Asus Padfone X Smartphone-Tablet Hybrid Coming to the U.S. Via AT&T

Asus padfone x

Asus Padfone X Smartphone-Tablet Hybrid Coming to the U.S. Via AT&T

Announcing PadFone X on Monday at the Consumer Electronics Show, Asus has shared very little spec and feature information about the quirky mobile hybrid. The Asus PadFone X is a combo of a 5-inch FullHD smartphone and a 9-inch FullHD tablet.

Las Vegas: Asus is finally bringing a smartphone to the US market. American customers won’t be getting anything close to a prosaic design.Announcing PadFone X on Monday at the Consumer Electronics Show, Asus has shared very little spec and feature information about the quirky mobile hybrid. The Asus PadFone X is a combo of a 5-inch FullHD smartphone and a 9-inch FullHD tablet.

As is customary for the Padfone lineup, when you dock the smartphone on the back of the tablet, it not only makes use of the bigger screen, but also of the large battery embedded into the tablet body. Without the smartphone however, the tablet body is not operational on its own.

The smartphone/tablet duo runs Android KitKat 4.4 and has a brushed metal frame, a soft-touch back cover and dual front speakers although it’s not currently clear whether these speakers are on the smartphone or on the smartphone body.

The ASUS PadFone X is powered by Qualcomm’s latest chipset and supports LTE-Advanced (with Carrier Aggregation), Voice over LTE (VoLTE) and HD Voice, which are yet to be made available on AT&T’s network.

The user can watch a video on the phone, and then insert the phone into the larger screen without any unseemly glitches during the transition. The content simply auto-fits to the larger screen size.Interested? Asus says it will share US pricing, availability and “detailed specifications” at a later date.

It will be difficult for the PadFone X to make a significant dent in a US smartphone market dominated by Apple and Samsung, but Asus does have mobile brand recognition care of the Nexus 7 tablet, and the company has never shied away from experimentation—in either product design or new market exploration.

According to the latest hearsay, the smartphone will be powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 800 processor, but this has yet to be confirmed. “AT&T and ASUS share a passion for innovation and we are very excited to bring the ASUS PadFone X to the US market. Our technology is capable of instantly turning a premium smartphone into a tablet, giving consumer the ultimate experience on both devices. Together, we look forward to bringing more choices to consumers,” concluded Jonney Shih, chairman, ASUS.