Asus Padfone 2 review

Introduction

In today's rapidly-growing market, it's the push for more CPU cores and (mega)pixels that has been driving the industry forward. But every now and then, an extraordinary gadget emerges to explore new and exciting dimensions. Devices like the Samsung Galaxy Note and the Asus Padfone dare to go against the tide and remind everyone that there's more than one right way to make a phone. Or a tablet. Or both.

Asus obviously doesn't have Samsung's momentum, level of sales or, ultimately, an unlimited budget to really go all out on a project like this, but the first Padfone was successful enough to warrant another go-around. A year later, the sequel has a foundation to build upon, and the company has had time to learn and get stuff ironed out.

Asus Padfone 2 official photos
And going by the Padfone 2's specs, Asus are hoping to make a splash.

Key features

• Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE support; 3G with HSPA; LTE (market dependent)
• 4.7" 16M-color 720p Super IPS+ capacitive touchscreen display with 312ppi density
• Android OS v4.1.1 Jelly Bean
• Quad-core 1.5 GHz Krait CPU, 2 GB RAM, Adreno 320 GPU; Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro chipset
• Docking station with 10" 1280x800 pixel display, 5000 mAh battery
• Gorilla Glass protection for both displays
• 13 MP autofocus camera with LED flash and geo-tagging
• 1080p video recording @ 30fps, continuous autofocus and stereo sound
• 1.2 MP front-facing camera on phone, 1MP front-facing camera on docking station, 720p video recording
• Wi-Fi a/b/g/n, Wi-Fi Direct and DLNA
• GPS with A-GPS, GLONASS
• 16/32/64GB of built-in storage
• MHL-enabled microUSB port
• Bluetooth v4.0
• NFC
• Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
• Accelerometer and proximity sensor
• SonicMaster loudspeakers on phone and tablet

Main disadvantage

• Non user-replaceable battery
• Mediocre screen quality of the docking station
• Non-expandable storage
• No camera key

With the second Padfone you have a properly-powered smartphone just a 1080p screen short of matching the 2013 flagships, and one that converts into an equally powerful tablet. The station screen is not quite up to Retina standards either, but considering the price of the whole package, Asus is still vastly over-delivering.

Sure, the Asus Padfone 2 is priced rather steeply for a smartphone, but it's actually a fraction of what you'd normally pay for a quad-core smartphone and a quad-core tablet. Not to mention the added convenience of having all your files, contacts and accounts at your disposal at all times, regardless of which screen you're using.

Which leads us to the catch. You are not actually getting a smartphone and a tablet here, it's simply two screens to work with and two batteries to power the same combo. The best thing is, the Padfone station (the tablet body) will charge the phone's battery too. Think: a tablet with an escape pod, or a phone that can more than quadruple its screen size when needed.

The Asus Padfone 2 at ours

It's a smart concept indeed, but we're yet to see how good the Padfone is at both jobs. The first impression it made on us back in October was very positive, so we're looking forward to exploring it in-depth and seeing how well the tandem performs.

The hardware overview is coming up right after the break and there's more stuff than usual to tick off the checklist, so let's get to it!

Design and construction

The Asus Padfone 2 design takes after the company's Zenbooks with the concentric circles at the back, and we have to admit we really like the result. The phone is stylish without being overdesigned, with the unique profile and the pattern at the back bringing personality.
The plastic used reminds us of the Samsung Galaxy S II, which to this day remains one of the most stylish handsets. Asus however added its unique twist with the silver frame around the sides and some cool touches to the front panel.

The Zenbook-inspired design looks sweet
The only aspect of the Padfone 2's looks that we are not particularly thrilled about are the large bezels above and below the screen and the unexplainable gaps in the framing on both sides of the phone towards the bottom. It's the point where the two bits meet - but fail to align - which looks like poor craftsmanship, rather than a design accent.

The misalignment of the frame pieces on the sides
Still, even with those minor issues, the Padfone 2 is a good-looking phone, and one that provides a fresh alternative to those who may've started to get bored with the looks of recent Android smartphones.

Smartphone controls

We'll start with with the smartphone half of the Padfone 2 package. Above the screen you find the earpiece, flanked by the usual sensors on the left and the front-facing camera on the right.

The usual set of functional elements above the screen
Below the display you get a trio of capacitive controls: (from left to right) Back, Home and Task switcher. The keys' backlighting can be set to be active for 2 seconds or 10 seconds after use or you can opt for always on.

There are three capacitive touch buttons at the bottom
On the right side of the smartphone you get the power key and the volume rocker - both of those are large and have good tactile feedback. There's no camera button here, though.

