There are smartphones and there are tablets and then there are some which are neither or both, depending on how you look at it! Asus, however, seems to have gone the extra mile in trying to integrate three of the most popular and efficient mobile devices. With the PadFone, Asus is trying to make the uber-integrated smart-device console even more appealing. The PadFone, with all its promise, has entered a market of fierce competition. Will it hit bull’s-eye the first time itself or will it only be second time lucky? I spent a week trying out what seems like the definitive next step in media integration, the ASUS PadFone.

The smartphone

The PadFone itself is a 4.7-inch smartphone running Android 4.0. With a bright, clear screen and classy metal accents, the PadFone looks like it’s built to impress. The smartphone tapers towards the bottom and the fascia is an all-black, mostly glass design. A contoured plastic back panel makes for a slip-free grip on the PadFone.

The Super AMOLED touchscreen adds to the desirability factor, indicating that the PadFone is right up there with the highest-end smartphones from Samsung or Apple

Asus’ proprietary interface allows you to choose which apps remain open when you dock the smartphone to its Station. You can even change the functions associated with the Back and Menu virtual keys on the handset. What is more interesting is you can also choose to enable the smartphone for a quicker boot-up than it’s normally designed for.

The main apps interface on the PadFone is quite interesting. Instead of listing all the available apps on endless pages, a small bar on top takes you though ‘Apps’, ‘Pad Only’ and ‘Widgets’ one after another. At the end there’s a shortcut to the Google Play Store so you can download more apps on to the phone directly.

Running on a dual-core 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor, the PadFone handled multi-tasking with games, browsing and multimedia quite well. In the Quadrant Standard benchmarking test, the PadFone shot ahead of the likes of HTC One X and the Asus Transformer Prime, bagging a total of 5,013 points.

Asus is still playing catch-up as far as the megapixel war is concerned. The smartphone comes with a 8-megger lens just hanging in there with there (and lagging behind some) in the league of the super-smartphones. While the Camera interface itself presents a lot of options, the images were a mixed bag of results. Indoors, well-lit shots sometimes turned out a little less bright than we’d expect them to. Macros weren’t much of a disappointment. Although a bit grainy when zoomed in, the camera didn’t have much trouble focusing on the close-ups. Colours on most pictures were rich and well-saturated.

PadFone Station

The PadFone dock is slightly reminiscent of the cassette players of the 80s and 90s. It’s a simple push-in and dock process. There are a couple of multi-pin ports to connect the PadFone to the base station and the dock locks in securely – it never felt like the PadFone was at risk of coming loose or falling off while I used the device.

You have to be extremely careful with the PadFone, because without it the tablet and keyboard dock are rendered useless. The tablet does not run on an independent platform. It takes a couple of seconds or so for the tablet to power on, once you dock the PadFone into the Station. The tablet on the PadFone Station spans a little more than 10-inches. The best part is that the apps on the PadFone are accurately upscaled to fit the form factor of the tablet.

The volume rocker and the Lock button, on the PadFone Station, almost merge with the metal bezel running its periphery. To aid connectivity, the PadFone keyboard dock has a USB dock to which I plugged in my music player to stream content from. Upon connecting any external device, the PadFone takes you directly to the External Storage folder and lets you browse and select media that you want to stream. For a change we stuck to the native Android browser for our multimedia experience. You also have an HDMI-port on the keyboard dock as well as a memory card reader.

Another convenient feature on the Station was that whenever I unexpectedly ran out of charge on the PadFone, I could just dock it in to power it up. In the notification area at the bottom left, you can actually see the battery status of the keyboard dock, of the tablet dock as well as the PadFone, with arrows pointing from one to the other indicating that the smartphone is being charged up by these docks.

Tap away

What makes for one the most innovative accessories I’ve come across lately is the stylus that ASUS packs in with the PadFone. A sleek, metal-brushed digital pen, the ‘Stylus Headset’ comes with a soft rubber nub with which you can interact with the PadFone, when docked. A series of buttons lie next to the tip – one to activate the Bluetooth on the device, another to adjust volume and the third, a microUSB port, to charge the stylus when it runs out of power.

Using the stylus was also a strangely comforting experience. After a while, I naturally desisted from using my hands to touch the screen at all. The only learning curve – a little bit of un-learning rather – is to do with the fact that I was automatically inclined to double-click everything while I used a stylus, forgetting that I was using a tablet (or a smartphone) and not a netbook and all it always takes is a single tap. Also, as strange as it was to talk into a digital pen, voice calls were devoid of a lot of "Huh?" and "Sorry, what?", as they would be while you speak into a regular handset. The company claims that the Stylus Headset can provide up to 7 hours of talk time.

Negatives

One big lacuna in the PadFone ensemble was the sound quality and volume levels. With the PadFone docked, I was watching the Hugh Grant, Andie MacDowell starrer ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’. There were two factors that kept from making it a wholesome, immersive multimedia experience. First, the screen on the tablet is way too reflective for one to enjoy a video without eventually getting distracted. I had to keep adjusting the tilt every once in a while to make sure the reflection of my mug didn’t hover around that of Hugh Grant’s!

The PadFone Station has speaker grilles at the rear; however, the volume levels were way too low, even for me to watch a movie by myself. So, entertaining friends and streaming media directly from the Station, without the aid of external speakers, will be far from gratifying.

Those who love loading on more and more media on to their smartphones, the Asus PadFone will be a bit of a disappointment because it does not offer an option of external storage. The PadFone itself comes in capacities of 16 GB, 32 GB or 64 GB.

User experience

Powering a tablet with the smartphone you use has one very subtle but extremely important advantage. I didn’t have to keep swapping between two SIM cards to use the devices. Not only apps and media, but contacts and even the data plan on your smartphone are leveraged to make use of the tablet. Not many devices can boast of seamless integration at this basic yet integral level.

Verdict

The PadFone is unlike any other device in the market. Not only does it provide you with two of the latest smart device form factors – a smartphone and a tablet – to use. But it also adds on to make it a full-fledged netbook, running a brand new mobile OS, thus taking away some of the boredom and antiquity associated with netbooks.

Love – Seamless integration, Super AMOLED display, Stylus Headset

Hate – Dock design could have been smoother and less bulky, average speaker quality

Rs 64,999 (Sold only as an ensemble of three)

Related Topics