Asus Padfone Officially Introduced at Computex 2011

[johnomaz]

IMO any device that only has 3g is not worth the money. Its like buying a computer that has a dial up modem and no space for an ethernet card.

Sent from my fascinate

Sure, if you care about 4G. Its a battery killer and not available everywhere. I have no issues with 3G. Its faster than my dad's DSL and I'm happy with that.

 

[kodiak799]

How is it not worth the money...4g won't be country wide till another 2 or 3 years

On the other hand, by the end of this year 50%, maybe more?, of VZW subscribers will be living in an LTE area (the initial 38 cities was supposed to cover about 1/3 of subscribers alone).

And in some of the bigger cities, whether it's signal penetration or oversubscription, 3G speeds are simply unacceptable, especially for a data-hungry tablet.

 

[Abadus]

I don't get the hype about 4g. yeah I can download faster but not like I am downloading full length 1080p video's with my phone. If I was i would be at home with my 12mb internet and then I would be on WiFi.

3g is plenty fast in good areas. I have no complaints about the 3g speed. Would you really pass up such a cool device to have a phone that can download a web page in 5 seconds that takes mine 8-10 seconds? I mean I get 4g but I would not pass up a great phone if it didn't have 4g.

Besides on 3g my battery gets eat up quick. I can only imagine on 4g.


I would love to have one of these tablet phones. It would be great.

 

[kodiak799]

I don't get the hype about 4g. yeah I can download faster but not like I am downloading full length 1080p video's with my phone. If I was i would be at home with my 12mb internet and then I would be on WiFi.

Downloading a 1080p video is a much more compelling option on a larger tablet screen. And LTE speeds average around 8mbps, with peak speeds of 12mbps or more, so that rivals your home broadband.

And as far as webpages, you're talking 8 seconds or whatever for a mobile page vs. 2-4 seconds for a fully rendered full website complete with flash video. From the perspective of user experience there's no comparison (otherwise you wouldn't be paying for a 12mbps home broadband connection).

 

[kodiak799]

It wouldn't be tethering because its all considered one device

I think it's a gray area, at least from a functionality perspective if not a technical definition. Same thing with HDMI mirrors, which this appears to do. I agree with you, but that won't stop the carriers from making a distinction - AT&T did with the Atrix dock.

It's inconceivable, when VZW has capped plans for tablets and mobile broadband, that they are going to allow unlimited data on this device (and whether or not this is tethering is really irrelevant).

 

[Boxster986]

I hadn't read the original article, but initially thought it was just kind of a dumbphone that somehow had like a bluetooth connection to take calls. But this sounds like it's actually the guts for the tablet, which myself and others have seen as the future for a while.

Pricing will be interesting because this basically circumvents tethering (indeed, technically may not even be tethering). Maybe not an issue for AT&T since their plans are already limited, and maybe VZW won't cry too much since it's only a 3G tablet. More than likely, if this ever comes to VZW, it will be sold as a tablet data plan.

Haha!!! It's happening! They must have read our posts!!! dancedroid

I totally think this is the way to go.

Remind me though, are that at any risk because Apple supposedly patented this idea?

I'd like to see the "Bionic" and other future phones launch with 2 flavors of docks:

1) Traditional webtop configuration dock (Atrix style)
2) Tablet dock (Asus style) + optional keyboard attachment (Eee Pad Transformer style)

This could get interesting!

 

[kodiak799]

Remind me though, are that at any risk because Apple supposedly patented this idea?

Clearly if we and others see this, then any such patent would fail the "non-obvious" test. But there could be potential claims in terms of hardware and how it connects/interacts. Apple also didn't invent the tablet so they couldn't take credit for that as the key component.

 

[xan]

i will get excited about 4g when;
-its all on one chip with 3g, 1x and calls rather than the mix mash of dual cell chips they are using currently.
-its really 4g ie capable of the speeds spec of 100 Mbit/s for high mobility devices.
-AND its actually rolled out in my area

besides im on wif mostly anyhow. see no point in paying for a function i would hardly get to use.

ASUS makes great stuff, I d love to have a handset by them and am even more likely to buy it if it doesnt have 4g. -as the price and battery life would be more in line with my needs.