Asus announces Padfone, two new tablets

The first comes in the form of Asus Padfone, a phone, running on a Snapdragon S4 dual-core chip with a 4.3" Super AMOLED display. The back has an 8-megapixel shooter while the front has a modest VGA camera. The Padfone also boasts 64GB of internal memory (further expandable) along with Bluetooth 4.0, HDMI and GPS.

The USP of the Asus Padfone is not the host connectivity options or the ridiculously large internal memory, but the fact that it can be inserted into a dock, converting it into a 10.1" full-blown tablet. This tablet can then be attached to an accessory keyboard dock, converting the whole setup into a small 10.1" Laptop/netbook. There is also an additional Bluetooth stylus that will be made available as an additional accessory for the Padfone.

Asus also took this time to announce a change in the name of their tablet line-up from "Transformer Prime" to "Transformer Pad." The Transformer Pad Infinity will be the new tablet under the new moniker, as per Asus. The Transformer Pad Infinity will follow the footsteps of the Transformer Prime's tried and tested tablet+netbook formula, while enhancing the display to 1920x1200 Super IPS. The rear camera will be an 8-megapixel shooter and the front camera will sport a resolution of 2-megapixels.

While the Transformer Pad Infinity will come in 16, 32 and 64GB variants, each of those would belong to the Wi-Fi or LTE clan. Asus made it clear that the LTE versions would not carry the Nvidia Tegra 3 chip, but instead run on Snapdragon's S-4 dual-core processor.

The final announcement was for the Transformer Pad 300, the younger sibling of the Transformer Pad Infinity, with the brushed metal finish swapped out for a more ribbed circular pattern. The CPU, RAM and cameras remain the same as those on the Infinity, but the Bluetooth gets downgraded to version 3.0 and the storage also gets bumped down to just 16GB.