ASUS PadFone S hands-on, first impressions

Earlier this week, ASUS announced the PadFone S – a smartphone – tablet combo that features a 5-inch HD display for the phone, 8.9-inch FHD display for the tablet, LTE connectivity, and powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 chipset. Find out what we think of the device by reading our hands-on below.

The smartphone part is the heart of the whole system. It packs a 5-inch LED backlight IPS panel with HD resolution or equal to 294ppi, 16GB of internal storage, microSD card slot, a 13 megapixel rear camera with LED flash, 2 megapixel front-facing, and LTE connectivity.

Powering the device is a 2.3GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 CPU, Adreno 330 GPU, 2,300mAh battery, and Android 4.4 KitKat.

The PadFone station, on the other hand, sports an 8.9-inch FHD IPS display or equal to 248ppi, a 1 megapixel front camera, and has the capability to charge the smartphone with its 4,990mAh battery.

On hand, the whole package feels chunky and slightly hefty, which is expected since you have a two-in-one device. The tablet features two front-facing speakers found on the left and right side which kind of reminds us of the design of the Nexus 10.

As for the PadFone, it is light and feels nice in the hands. It’s not one of the slimmest but it is comfortable to hold. Like the tablet, it features a plastic body with a matte finish and comes in black or white colors.

ASUS PadFone S specs:
5-inch LED backlight Panel + IPS LCD @ 720×1280 pixels, 400 nits (phone)
8.9-inch IPS LCD @ 1080×1920 pixels (tablet)
2.3GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 quad-core CPU
Adreno 330 Graphics
2GB RAM
16GB eMMC internal storage
microSD card slot
LTE 150Mbps/50Mbps
WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
Bluetooth 4.0
GPS with aGPS support
Android 4.4 Kitkat
2,300mAh battery (phone)
4,990mAh battery (tablet)
150 grams (phone), 514 grams (tablet)