Can’t decide if you want to spend your money on a phone or a tablet? The Asus Fonepad makes the point moot, because it’s both. It looks like a 7 inch Android tablet (because that’s what it is), but the Fonepad can also make phone calls over a cellular network.
Asus unveiled the FonePad in February, promising it would eventually sell for about $249. And later this month it will go on sale in the UK for £180, which is pretty close to that target.
According to TechRadar, the Asus Fonepad will be available for pre-order from Amazon, Carphone Warehouse, and Sainsbury’s on April 12th, and will ship in the UK starting April 26th.
The tablet features a 7 inch, 1280 x 800 pixel IPS display, a 1.2 GHz Intel Atom Z2420 processor, 1GB of RAM, and up to 16GB of storage.
It has a 1.2MP front-facing camera and a 3MP rear camera, built-in GPS and Glonass support, and up to 10 hours of battery life. The Fonepad supports WiFi and HSPA+.
Last I’d heard, Asus had no plans to offer the FonePad in the US.
via The Verge
Use it with a bluetooth headset or a corded headset and one would not have to hold it up to ones ear to use it as a phone (which would make video phone calls easier since the person one is calling won’t have to look at your ear when you are talking to them). It would be great for those who only want one device instead of two. It could be easier for those who eyes get worse as time goes by. It is a shame it is not sold in the USA. I like Asus.
During it’s presentation in MWC in Barcelona, Asus did show a US version of the fonepad, the diference was only 8gb of internal memmory but with rear camera
The EU version was without the rear camera and 16gb of memmory.
Did they cancel the US version? or would be offered for other markets?
They gave a price in US dollars for some reason, and mentioned that the European version would have 16GB while others would have 8GB.
But my contact at Asus North America said at the time that there were actually no plans to launch the Fonepad here.
I think that phone would be great for making video calls since it gives one a bigger screen to see the other person with. I also think games are more fun on a bigger screen since small screens are so difficult to see any detail on. Instead of getting two devices, this could save money by only having to get one. I hope Asus changes their minds in the future.
I like my phone to be pocketable, though it seems that wearable computing will supersede both phone and tablet in the future.