PadFone Mini Will be Released in Taiwan Next Week

ASUS have ventured far with their PadFone range of devices, and although they may not be under the mainstream radar, their conceptual designs for their interchangeable devices are probably some of the best innovations in the smartphone industry over the last two to three years.

So far, the original Padfone – a smartphone that can be attached to a dock with a display and used as a tablet – has had four iterations; the PadFone, the PadFone 2, the PadFone Infinity, and the recent PadFone Infinity 2, each with better hardware, a slimmer form factor, and a more innovative locking system than it’s predecessor to keep the smartphone securely attached to the tablet dock and worth a match against other flagship devices.

Personally I’m a big fan of the PadFone series, and because of this I’m glad to hear that ASUS will be announcing a new device in their own hand-carved niche next week in Taiwan, on December 11th.

The device in question is the PadFone Mini – Similar to other mini variants on the market today, the Mini will have a smaller 4.3” display, and a less powerful processor at a cheaper price point. The exact specs on hardware haven’t been revealed yet, but previous GFX Bench leaks suggest the device will have a 960×540 resolution display and a quad core 1.2GHz Snapdragon 400, along with Android 4.3

The most interesting part about the new PadFone Mini is the dock – instead of being a less pretty 10 inch tablet dock, ASUS have decided that the dock itself needs a mini variant too, and upon release, customers will be able to pick up the PadFone Mini bundled with a smaller 7 inch tablet dock.

We don’t yet know whether the device will have a 10 inch variant, and we also have no idea when the PadFone Mini will become available in other regions, but we’ll keep you updated.

Source: engadget