Asus Reveals Monitor Dock to Turn Padfone into AIO PC
Asus' Padfone gets another docking station accessory.
Asus' Padfone smartphone is unique in that it docks into a slate-like docking station to turn that phone into a full-fledged tablet, similar to the Motorola Atrix and its laptop notebook. However, it seems Asus has decided that turning a smartphone into a tablet might not be everybody's cup of tea and is broadening the Padfone's horizons a little. At Computex this week the company unveiled a brand new monitor dock for the phone.
The docking station features a 24-inch 1920 x 1200 display with a dock built into the base for the Padfone that aims to turn your touchscreen smartphone into an all-in-one PC controller via the more traditional mouse and keyboard set up. Engadget reports that the dock adds support for HDMI, VGA, DVI and four USB 3.0. You can also just use it as a standalone monitor without the phone.
Unveiled officially at MWC earlier this year, Asus has been talking about the Padfone for a long time. Expected to launch sometime in the fall, the Padfone boasts Qualcomm's Snapdragon S4 and Adreno 225 graphics, a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED display, 1GB of RAM, up to 63GB of flash memory and up to 32GB via MicroSD, an 8-megapixel camera (0.3 VGA up front for video calls), and Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich).
No word on a release date for the U.S. (though it is apparently launching in the U.S. market) or a price. Still, we imagine this monstrous dock won't come cheap.
*Image via Engadget

step in the right direction ftw
LoL...there is nothing innovative about this... Just a video output cable running from the padfone to a 24" fullhd monitor and few tweaking here and there allowing other basic stuff like keyboard/mouse/usb/dvi etc etc.... This will never survive for long..
I agree with you for my personal needs. However, I can also see how this could fulfill the needs of the average user quite well.
This particular product may not, but I could see a smartphone in 2-3 years being able to replace a desktop for most of the people out there... even being able to do basic video editing and other content creation.
ive the dock a real GPU and a system like this could even do games in a few years.
hmmm i think asus is on to something. phones now days are as powerful a computer (it'll kick some butts over p2/p3 and the first athlons).
can you imagine if you could carry your pc around in your pocket and just plug it in at any terminal with any phone where ever you need it? i basically see these base stations as the new payphones from the 50's til the 90's before cell phones were affordable and took off.
different IP&/different firewall because you're at a different location, different OS (if every phone can dock with this system), makes it even harder for uncle same and hackers to bother you (unless click something or you d/l something or get picked up by law enforcement of a country or a virus/trojan that has to report back when it can to expose your info)
eventually our pc's are going to be this size and even smaller some day. ridiculous you say, back in the 50's how big were computers? and 30 years later in the 80's? laptops in the 90's? 30 years later 2010's i think we are due for a pc shrink.
fyi don't ask if it'll play, cuz right now, no, it won't. in a few years, yes, yes it will play it, but you'll already be playing #3 or 1313