There are two keys on the right side
The left side of the Padfone 2 is completely bereft of controls or ports.

There's nothing to see on the left
The 3.5mm jack is in the center at the top of the phone, with the microSIM card slot nearby.

It's busy at the top
At the bottom you get the microphone pinhole and the proprietary 13-pin port. This is actually a customized microUSB port, which enables data and video streaming both for the phone itself and for the docking station. This means you get MHL and USB host functionality if you buy the required adapters.
Even though this is modified microUSB port, you can use regular microUSB cables for both data connections and charging. They don't fit very well though, so you have to be careful not to move things around too much to not get disconnected.

Asus uses a proprietary port, but you can plug in regular microUSB cables, too
Finally, at the back you get the 13MP camera lens, the loudspeaker grille and the LED flash. The back panel can't be removed or replaced which means you get no access to the Padfone 2's 2140mAh battery.

The 13 megapixel camera lens is the star backstage
It is said to last for up to 16 hours of telephony or 352 hours of stand-by, which sounded pretty promising and the actual performance didn't disappoint. We were surprised to see the Padfone 2 score a rating of 56h, meaning you would only need to charge it once every 56 hours if you do an hour of web browsing, an hour of talking and an hour of video watching per day.

You shouldn't forget either that you can use the Docking station as a charging pack, without turning the tablet on. It takes the station 2 hours and 15 minutes to fully charge a flat Padfone 2 battery and you can do it twice before you have to charge the Docking station itself.

Docking station controls

The Asus Padfone 2 slides into its docking station effortlessly, but thanks to cleverly designed locks it fits firmly in place once it's there. Even if you turn the docking station upside down and shake it vehemently the smartphone won't fall off.

The nicely designed docking space makes sure the smartphone doesn't fall off
The docking station itself packs a 10" screen, with a video-call camera sitting right below it. There's no need for another camera at the back as you can use the smartphone's 13 MP shooter when it's docked.

There's a front-facing camera above the screen
On top you get the power button, while the volume rocker is on the left side of the tablet body. Another 13-pin port sits at the bottom, while the back hosts the loudspeaker and the microphone pinhole.

The docking station power button and volume rocker • The 13-pin port
Asus has put a lot of effort into optimizing the audio output of that loudspeaker and it shows. The company has developed the SonicMaster technology together with Bang&Olufsen. It's not quite perfect, but it's certainly better than just about every other tablet loudspeaker we have heard.

Displays

The Asus Padfone 2 comes with a 4.7" Super IPS+ display with a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels. This comes down to a pixel density of 312ppi - not quite as good as the recent wave of 1080p flagships, but the perceivable difference is minor.

We love the Asus Padfone 2 screen
The screen of the smartphone boasts good brightness and great contrast, along with decently vibrant colors. The viewing angles are impressively wide and the overall image quality is generally very pleasing. Sunlight legibility turned out surprisingly good, as seen in the chart below.
We have seen slightly better (the HTC Butterfly, which we reviewed the other day springs to mind), but the Padfone 2 screen won't let users down. Besides, Asus claims that thanks to the technology used this is also one of the most responsive smartphone screens around having an average touch response time of 65ms, compared to Galaxy S III's 85ms and HTC One X's 75ms. Of course this is not the kind of difference you can feel in real life, but what's important is the Padfone2 is as responsive as a proper flagship smartphone should be.

Display test	50% brightness			100% brightness
	Black, cd/m2	White, cd/m2	Contrast ratio	Black, cd/m2	White, cd/m2	Contrast ratio
Asus Padfone 2	0.26	320	1243	0.48	600	1256
Asus Padfone 2 (docking station)	0.25	238	950	0.42	387	911
HTC Butterfly	0.14	173	1200	0.45	501	1104
Sony Xperia Z	-	-	-	0.70	492	705
Oppo Find 5	0.17	176	1123	0.51	565	1107
Sony Xperia S	-	-	-	0.48	495	1038
Samsung I9300 Galaxy S III	0	174	∞	0	330	∞
HTC One X	0.15	200	1375	0.39	550	1410
Nokia Lumia 920	-	-	-	0.48	513	1065
Nexus 4	0.22	314	1447	0.45	608	1341
LG Optimus G	0.14	197	1445	0.33	417	1438
Apple iPhone 5	0.13	200	1490	0.48	640	1320

The docking station is an entirely different story, though. With fullHD screens available on phones, 1280x800 pixels on a 10"display is bound to result in mediocre image quality.

