Asus’ recent ‘alien invasion’ viral video was in fact teasing a new PadFone smartphone and docking tablet combo, with a new PadFone Infinity revealed by the company at MWC 2013 this afternoon.
CEO Jonny Shih took to the stage to reveal the third PadFone in the company’s range, and by far the most powerful. As with the PadFone and PadFone 2 before it, the premise is the same; you get an Android smartphone and a 10.1-inch tablet to dock it into, effectively transforming phone into tablet within seconds.
Following the recent trends in the smartphone world, the phone part of the PadFone Infinity rocks a large and sharp 5-inch Full HD display, rocking a resolution of 1920 x 1080 that amasses 441 pixels per inch of screen.
Docking the phone into the tablet won’t see you lose any of that glorious HD screen quality either, as the tablet dock sports a Full HD 1080p display of its own, albeit a larger 10.1-inch panel. The tablet will also boost the battery of the phone, thanks to its own internal battery that can be charged up in conjunction or separately to the phone itself.
Inside the phone is a powerful 1.7GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 processor, the very same as the one in the new HTC One. There’s 2GB of RAM backing up that chip for speedy multitasking and opening and closing of apps, and a generous 32GB or 64GB of onboard storage space as standard.
Asus’ tradition of packing impressive camera tech into its tablets continues with the Infinity, and you’ll find a 13-megapixel sensor on the back with a low f/2.0 aperture that will record video in Full HD quality. On the front there’s also a 2 megapixel f/2.0 camera on the front for good quality video calls.
The company has also moved to improve sound quality in the Padfone, packing in both an 80mm diameter loudspeaker and its new SonicMaster tech, which it claims will provide a bassier yet crisper sound.
The PadFone Infinity runs Android Jelly Bean 4.2 as its core operating system, joining an exclusive club of devices to run the very latest version of Android that includes mainly Nexus products.
For a change, the only pricing currently confirmed is for the UK and Europe – £799/€999 for both the phone and the tablet dock, which is quite reasonable given that a smartphone of this spec tends to set you back between £500-550. The launch date hasn’t yet been revealed, but Asus has confirmed that the device will not be coming to the US.