Just announced at CES 2014, the Asus Padfone mini is a phone and tablet combo, a smaller version of the Padfone 2 and Padfone Infinity.
Trading on the popularity of smaller tablets like the iPad mini and Nexus 7 2, the Asus Padfone mini is a 7-inch tablet that also holds a 4-inch phone. As with the previous Padfone devices, the phone acts as the brain of the tablet part when docked.
Clearly designed to be a good deal more affordable than the previous top-end Padfone devices, both tablet and phone have fairly low-resolution screens. The Padfone mini’s phone has a 4-inch 480 x 800 pixel display similar to the new Asus Zenfone 4, and the tablet part a 7-inch 1,280 x 800 screen. That’s much lower resolution than recent 7-inch rivals like the second Nexus 7.
Padfone mini specs
A 1.6GHz Intel Atom Z2560 CPU powers the Asus Padfone mini, and there’s 1GB of RAM on-board. Internal storage is a rather limited 8GB, but there is a microSD card slot on the device too.
Both the phone and the tablet hold their own batteries – a must as a tablet screen would suck up a phone-sized battery in no time. Their weights combined only add up to 376g, though, making the bundle easy to use one-handed.
Like previous Padfones, the phone part of the Padfone mini slots into a recess in the back of the tablet half.
Other points to note include the Android 4.3 software, on which is laid Asus’s new ZenUI interface and the Padfone mini mobile phone also has two cameras – an 8-megapixel sensor on the back and a 2-megapixel sensor on the front. There are no additional cameras on the tablet part.
UK price and availability details have not yet been released. We’ll be back with this information once it is available.
Next, read our Padfone 2 review
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
