. Now they slowly add back features. Every so slowly trying to get back to the point where you have a think pad again.

    Ask youself whats the point in disconnecting the keyboard? I mean if the keyboard is useful why not just keep it. Is the small space you save really that important when you take into fact that you will get caught in all sorts of places where you wished you had brought your keyboard? No what you will do is buy a laptop sized bag and shove all your crap in it. In which case you should have just bought a full sized think pad tablet. Or you will never take the parts with you anywhere in which case M$ mesh between a phone and a real computer would have done it all for you and had a ton more power and capabilities.
  • mesiah - Monday, May 30, 2011 - link

    Although you were probably joking, Asus did say that their future tablets would be compatible with the transformer dock. It wouldn't be too much of a stretch to assume they would allow this to dock with the transformer base.
  • Chupathingy220 - Monday, May 30, 2011 - link

    This is pretty cool. But the question is, can you make phone calls while using the tablet?
  • Elrondolio - Monday, May 30, 2011 - link

    The demo video they released during unveil has a guy answering the phone in tablet-dock mode using a bluetooth headset, so... yes. Maybe. If any of this is finalized.

    Basically, the tablet "is" the phone, or, the other way around actually. It'll use Ice Cream as the initial OS (or whatever follows IC when this is ready to launch), so when you dock the phone the UI simply scales up to the Pad screen's dimensions. The Pad has no OS of its own.
  • Hok - Monday, May 30, 2011 - link

    The phone looks honkin big though...
  • marc1000 - Monday, May 30, 2011 - link

    Anand, your coverage of events like this is gorgeous (and the asus products really interesting), but to keep things more simple I would suggest one thing: try to summarize news from the same manufacturer on the same "news" page on any given day. I believe this would make the front page more clear and focused.

    the news about the Padfone, X101 and UX notebooks are really similar in nature, so they could be put in the same article, for example.

    best regards and keep up the good work (to all AT team!). I'm really eager to know what is coming down this year!
  • Simozene - Tuesday, May 31, 2011 - link

    A phone that docks into a tablet that docks into a keyboard!
  • lenghui - Saturday, June 4, 2011 - link

    awful name. They should just call it i-wanna-be-apple-fone.

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