ASUS has sent out invitations teasing the launch of the Padfone 2, which will take place on October 16th.
Separate events are planned to take place in Taipei, Taiwan and Milano, Italy, with a second generation transforming device set to be unveiled. We’ve not heard anything about the Padfone 2 yet, and as such the invite has taken us somewhat by surprise.
ASUS only launched the original Padfone in May of this year here in the UK, so it seems the tech giant is ready to set aside its first attempt and hit us with something better already. As always, there are rumours in the tech world, and we’ve heard whispers about the Padfone 2 featuring a quad-core Qualcomm S4 pro processor, 2GB of RAM and Android Ice Cream Sandwich as its operating system.
For those who missed the original Padfone; it was the ultimate all-in-one gadget. You had a powerful Android smartphone and a full-sized tablet to dock it into, effectively turning your phone into a tablet. What’s more, ASUS – kings of transforming gadgets – made a keyboard dock to turn it into a netbook. If that’s not enough, there was a stylus for the touchscreen that doubled up as a wireless headset.
Unfortunately the whole package never really seemed to take off here in the UK, possibly because of the steep £700 asking price and few major retailers getting on board with it. We’re keeping our fingers crossed that ASUS drops the price a bit and gets some good promotion behind the Padfone 2, as it could truly be something game-changing we think.
With ASUS being best buds with Google now after launching the Nexus 7, we wouldn’t be surprised if the Padfone 2 hit the shelves running Android 4.1, aka Jelly Bean. Here’s hoping.
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Via: GSMArena