ASUS has officially announced the PadFone Mini. The device we’ve seen leaked few days ago isn’t a powerhouse, but it does manage to deliver a solid bang for the buck.
Specs wise, the Mini’s “phone part” rocks a 4.3-inch qHD (540 x 960 pixels) display, 1.4GHz quad-core Snapdragon MSM8226 chip, 1GB of RAM, 8-megapixel camera on the back, 1,500 mAh battery, 16GB of expandable storage, while Android 4.3 is running the show. The tablet shell sports a 7-inch panel with 1,280 x 800 screen resolution and a 2,200 mAh battery of its own. As you would expect, once your phone is in the “tablet mode,” it will get some juice from the bigger battery found in the tablet.
The proposition to have one SIM on multiple devices is sound, but thus far ASUS has struggled to move a significant number of PadFones. Perhaps it has something to do with their poor distribution efforts, or perhaps mobile networks don’t like the idea and would rather want us to buy smartphone and tablet separately. Whatever the case is, we hope that the PadFone Mini will eventually hit the Western hemisphere. In the meantime, it’s heading to places like China, Russia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Indonesia where it will sell for some $405 – that at least is its price in Taiwan.