So after toying with the idea for ages, I finally picked up a padfone 2 from Carphone Warehouse on contract.
basically its a regular smartphone that comes with a docking station which turns it into a 10" tablet.
https://www.asus.com/Tablets_Mobile/PadFone2/
anyone else got one/like/dislike the concept?
key advantages of the concept as I see it:
- get 4g connectivity on tablet without a 2nd contract.
- get tablet+phone for the same price (give or take) as phone
- same data and apps on both, no need for syncing
- tablet bit charges up the phone when docked so its also an extra battery.
disadvantages:
- no good for being a 'family' tablet. Take out the phone and the tablet is useless
- I can see the advantage of people having two screens/devices to work with (e.g., being able to control your sky box on the Sky+ app on phone whilst still surfing on tablet). But I already have a 7" tablet for this
the padfone 2 phone is pretty decent, quad core, 2GB RAM, apparently comparable in benchmarks to the Nexus 4, though short of the htc one and s4.
The tablet is a bit more mid range, the resolution is 'only' 1280x 720 which is low for todays 10" and does seem a little less than sharp versus the same resolution on my nexus 7.
There is also the padfone infinity, which is the top end/newer version but its hard to get hold of in the UK, and almost impossible to get on contract.
Overall though v happy!
basically its a regular smartphone that comes with a docking station which turns it into a 10" tablet.
https://www.asus.com/Tablets_Mobile/PadFone2/
anyone else got one/like/dislike the concept?
key advantages of the concept as I see it:
- get 4g connectivity on tablet without a 2nd contract.
- get tablet+phone for the same price (give or take) as phone
- same data and apps on both, no need for syncing
- tablet bit charges up the phone when docked so its also an extra battery.
disadvantages:
- no good for being a 'family' tablet. Take out the phone and the tablet is useless
- I can see the advantage of people having two screens/devices to work with (e.g., being able to control your sky box on the Sky+ app on phone whilst still surfing on tablet). But I already have a 7" tablet for this

the padfone 2 phone is pretty decent, quad core, 2GB RAM, apparently comparable in benchmarks to the Nexus 4, though short of the htc one and s4.
The tablet is a bit more mid range, the resolution is 'only' 1280x 720 which is low for todays 10" and does seem a little less than sharp versus the same resolution on my nexus 7.
There is also the padfone infinity, which is the top end/newer version but its hard to get hold of in the UK, and almost impossible to get on contract.
Overall though v happy!