Have you seen any of them? You might be asking: "So is Asus Padfone 2 a smartphone or a tablet?" The answer is neither...and both at the same time. How peculiar right? I believe besides Asus, no other company is having such innovative design for their products. In other words, companies like Samsung and Apple won't be venturing into this "phablet" industry yet, as they still want to sell as many separate devices as possible! That actually paves way for Asus to be the pioneer in this "phablet" niche whereby consumers can now have best of both world within their grasp!
Behold the mighty Asus Padfone 2 and its docking Station (right)!
I really love Asus Padfone's classy design.
*note* you won't be able to get fingerprints onto the back cover!
*note* you won't be able to get fingerprints onto the back cover!
Asus daring attempt goes to show how fierce both the smartphone and tablet segments are. By conjuring Asus Padfone 2, consumers will be able own a smartphone and a tablet at the same time at of course a (relatively) cheaper price. Besides with Asus Padfone 2, you will only need 1 data plan-which means you will be saving a lot of money in the long run! I have a strong feeling carriers (Maxis, Celcom, DiGi are not happy with it) Certainly this will lure a lot of buyers, especially those who are budget-conscious.
Let's see what's under hood of Asus Padfone 2, shall we? For starters, Padfone 2 boast some powerful innards with its 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 quadcore processor (which outperforms Cortex A9 in lots of ways) making sure that everything runs smoothly. Besides being graphically driven by the amazing Adreno 320, there is also 2GB of RAM to make sure Padfone 2 is well-oiled. With such raw "power" Padfone 2 is certainly one of the high-end gadgets up there.
Beautifully designed for work and play.
Despite having a larger, sharper, 720p, 500-nit, Super IPS 4.7inch screen compared to its predecessor, Padfone 2 is still unbelievably thin at 9mm and only 135g heavy. It is reported that Asus Padfone 2 comes in 3 different flavours for you to choose from namely the 16GB, 32GB and 64 GB. I will recommend you to opt for the 64GB because weirdly (sadly) there is microSD expansion. Asus tries to compensate this by offering buyers a whopping 50GB of Asus Webstorage service for 2 years.
50GB of Asus Webstorage for you every need!
Rest assured that Asus Padfone 2 is well "connected", meaning that you can expect all the latest connectivity options on board such as LTE, HSPDA, 3G etc. There are also the usual 802.11a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, FM radio, GPS and GLONASS for you to toy around. Up next is Padfone 2's rear camera. This snap happy 13-megapixel camera can record 1080p video at 30fps or 720p video at 60fps. Pretty impressive for a phablet. The camera also has another trick up its sleeve. It is capable of capturing up to 100 images at a lightning speed of 6 shots per second. *gasp*
Burst mode to capture all your priceless moments.
Please your ears!
Obviously the sound department has been revamped as well. Both the PadFone 2 and PadFone 2 Station employ SonicMaster technology for amazing sound with enhanced frequency response and improved audio clarity, fine-tuned by Waves, which is a recipient of a Technical GRAMMY Award®. Wow. So buyers can expect to enjoy "eargasmic" sound from these larger loudspeaker, which is claimed to be 40% louder that its predecessor. Meaning that you will have more fun playing games and watching movies will be more enjoyable as well.
More juice for you to play with!
Last but not least we are going to talk about Asus Padfone 2 battery. It will be useful if a powerful machine cannot last long enough for your enjoyment. Thankfully, the Padfone 2 very innovative design of allowing you to slot the smartphone into the station gives you more battery life. Then again the Padfone 2 itself can provide up to 16 hours of 3G talk time, which is quite commendable. Once you slot it into the Padfone Station, voila your Padfone 2 will get a whopping 36 hours of super long 3G talk time. Now that's what we call power!
One sim card for both your Asus Padfone 2.
VERDICT: If you are hunting for both a tablet and a smartphone, this innovative Asus Padfone 2 double-act has an encore worthy of your time and money. Asus Padfone 2 comes with a RM2,799 price tag. However, don't forget that you will only be needing one data plan for both your devices.
