The Asus FonePad line of devices are basically 7 inch smartphones (or tablets which you can use to make phone calls). While big-screen phones are nothing new, they’re usually high-priced devices with premium specs. But the Asus FonePad line of devices have always been pretty cheap, with prices running around $249 and up unlocked Fonepad.
Now it looks like Asus could be planning to launch an even cheaper model with low-end specs.
An unannounced model called the Asus FonePad K012 showed up at Chinese regulatory site TENAA recently, as well as at the GFXBench website.
The websites paint a picture of a phone with a 7 inch, 1024 x 600 pixel display, a 1.6 GHz Intel Atom Z2560 processor, 1GB of RAM, and 8GB of storage. It runs Android 4.3 Jelly Bean software, features PowerVR SGC 544MP2 graphics, and has a 2MP rear camera and 0.3MP front-facing camera.
While the new FonePad has a lower-resolution display than the last few Asus FonePad models, the rest of the specs remain unchanged, suggesting that this could be the cheapest FonePad yet… although pricing and launch dates haven’t actually been announced yet.
By the way, if you’re keeping track of things like this, you may notice that specs for 3 other unannounced Asus tablets recently popped up. The Asus K010, K011 and K013 are expected to have 7 through 10 inch, 1280 x 800 pixel display and Android 4.4 software. The new K012 FonePad appears to be sort of the odd tablet out with a lower-resolution display and older version of Android.
via Mobile Geeks
I suppose this could be helpful in other markets, but a lower pixel count is almost the same effect as making the screen smaller: it is all about the amount of information (where light = information, as is the case of screens) that hits your eyes. Generally speaking the higher the pixel density the easier it is on the eyes which is why smaller screens such as iPhones work so hard to have higher resolution through high pixel density. So a big screen makes it easier to view text and detailed images, but so does higher density screens.
I am a happy owner of the original Phone Pad. It’s great. But I’m also greedy too. A friend of mine has the new Nexus 7, which is also made by Asus. It has much higher pixel density, and smaller foot print. So, I’m hoping that in the next year or so, when my purchase interest comes up again, they’ll be making the Fone Pad with the same foot print and pixel density as the new Asus. Essentially they made the original Fone Pad with the same dimensions and pixel density as the old Nexus, so here’s to hoping they migrate up stream to the new Nexus chassis and pixel density.