Gadgetory

technological convergence is the tendency for different technological systems to evolve towards performing similar tasks sometimes it happens smoothly and naturally like the way that standalone pager devices became a basic feature on every cell phone other times whether it's because the industry is trying to do something before the technology is really ready or because a loan manufacturer is trying to shoehorn in features that just don't make any sense this process feels more like a science experiment gone wrong than something that you should spend your hard-earned money on so what is the asus padfone x is it the next natural step in the evolution of phones and tablets that sees them ultimately become one device or is it a Frankenstein monster that makes no sense and needs to be put down let's find out shall we the jazz mini phone and tablet stand from Coolermaster is now available in a variety of cool colors from these great retailers click now to learn more so let's start with the phone part of the PadFone X it's a flagship class smart phone with all the usual fixes a surprisingly bright high contrast and generally beautiful 5-inch 1080p IPS Plus display dominates the front of the device with only an earphone speaker a mundane 2 megapixel selfie camera a notification LED and a shiny logo to distract from it onto the edges the trapezoid profile shape makes it easier for me to grip than other similarly large phones on the top we find a three-and-a-half millimeter jack and a noise cancelling mic on the right the lock and volume buttons are easy to press on purpose while being difficult to press by accident with nothing on the opposing side of the device to accidentally mash and on the bottom is one of the most snug micro USB connectors I've ever encountered which has the stealth benefit of actually being a my DP slim port that supports up to 1080p 60fps video output over DisplayPort HDMI or VGA with a cheap passivity not quite as drippy as I'd like removable plastic backing a 13 megapixel still camera a standard 1 tone flash and unfortunately rear mounted speaker I'm going to keep harping on this until everyone moves in to the front and two logos including an AT&T one yes this is an AT&T exclusive device the u.s. taking this off reveals a micro-sim slot and microSD expansion slot and a beefy non removable 2300 milliamp hour battery that I easily got a day plus out of while I was using it then on the underside of the cover we see contacts for NFC with Isis mobile wallet support and PMA wireless charging ASIS shipped me a replacement backing with an integrated screen cover but I actually prefer naked phones in general and the build quality of it was nothing special and unless you open up the cover first it actually doesn't even fit into the included tablet accessory so I didn't use it which gives me a great opportunity to talk about just how well this dock mechanism works between the textured low friction surface against the screen the combination of soft touch rubber grips and plastic guides on the sides and the long microUSB and dual prong system that penetrates the phone from the bottom it works surprisingly well it's easy to slip in and easy to take out but it won't come out by accident and it achieves this without needing a kludge e locking switch or anything like that full marks for how they go together but of course the pad part of the pad phone if it sucks then you're unlikely to use it anyway so let's take a look around it shall we like the phone the overall build quality is nothing groundbreaking it's got a simple plastic backing and an unbranded glass front instead of the Corning Glass on the phone itself there's a forty nine ninety milliamp hour battery inside that can just charge the phone charge the phone while powering up the tablet or allow the tablet and phone to share battery life with each other intelligently on the outside there's a lock button a volume rocker a 1 megapixel selfie camera I guess you'll do your video calling with it out of the dock to adequately loud front-facing speakers and finally the 8-inch 1920 by 1200 IPS screen whose job it is to convince potential customers to buy this two-in-one device instead of a standalone phone the good news here is that it gets plenty bright colors look great and unlike most phone makers Asus actually gives us some cool tools for adjusting the look of the screen and the phone with their splendid app and overall works darn well other than having sort of wider bezel and I would have liked to see which leads us into the software pre-loaded app wise on top of splendid you get some AT&T stuff a sound tweaking app a power profile adjusting app that lets you tweak screen brightness depending on what's running and a file manager that doesn't seem particularly exceptional but save me the trouble of installing ES file manager I guess or Explorer rather but that's not what you really wanted to know you want to know about the skin that asus is running over android 4.4.2 it's alright I guess overall responsiveness is solid but I found the keyboard laggy and quickly replaced it was fifth key multitasking is snappy but there text highlighting feels slow and my on-screen buttons disappeared sometimes the dialer and SMS apps are simple to use but I don't really like some visual design elements like the notification pulldown that looks out of place with a light blue and white color scheme so in summary again it's alright I guess they thankfully didn't change much interaction wise so there's like no other random crap in the Google now swipe up like LG's done with the g3 but the question this all raises then is why bother changing anything then why not just go the mostly stock Android route that Nvidia and Motorola have gone and just build in the functionality that you need to differentiate your device because they do have that their dynamic display technology allows your home screens and even certain apps to switch between tablet and phone view on the fly when you dock the phone it's fast and allows the two device modes to feel different from each other like separate home screen layouts for example while still being the same device with all your content available in moments noticed I was surprised at how well it worked with certain things like the browser and SMS app but it's unfortunately not compatible with Google Apps or really many third-party apps like games so often you'll find yourself reading apps as you switch modes thankfully it does that pretty quickly though onto the camera a soos brags a fair bit about it in their reviewers guide but I didn't really find it that special it supports the usual exotic modes like 720p 120 FPS slow-motion with audio thankfully and 4k recording I'll be added only twelve fps but while I Suz did a good job of staying true to life without over saturating colors like some other manufacturers and the app offers a basically deep amount of configuration the image quality with the phone set to auto how I do most of my phone shooting didn't take my breath away I'll put some comparison test shots versus the one I made in the iPhone 5s and the pricing discussion link in the video description which you'll be able to check out soon we're almost done here but first a look at a couple of the optional accessories that a soos sent over for the tablet this tablet cover is just plain not very good don't buy it and this keyboard needed a bit more work the hinge is all metal and feels really well constructed but it's heavy and the tablet slips out of it fairly easily when opening and closing it because it doesn't actually lock on and win anyway and on top of that it's actually just a bluetooth keyboard that needs to be charged separately in everything which is disappointing coming from the creator of the much more elegant transformer series of tablets but all of that could have been forgiven if the layout wasn't so bad I understand they eliminated a column of keys here but who decided that Chevron's and braces should be accessed with shift and question mark apostrophe and quotations should be accessed with the unnaturally position function key that is a deal-breaker on what is otherwise a pretty useful tool considering how much more productive you can be with a trackpad and a full keyboard on Android which leads us to conclusion time if you want both a phone and a tablet there are better standalone devices that can be obtained separately for the same price off contract with the added bonus of being able to be used separately at the same time this is just a dummy on its own but what those other devices can't do is be perfectly in sync with the PadFone X your apps your data plan and even your battery life with their various charging modes can be balanced and shared across your phone and tablet experience it's unlike anything else that I've used before but not everyone buys devices off contract and this can be obtained for 200 bucks with a two-year plan so if I was going to sign up for a new AT&T deal in spite of it being a little bit thick and having build quality it feels kind of last gen I would have to recognize that the features and versatility of the PadFone X make it a serious contender and I'm definitely excited to see what comes next because I really like the overall concept and I think with little bit more refinement this can be one freaking awesome combo type device thanks for watching guys like or dislike the video according to how you felt about it leave a comment if you have something to say about the pad for us I mean do you think a tablet phone combo device makes sense for the future I'd love to hear what you guys think I do read the comments on my videos you know also I guess the last thing that I usually say it's right in the video description you can buy a t-shirt you can give us a monthly contribution or you can support us in the easiest possible way by changing your amazon bookmark to one with our affiliate code and that gives us a small kickback whenever you buy cereal or whatever it is that you buy on amazon it all helps every little bit helps thanks again for watching and as always don't forget to subscribe Oh