ASUS Padfone

[maunaloa]

Did anyone pre-order an ASUS Padfone? I'll be in Beautiful Bitan early in May and plan to make the pilgramage to Guanghua to buy one. The Qualcom Snapdragon S4 is only dual core, but it outperforms the Nvidia Tegra quadcore! (Anandtech.com) I love the Russian doll phone within a tablet that docks to keyboard... each with a shared battery. A new class of machine, beyond Apple, but no plans to release it Stateside.

[PapaAzucar]

I have a wait-and-see attitude about the Asus Padfone, because the Asus Transformer Prime had some issues like the GPS. Asus had to release an external GPS dongle for the Prime.
There are a lot of new phones and tablets coming out these next few months like the Samsung Galaxy S3, and a bevy of Windows8 tablets that are all worth considering. In some cases, it might be cheaper to buy separate phone, tablet and keyboard accessory than to buy the complete Asus Padfone system.

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Did anyone pre-order an ASUS Padfone? I'll be in Beautiful Bitan early in May and plan to make the pilgramage to Guanghua to buy one. The Qualcom Snapdragon S4 is only dual core, but it outperforms the Nvidia Tegra quadcore! (Anandtech.com) I love the Russian doll phone within a tablet that docks to keyboard... each with a shared battery. A new class of machine, beyond Apple, but no plans to release it Stateside.

I am also looking forward to it. My Samsung POC is almost dead now -and I still have one year of contract to go- so I will have to but a new phone soon anyways, full price. Hence, I am willing to try that one out.

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25 to 17K?! Bit steep, me thinks.

The Padfone is a 4.3-inch smartphone featuring Qualcomm Inc.'s dual-core 1.5 GHz processor and a powerful 8-megapixel camera. It can be combined with a 10.1-inch tablet and a keyboard dock to provide the integrated functions of a phone, a pad and a notebook. The bundled phone and tablet station is being sold in Taiwan at NT$25,901 (US$888), while the standalone 4.3-inch smartphone will carry a price tag of NT$17,990, according to the company. "It sees the convergence of the three key products (notebook, smartphone and tablet) in the industry, and has strong products to compete in all three areas," said Kirk Yang, an analyst at Barclays Capital in Hong Kong, in a note released Tuesday. Despite Asustek's optimism, it may be difficult for the Taiwanese PC vendor to compete against handset giants like Samsung Electronics Co. and Apple Inc., because the smartphone market seems to be moving toward a two-horse race

http://www.taiwannews.com.tw/etn/news_c ... id=1908679

And they are already talking about second generation, whne they haven't started selling the first here...

[Noodles77]

Apologies for the aside, but how much is the transformer Prime in Taiwan. I'm moving to Taipei in July and don't know whether I'm better off buying it here or waiting to get it in Taiwan if there's a significant price difference. Thanks

[PapaAzucar]

Apologies for the aside, but how much is the transformer Prime in Taiwan. I'm moving to Taipei in July and don't know whether I'm better off buying it here or waiting to get it in Taiwan if there's a significant price difference. Thanks

If I were you, I would get the good electronics in the US like the iPad or Transformer. BTW, Asus already has Transformer TF300 coming out, which is the version after the Prime (TF201). The Prime (TF201) had a hardware problem with the GPS, and Asus offered an external dongle as the solution. A bit inconvenient, but still usable. The TF300 is also cheaper.
http://arun-review.blogspot.com/2012/04 ... s-eee.html

[ceevee369]

I'd LOVE to buy / test the Padfone as it is very innovative and specs look good (on paper)
Not sure If I will be as happy as using my iPad3 with my iPhone 4S running as hotspot point.
Was never happy on Android despite having bought / tested around 7-10 devices in the last 3 years.
Looking forward to hear first takes on the Padphone

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I'd LOVE to buy / test the Padfone as it is very innovative and specs look good (on paper)
Not sure If I will be as happy as using my iPad3 with my iPhone 4S running as hotspot point.
Was never happy on Android despite having bought / tested around 7-10 devices in the last 3 years.
Looking forward to hear first takes on the Padphone

That is the thing. I see everyone and their mother -heck, the car park guy was happily watching a movie in his iPad last night- using Apple stuff. I think it is still horribly expensive, but the Android stuff is not that far behind price wise. The problem I see is having everything under one system: if you buy iPad then you need to have iPhone then you need a Mac. I already have a nice Asus laptop, if I can get an Android device, I can share stuff among them seamlessly -I think. If I mix stuff, I fear that, for instance, the magazine subscription that is for Android stuff will not read in iPad or something.

[PapaAzucar]

Apologies for the aside, but how much is the transformer Prime in Taiwan. I'm moving to Taipei in July and don't know whether I'm better off buying it here or waiting to get it in Taiwan if there's a significant price difference. Thanks

If I were you, I would get the good electronics in the US like the iPad or Transformer. BTW, Asus already has Transformer TF300 coming out, which is the version after the Prime (TF201). The Prime (TF201) had a hardware problem with the GPS, and Asus offered an external dongle as the solution. A bit inconvenient, but still usable. The TF300 is also cheaper.
http://arun-review.blogspot.com/2012/04 ... s-eee.html

I forgot that besides the Transformer Prime TF201 and the Transformer Pad TF300, Asus also has the Transformer Infinity TF700.
http://www.trustedreviews.com/opinions/asus-transformer-prime-vs-transformer-pad-infinity-vs-transformer-pad-300

I stopped by some Asus shops on Bade street near Guanghwa Electronics market, they had the Padfone, but not any display model. I might try again next weekend and maybe they will have the display models out to play with.

That is the thing. I see everyone and their mother -heck, the car park guy was happily watching a movie in his iPad last night- using Apple stuff. I think it is still horribly expensive, but the Android stuff is not that far behind price wise. The problem I see is having everything under one system: if you buy iPad then you need to have iPhone then you need a Mac. I already have a nice Asus laptop, if I can get an Android device, I can share stuff among them seamlessly -I think. If I mix stuff, I fear that, for instance, the magazine subscription that is for Android stuff will not read in iPad or something.

You are correct that Android and Apple don't mix.
I think the term ecosystem is used to describe such situation. You either buy into the Android or Apple ecosystem.
Then there is the Windows ecosystem (before called the Windows environment) with the release of Windows8, WindowsForARMs, and Windows app store.
Amazon is also building its own ecosystem piggybacking off the Android.

[maunaloa]

Several shops in the "digital plaza" building in Guanghua now have the Padfone and tablet in stock ... but the keyboard is not yet released. I was told "by the end of May". The Padfone phone is very thin, which leads me to suspect ASUS expects you to recharge the phone from the tablet.