A surprising change in the Padfone series. Asus has released their new Padfone, but this time it's not an upgrade of their flagship, but a trendy alternative.
The Padfone Mini will be a 4.3" phone running an a 1.4GHz Snapdragon 400 Quad-core CPU with 1GB of RAM. The "small" display has a resolution of 960x540. It will be available with 16GB of internal storage, but luckily it does also feature a MicroSD card slot.
The surprisingly smaller then usual 7" Padfone Mini Station has a display resolution of 1280x800, a 2200mAh battery and features the same docking mechanism as 3 of it's previous bigger brothers.
We currently don't have any information about the camera quality, we'll update this post as soon as we know more. But we can tell you that you probably don't have to expect a 13MP rear camera. What we can tell already is that the Padfone Mini Station does not feature a front facing camera.
Update: The Padfone Mini does feature a 8 MegaPixel with an Aperture of f2.0. The front facing camera on the phone is a 2 MegaPixel camera. The Padfone Mini Station does not have a front facing camera like we mentioned before.
More information about this new family member can be found on Padfone Club!
Due to a GCF (Global Certification Forum) listing rumors about the Padfone Mini have been confirmed. A couple months ago we saw the Padfone Mini on a presentation slide, but now we know it will be shown off in Taiwan next week.
It's expected that the Padfone Mini will have a 4.3" display, and will have a 7" Padfone Station. Furthermore do we expect the device to have a Snapdragon 400 quad-core processor.
So Asus launched their already leaked "New Padfone Infinity" today.
The device is not too much different from the original Padfone Infinity. To start off, it does have a new CPU inside, as expected it is the Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 with a clock speed of 2.2GHz. The RAM might also seem to be the same (2GB), but it it's faster tha n the original Padfone Infinity (LPDDR2 on the original Padfone Infinity vs LPDDR3 on the new Padfone Infinity). It also seems that Asus did listen to the community a bit because they finally added Micro SD card slot which allows Micro SDXC cards up to 64GB. There is also a secondary microphone along the top of the device which allows for better noise cancelation during calls, and can be used for stereo audio during video recording.
The new Padfone Infinity will be available in two colors: Titanium Black and Platinum White. Also, there is no 64GB version of this device, only 16GB and 32GB units will be shipped.
We're still updating all our resources to be correct, so in the past couple days you will find all the details about this new device on Padfone Club.
We already opened our special New Padfone Infinity General forum for you guys to discuss about the 4th generation Padfone. All other forums will follow when the device becomes widely available.
Asus has released a calendar containing information about the Android 4.3 Jelly Bean update for all their Android devices. According to the table, the Asus Padfone 2 and Asus Padfone Infinity will get the update to the latest Jelly Bean version by the third quarter of this year, which should be before the end of September.
But we have bad news for the first generation Padfone fans, Asus does not seem to be planning on any update for it.
Let us know what you think, should Asus keep supporting the first generation Padfone?
During a conference call presentation that Asus CEO Jerry Shen gave, one of the slides revealed the Padfone Mini. It's said that the Padfone Mini will be a smaller version of their current high end Padfone Infinity.
It looks like Asus is trying to follow the strategy of Samsung and HTC by creating a Padfone Mini based on the Padfone Infinity. Since the Padfone Infinity is a 5" smartphone which is too large for some people, Asus could choose to build a 4.3" (or maybe even smaller) version, and call it "Mini".
Please bear in mind that this slide does not confirm or deny anything, so time will tell what's going on here.
So what do you guys think about this? Let us know in the comments.
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Bootloader unlock tool available for the Padfone Infinity
Where the first generation Padfone users had to wait several months for a bootloader unlock tool, Padfone Infinity users are more lucky. One of our members posted on our forums that Asus has released their bootloader unlock tool for the Padfone infinity.
This unlock tool allows you to unlock the bootloader of your Padfone Infinity to install third party software like custom recovery and custom ROMs on your device.
The tool is available on the official Asus Padfone Infinity page, and can only be used on Padfone Infinity devices.
As you all might know, we received a Padfone Infinity from Asus to review, and that's what we did. We've tested it very well for you guys and wrote a detailed review about it.
-Build quality -Design -Battery life -Performance -Reliability -Stability -Hardware features -Software features
Everything you need to know before grabbing one in stores.
About one year ago ctys2ard and I (SparkyRih) met on the XDA developers forums and noticed that there was no support for the Padfone anywhere on the internet at the time, so we decided to start our own community website to support this device.
But who thought that the Padfone series and the community around it would grow out to be what it is today? Our community grew pretty quick, and within this year we reached more than 10.000 forum posts. But we also get great support from Asus themselves to make this possible. Because we're an international website, Asus decided to give us a Padfone Infinity to review, and to allow us to answer all of your questions.
On June 21 I created the first news item on this website, with a short video of the first generation Padfone. Now, almost one year later I'm able to make a video of the third generation Padfone, the Padfone Infinity!
Our detailed review of the Padfone Infinity is already in progress, and will be published soon! In the meantime we've opened a forum topic for you to request special details about this device.
A quick news roundup to summarize the past couple weeks, because the Padfone world did not stand still.
First of all, good news for Padfone Infinity users who want to root their device, one of our users found a very easy to use method to root your high-end smartphone/tablet. It has also been confirmed that the OTA RootKeeper will be able to restore the root libraries after an upgrade.
The Padfone Infinity is currently also available in all three colors (Titanium Gray, Hot Pink and Champagne Gold) in Hong Kong. If you want to know if the Padfone Infinity is sold in your country, look at our "Where to buy" page.
Furthermore, stay tuned for a full detailed review about the Padfone Infinity by Padfone Club soon!
The first generation Padfone (CHT SKU) did get a firmware upgrade, mainly fixing some minor issues. A customized version of this firmware upgrade was released one day after the official OTA.
But that's not the only custom ROM available for the first generation Padfone. User 666dsa666 is working on his own Pandora ROM.