ASUS PadFone: It’s a phone, it’s a tablet, it’s a laptop

Dan Seitz Contributing Writer, Tech

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If you own a smartphone, you probably have a computer roughly equivalent to where the most advanced desktops were about five years ago. Realistically speaking, a lot of us buy more computer than we need. So, Asus, a Taiwanese laptop maker, has decided that we need even more computer than we actually need, and introduced the ridiculous PadFone.

As you might have guessed, it’s an “all in one” solution, or trying to be. In reality, it’s pretty much the computer equivalent of a mullet: outdated and kind of ridiculous.

It starts with a smartphone, and actually a fairly powerful one, with a dual core Snapdragon processor. It’s well-designed, runs Android, basically what you’d expect from a modern, $600 smartphone. But then, then there are the “accessories”.

First, there’s the tablet dock, which will run you $850 without the phone. Slot the phone in the back and suddenly you’ve got a ten-inch tablet. But if you really want to go all out, you can drop another $950 on a keyboard dock for your tablet dock. So you’ve got a phone, a tablet, and a laptop for…$2300!

Which would be great if you couldn’t get Apple products for much cheaper. We’re not kidding: an iPhone is $200 with contract, a WiFi only iPad is $500, and a Macbook will run you $1000. In fact, you could up the iPad to a nice 64GB version ($700) and bump the Macbook up to a nice thirteen-incher ($1300) and still save $100.

So, yeah, maybe save your money.

ASUS PadFone Priced [Engadget]