ASUS PadFone: The Smartphone That Can Do Much More Discussion

[Ryan Punzalan]

The always innovative Taiwanese tablet maker ASUS has revealed its latest attraction: the PadFone. This won't be just a smartphone, but a tablet and a netbook as well!

Read the full content of this Article: ASUS PadFone: The Smartphone That Can Do Much More

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[Varjak]

It looks like a great ecosystem; unfortunately the phone itself is a bit under-powered for the likely audience to buy this system. And I'm not sure a big premium is warranted, because you can connect it to the tablet dock. The two together ought to average out to a good tablet+phone combo.

[hal]

It looks like a great ecosystem; unfortunately the phone itself is a bit under-powered for the likely audience to buy this system. And I'm not sure a big premium is warranted, because you can connect it to the tablet dock. The two together ought to average out to a good tablet+phone combo.

In a similar configuration, but on a different mix of capabilities, wasn't this all about with the mobile companions, like the Palm Foleo and the Celio RedFly?

[Adama D. Brown]

It looks like a great ecosystem; unfortunately the phone itself is a bit under-powered for the likely audience to buy this system. And I'm not sure a big premium is warranted, because you can connect it to the tablet dock. The two together ought to average out to a good tablet+phone combo.

I'm not sure it's really underpowered. Yes, by the time it launches it's likely to be fairly average in the processor department, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's not up to all the day to day usage people are likely to put it through. You can do similar things with Motorola devices through their Webtop apps with reasonable comfort even on 1 GHz processors.

[brickman65]

Isn't it funny how we now think a 1Ghz processor is now "under-powered"! Oh how spoiled we have become in such a short amount of time.

[Varjak]

But Adama, it won't really be judged against the average or even above-average smartphone. This is also powering the higher-res tablet and the typical buyer is likely to want cutting edge stuff. Maybe that's just me.

hal, yeah and I'd add things like the Atrix, which paired a (at the time) advanced phone with a laptop dock. In one of those threads, I proposed this very thing: a tablet that piggybacked off of a smartphone.

[hal]

hal, yeah and I'd add things like the Atrix, which paired a (at the time) advanced phone with a laptop dock. In one of those threads, I proposed this very thing: a tablet that piggybacked off of a smartphone.

Hmmm, I never knew about the Atrix, that one escaped my attention, I'll google it right away. You proposed a tablet piggybacking off a smartphone? Well, either you think that dreams can come true, or you have a reasonable level of tech prediction As the first contemporary tablet I knew about was the iPad, and there's a variant that admits a mobile connection, the option of tethering through a smartphone didn't cross my mind whatsoever. Besides, the iPad was initially nothing but an iPhone on steroids (perhaps that has already changed), so tethering through a smartphone would have been something like tethering a Palm TX to a Treo

[Varjak]

Thanks Hal for the support; but I'd say it was a fairly obvious 'prediction,' based on the things you already cited (like the Redfly) and the later evolution of things like the Atrix, which got pretty good coverage here on BH, sorry you missed it.

It just makes sense to pay once for stuff like a processor and memory and then 'add' stuff like keyboards, screens, etc. Especially since cell carriers don't make sharing a bucket of data very easy. RIM might have had a killer with the Playbook if they'd actually 'cleared' the idea with major carriers and made sure that major standalone functions like email came on the tablet itself. Good idea, horrific execution.

[hal]

Thanks Hal for the support; but I'd say it was a fairly obvious 'prediction,' based on the things you already cited (like the Redfly) and the later evolution of things like the Atrix, which got pretty good coverage here on BH, sorry you missed it.

Pah, I don't think that lessens your merit. Least if we take into account that it was done in a field of quite unstable conditions. Besides, the whole tethering concept was feasibly oriented to very different devices, namely full-size computers, or at least sub-notebooks. Lots of years before sub-notebooks were a reality, I used to get online using my laptop and a cellphone, under dial-up connection Not exactly tethering, but then some.

The whole idea behind the Palm Foleo was much closer to what comprises tethering with a tablet, than to tethering with a laptop. The Palm Foleo didn't carry a full-size OS, like Win7 or something, and it was an OS much closer to those in tablets.

It just makes sense to pay once for stuff like a processor and memory and then 'add' stuff like keyboards, screens, etc. Especially since cell carriers don't make sharing a bucket of data very easy. RIM might have had a killer with the Playbook if they'd actually 'cleared' the idea with major carriers and made sure that major standalone functions like email came on the tablet itself. Good idea, horrific execution.

And here we are with yet another non-winner in the tethering dept. The whole concept of tethering with a Playbook and a BB, is essentially a copycat of the Treo/Foleo concept. Only taken further, and AFAIK with a worse execution. I think that you're totally right pointing out the carriers as a major source of failure in this type of assemblies. But it also seems that this is especially valid in the US, for some of the worst of all practices regarding carriers and online data are found in the US. In several spots worldwide, carriers do tend to be less draconian. Not actually "friendly", just less draconian.