It’s been a busy day at MWC 2012 in Barcelona for ASUS, that rebranded some of its products, announced new ones and finally introduced that long awaited PadFone smartphone-tablet combo. Well, first things first: ASUS chairman Jonney Shish announced that the company will be branding the tablet line to Transformer Pads. There’s also a new Infinity Series, for high end products.
The ASUS Transformer Prime lineup includes 3 different models that fit the needs of various consumers. This lineup includes the ASUS Transformer Pad Prime, the ASUS Transformer Pad Infinity and the ASUS Transformer Pad 300 series. The Infinity series features an impressive 1920 x 1200 Full HD Super IPS+ display and it’s available as a 4G LTE model with a Qualcomm MSM8960 Snapdragon S4 Krait dual core 1.5GHz processor or with a Tegra 3 CPU in the WiFi version. The Transformer Pad Infinity also comes with a 2MP front cam and 8MP back camera with F2.2 aperture.
The Transformer Pad 300 Series is a lower end unit with a Tegra 3 processor of the quad core kind, a high quality 10.1 inch 1280 x 800 pixel IPS display and with 4G LTE or WiFi options. There’s a 1.2MP shooter upfront and an 8MP cam at the back with F2.2 aperture and 5 element lens for high quality pics. The battery life of this device should be around 10 hours, or up to 15 with an optional keyboard dock. This model offers only 16 GB of storage, plus a microSD card slot and replaces the Super IPS+ screen of the Prime with an IPS panel.
Today’s special guest is the ASUS PadFone, a combo that includes a 4.3 inch Super AMOLED qHD phone with a dual core Snapdragon S4 chip and ICS. On the other hand there’s a tablet that can incorporate this handset inside it and even a dock that can make this hybrid a laptop. Back to the phone, the PadFone comes with an 8 megapixel rear camera, front VGA cam, 16 to 64 GB storage, Bluetooth 4.0, HDMI, GPS, gyroscope and 1,520 mAh battery. Connectivity includes HSPA+ with speeds of up to 42Mbps.
The handset measures 9.2mm in thickness and slides into a station that improves ergonomics and expands battery life nine fold. The station is a 10.1 inch tablet that enhances the features of the smartphone. There’s even a stylus in the mix, that acts as a headset for receiving calls. The Padfone ships in April with a yet unannounced price.
