There is only a few weeks left in 2013, and if leakster @evleaks is to be trusted, we will be seeing a new Asus device very soon. That device is the Asus Padfone Mini, and @evleaks took to twitter on December 7th 2013, to share some pictures of the device before the actual launch date.
The leakster had little to say with the picture, in fact it wasn’t even a complete sentence. All he had to say was “Padfone mini 4.3, 2013” and then the picture.
The device comes from a struggling family of padfones brought only to Asia and few other markets. The padfone family started a couple of years ago, and it was thought to fail, and almost did. It still hasn’t picked up as much traction as Asus tablets do, but that could be due to the release style Asus has taken. If you aren’t entirely sure what a padfone is, we wouldn’t blame you, since they haven’t been available in the US, officially. Though that may change this time around, since some Asus device has passed through the Global Certification process.
The padfone, is essentially a tablet, that is powered by a smart phone. Sold together, the smart phone connects to the tablet, and all info on the smart phone is available on the tablet.
Specs on the padfone mini, are not official, but we have reported that the device could be a 10 inch or possibly 7 inch tablet, with a connecting 4.3 inch smart phone. The tablet side seems to have been discovered to be a 7 inch tablet, based off of the pictures. The smart phone half of the duo, is rumored to have a Snapdragon 400 CPU with a display of 960×540. Not that impressive, unless they are going for the low to mid-range price tag. Also, the device has no sign so far of receiving 4G. According to Taiwan’s NCC, the device being inspected, only has a 3g radio capabilities, and of course WiFi. This isn’t too far-fetched as some of the Asus Transformer tablets were WiFi only.
That’s all the speculated info we have on the specs, but of course there is a rumored launch date. Invites have gone out for an Asus event in Taipei on December 11th 2013. This is where we expect to officially see the padfone, and when we will be able to provide more detailed specs. So stay tuned for that.