As reported on The Verge.
By David Pierce
Asus has been not-so-subtly teasing a new version of the Padfone, its wild phone / tablet hybrid device, to be launched at this year’s MWC. The company’s press conference (and presumably official announcement) isn’t until this afternoon, but we’ve spotted a sign in Asus’s booth displaying some key specs of the “Padfone Infinity.” The device will feature a 5-inch, 1080p LTE phone that will dock inside a 10.1-inch, 1080p tablet. The sign advertises a “sleek aluminum alloy” body “with brushed metal finish,” and says the Infinity is running a 1.7GHz Snapdragon S4 Pro processor, the same we’ve seen in a handful of recent high-profile smartphones. We’ll have to wait for more details, but it looks like Asus is taking the Padfone’s game up a notch this year.
We also spotted a sign advertising a “Fonepad,” which offered far less detail. The sign promises “phone functions,” an “HD display,” and a “metallic finish,” and that’s about it. Judging from the impressively unoriginal name, we’re thinking Asus may be readying a phablet of its own — in case you don’t want a phone and a tablet, maybe the Fonepad will let you split the difference. Either way, we’ll be live at Asus’s press conference this afternoon to find out more.
Chris Ziegler contributed to this report.
