At CES 2014, Asus not only unveiled its new ZenFone budget handsets, but it also took the wraps off the very affordable PadFone Mini.
In our hands-on preview of the PadFone Mini, Josh Vergara jumped in and gave us a look at how the Intel-powered device transforms from a 4-inch handset to a 7-inch Android tablet.
Asus PadFone Mini specifications
- Size: 124.42 x 61.44 x 6.3-11.2 mm (smartphone mode) / 199.85 x 119.43 x 13.91 mm (tablet mode)
- Weight: 116g / 260 g
- 4-inch display with 800 x 480 resolution (smartphone mode)
- 7-inch display with 1280 x 800 resolution (tablet mode)
- 1.6GHz Intel Atom Z2560 processor
- 1GB of RAM
- 8GB of storage
- microSD support up to 64GB
- 8-megapixel Sony camera with BSI, wide-aperture f/2.0 and five-element lense
- 2-megapixel front-facing camera
- dual SIM support
- 802.11 b/g/n support
- Bluetooth 4.0
- 1170mAh / 3270mAh battery depending of mode
- Android 4.3 Jelly Bean (upgradeable to KitKat) with Asus Zen UI on top
- Asus Dynamic Display technology that automatically resizes apps to fit the appropriate screen size
The Asus PadFone Mini has a lot in common with the ZenFone series, with its specs coming in somewhere between the ZenFone 4 and ZenFone 5. There’s an Intel Z2560 CPU with 1GB of RAM, and there’s a modest 8GB storage.
The specs aren’t half-bad, but they certainly won’t blow anyone away. Being honest, the 800 x 480 resolution is a little bit disappointing, especially when using the device as a 7-inch tablet. Still, it’s important to realize that both the phone and the tablet dock only come in at $249. This low price makes it easier to forgive the PadFone Mini’s less-than-bleeding-edge specs.
The PadFone Mini also has the new Zen UI interface and rocks Android 4.3, with a future planned move to KitKat. Of course the real magic is the ability to turn your phone into a tablet for those situations where you need a bigger display such as gaming, watching movies and so forth.
We’ll do our best to get a review unit of the PadFone Mini as soon as possible, where we’ll be able to take an even closer look at how this unique two-in-one device performs. In the meantime, be sure to check out all the great news and hands-on videos from our CES 2014 coverage!