Asus officially announced in Taiwan its new PadFone 2 system that includes a quad-core LTE smartphone and a tablet. As the follow-up to the original PadFone, the phone is not more powerful while the tablet has been completely redesigned to have a slimmer form factor. The PadFone 2 is powered by Qualcomm’s SnapDragon S4 quad-core 1.5GHz processor and 2GB of RAM, and runs Android 4.0.3 Ice Cream Sandwich.
The PadFone 2 itself has a 4.7-inch 1280×720 HD Super IPS touchscreen with Gorilla Glass, a 13 Megapixel auto focus camera with f/2.4 and Full HD video recording, a 1.2 Megapixel front-facing camera. On the other hand, the tablet, called PadFone Station 2, sports a large 10.1-inch 1280×800 IPS touchscreen, which is also protected by Gorilla Glass, and a 1 Megapixel front camera. The PadFone Station 2 packs 5000mAh battery that is enough to recharge the PadFone 2 for three times. Simply slide the PadFone 2 into the Station, you will get a full-featured LTE-capable tablet that is even lighter than the new iPad (514g+125g vs. 652g).
The PadFone 2 combo includes Bluetooth 4.0, GPS/AGPS as well as WiFi 802.11b/g/n connectivity. It supports 3.5G HSPA+ 900/2100 and 4G LTE 800/1800/2600 mobile networks. The smartphone-tablet combo uses 13-pin connector that is compatible with micro USB and MHL. Asus will release the PadFone 2 is December in Europe and Asia.