Asus’ confusingly named FonePad (not to be confused with the PadFone!) is looking set to hit UK shelves in the coming weeks as UK retailers are now stocking the device with a sub-£180 price and an April 26th release date.
Carphone Warehouse, Sainsbury’s and Amazon have all listed the Asus device for sale from the 26th and the FonePad is priced at £179.99, which will get you the 16GB model.
The Asus FonePad comes with a 7-inch 1280 x 800 screen, which puts it in contention with Google’s own flagship Nexus 7 tablet, and an Intel Atom Z2420 processor, 1GB of RAM, 1.2-megapixel front facing camera and a 3-megapixel sensor on the back. It will also come packing the Android Jelly Bean 4.1 OS, but reports are saying that the newer 4.2 update will be quickly shipped out to the tablet.
The Asus FonePad was announced at this year’s Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona and offers some naming confusion due to Asus also releasing the PadFone; a 5-inch Full HD phone that docks into a 10.1-inch tablet.
The FonePad’s specifications and build bring it in very close to the Google Nexus 7 tablet and the pricing matches this, but the big difference in the devices is that the FonePad can make calls thanks to an inbuilt SIM card slot. Effectively the device is a very big smartphone with 3G connectivity.
See also: The five hottest phones from Mobile World Congress 2013
There is also a 8GB variant of the ASUS FonePad on its announcement but pricing and release date info is not about for the smaller memory’d phone.