Gadgetory

well this is David with the verge and this is the asus padfone that's a product that's been rumored and talked about for more than a year but now it's actually being launched and if you're in Taiwan you can actually buy one now we still have no idea when it's coming to the US it's still kind of a new concept we've seen something like the PadFone with the motorola atrix but basically the idea is that your phone is the hub of everything all of your data and your apps live on your phone and then you just plug it into these different accessories for different needs the actual pad phone itself is a cell phone and it's styled a lot like some of a Seuss's tablets guy it has the concentric circle design it's kind of raged on the back and it's really light and pretty well made it's about 4.5 ounces and it's nine point two millimeters thick which is almost exactly the same as the iPhone 4s it feels nice it's a little slippery to hold but for the most part is really well put together and well built it has a 4.3 inch display with 960 x 540 resolution and though we kind of expect better resolutions from high-end phones at this point it's not a bad one it washes out colors a little bit and you can definitely see individual pixels but we've been seeing displays like this for a while and we're pretty much used to them the ped phone also who runs a fairly stock version of android 4.0 there are a couple of little changes like the notification pull down and the keyboard both of which have been restyled but for the most part where you're getting is pure ice cream sandwich the phone's performance is really good too it's running a dual-core 1.5 gigahertz Snapdragon processor and it's the same one we've seen in phones like the HTC One X and it performs really really well everything's fast and fluid on the phone even as you move through apps for play intensive games it just works really well reception of call quality we're also solid in our tests we use an AT&T sim card which worked well though the phone is definitely not optimized for US carriers yet it also has a solid battery life you'll definitely get a full day of use out of the phone even with pretty heavy use honestly though the PadFone by itself isn't especially interesting what's really interesting is all the accessories that it comes with most importantly there's the PadFone station which turns the PadFone from a phone into a tablet it looks a bit like the transformer pad and the transformer prime but it has a door in the back that you open and slide the phone into the tablet itself is actually totally useless until there's a phone inside the phone connects via the HDMI USB and battery ports and as soon as you plug it in it starts to provide all of the tablet software at that point what you get is basically just a near stock Android 4.0 tablet it has a 10.1 inch 1280 by 800 display and literally everything is powered by your phone that means all your apps all your settings everything gets preserved they're just running in a way that makes more sense on a tablet now you can even make phone calls in tablet mode or send text you'll want a Bluetooth headset for the tablet mode because you look kind of ridiculous with it up to your face and for that there's even this crazy stylist headset hybrid device that comes with the tablet it looks just like a stylus and it even has the rubber tip on it but it's also a Bluetooth headset and you just press one button on it and you can take a phone call while holding a pen to your ear you look crazy but it actually works pretty well unfortunately performance in this particular mode isn't great it takes a while to connect sometimes you get this spinning white dial that sometimes doesn't ever go away until you disconnect and reconnect it again and things just tend to slow down a lot sometimes it's really seamless like if you're on a phone call and you pull up the phone it just keeps right on working but other apps like Netflix or Instapaper will kill themselves and make you run them again the tablet also just gets really heavy when you have the two pieces together you're almost two pounds which actually feels like more than it is as you hold it one huge upside of the PadFone station is the battery is just enormous at 6600 milliamp hours and it's almost four times the size of the PadFone itself and it'll actually charge the phone when there when the two are connected there's also the PadFone station dock a 1.5 pound keyboard dock that connects to the PadFone station and the PadFone and turns the whole thing into basically a laptop the ped phone is a really really awesome concept your phone as the hub for all your data and all your apps and you just add on these modular pieces as you need them the performance still isn't quite there though as a tablet the PadFone isn't nearly up to par even with some of these suits other tablets and some of the features on the phone itself like the display are kind of a turn off as well but I'm more convinced than ever that this kind of device is the future and a sous is definitely closer to hitting the goal than anyone has before like Motorola with the atrix the ped phone right now from the crazy stylist to all the different pieces is as much a novelty as it is useful device but the potential for this really does seem almost unlimited