ASUS PadFone Mini UK bound: 4-inch smartphone to 7-inch tablet

At the CES Show in Las Vegas ASUS has announced that it will be bringing the smaller ASUS PadFone Mini to the UK for the first time in the coming months.

The smartphone/tablet convertible will be launching in the UK and Europe in the coming months, but has been on general sale since December in the company’s native Taiwan.

The PadFone Mini comprises of a 4-inch Android smartphone that comes with a 7-inch tablet block that the handset can slide into, allowing the user to convert the phone into a small tablet.

The two parts slot together using a phone housing port on the back of the tablet and this turns the 4-inch device into a bigger 7-inch tablet. The PadFone Mini is the junior version of the full sized 5-inch phone and 10.1-inch tablet that is the ASUS PadFone 3. Attaching the phone to the 7-inch tablet housing provides a 7-inch screen with a 1,280 x 800 resolution

The handset itself is powered by a 1.6GHz Intel Atom Z2560 processor, has 8GB of internal storage (expandable by up to 64GB using a micro SD card), and features both an 8-megapixel ‘PixelMaster’ rear f/2.0 backside illuminated camera and a 2-megapixel front facing camera.

The PadFone Mini runs on Android 4.3 Jelly Bean and is skinned with the ASUS ZenUI, and ASUS has also again promised an Android 4.4 KitKat upgrade for the PadFone Mini, coming ASAP.

The 4-inch phone has a WVGA (480 x 800 pixel) IPS+ LED-backlit display and will come with a dual SIM option. The outside tablet dock is a 7-inch WXGA (800 x 1280 pixel) IPS+ LED-backlit display which has 1GB of LPDDR2 RAM.

The phone has a 4.5Wh 1170mAh non-removable polymer battery but the tablet dock features an 8.3Wh 2100mAh non-removable polymer battery which will add to the power when using the gadget in tablet mode.

GPRS/EDGE, HSPA+, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n; Wi-Fi-Direct, Bluetooth v4.0 (EDR + A2DP ), a 3.5mm headphone jack, Micro-USB, and a 24-pin connector finish off all the other specifications in terms of connectivity.

The PadFone Mini will be available in Black, Blue, Red, White and Yellow colours and the UK price and release details will be announced in due course.