The screen on the docking station is hardly exciting
The contrast of the screen is not bad and its colors are okay, but the pixilation is pretty obvious. After all, you when you slide the Padfone 2 in the docking station you gain more than four times the surface and yet you only get 80 extra pixels on one of the sides. The difference in the pixel sizes on the two screens is pretty big, as you can see in the two images below captured with our digital microscope.

Padfone 2 phone and tablet screen matrices compares

Jelly Bean is in the driver's seat

The Asus Padfone 2 launched with Android Ice Cream Sandwich out of the box, but the company has since quickly pushed Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean to the smartphone and tablet combo. Confused about Android versions? Check out our Android version breakdown.
The Padfone 2 now enjoys the benefits of Project Butter, which keeps the framerate of animations at a constant 60 fps and delivers buttery smooth visuals. Combining the power of the four Krait cores and the latest-generation GPU, the Padfone 2 offers a virtually lag-free user experience.
As usual, we've prepared a video tour of the Padfone 2's interface, including of course both phone and tablet demos. Check it out below.

Asus continues to rely on a nearly stock Android look and feel, keeping the launcher and most of the user interface untouched. Nevertheless, the company has provided some customizations here and there that enhance the experience, which we'll point out to you as we go along.
The lockscreen is a standard stock Android 4.1 Jelly Bean affair. There's a large dotted circle around the center-placed unlock button. You still get the two familiar shortcuts - move the unlock button to the left for camera, and right for unlock. There's a new, third icon above them for jumping straight into Google Now.

The lockscreen provides a shortcut to Google Now and the camera app
The dock at the bottom of the homescreen fits four custom shortcuts or folders. The center one always opens the app drawer, but the other four can be set to any shortcut or even a folder.
As usual, you can pinch to zoom out and manage homescreen panes - add, delete or just reorder them. You can have 7 panes at most, which are enough to fit plenty of content even if you use widgets that cover an entire pane.

The familiar stock Android lockscreen
In usual Jelly Bean fashion, widgets are resizable and make space for themselves by pushing app shortcuts and folders out of the way to make space for their larger size.
Asus has been kind enough to include some custom widgets of their own including a task manager, number of unread emails, along with Weather and Battery widgets. The latter allows you to switch different power managing modes to get the most out of the battery. From there, you can also choose whether the Padfone 2 is charged when you slide it into the Padfone 2 station.

The notification center has been slightly revamped and looks a bit different from stock Android.
Quick toggles have been added on separate rows giving you access to the settings menu, Wi-Fi networks and the special Asus Audio Wizard feature.
There are also the actual quick toggle buttons themselves, allowing you to toggle Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Mobile data (more can be added from the Settings menu). Asus is also giving the option to control the brightness and switch between normal and outside modes of the display.
Notifications can be expanded and collapsed with a two-finger swipe, and the top one is expanded by default (if the app that put up the notification supports it, of course).

Asus has included quick toggles in the notification center
Folders in Jelly Bean haven't been changed since Ice Cream Sandwich. A folder is created by dropping a shortcut on top of another and can be renamed by tapping on the "Unnamed folder" label. Opening a folder expands it only by as much as is needed to fit the icons inside.
The app drawer on the Padfone 2 consists of four rows of icons and three tabs (instead of the usual two). The new addition is the Pad Only tab, which shows you apps that are run only on the Padfone 2 Station. Unfortunately, the app drawer doesn't allow for custom viewing modes (alphabetical is the only one).

The stock Android app drawer
Once you get several apps running, you can use the task switcher to go back and forth between them. It's a Jelly Bean-style vertical list with a screenshot and a name for each app. A sideways swipe removes the app from the list.

Recent apps
Once you slide the Padfone 2 into the Padfone 2 Station you get a full-fledged, 10.1" tablet. It's powered entirely by the smartphone's 1.5GHz Krait monster of a CPU.
Upon unlocking the slate, you're greeted with the familiar Android interface. The homescreen configuration is quite reminiscent of Ice Cream Sandwich and features a top navigation bar which holds the usual three-button Android combo.
However, Asus has added a fourth one - Floating widgets. Floating widgets are small, independent windows that are overlaid over anything else - the homescreen, regular full-screen apps, anything. You can fit two or three of those on the large 10.1" screen and they really improve the multitasking capabilities of the tablet.


Floating widgets provide true multitasking
Available Floating widgets include a calculator, calendar, email, dictionary, Asus' BuddyBuzz and the AudioWizard. If you don't intend to use any of those apps, you can always hide them.
Anyway, the notification center in tablet mode is the same as the smartphone's and includes the handy quick settings toggles. The number of homescreens maxes out at seven, but that's enough space for all the widgets and app shortcuts you would need.

Final words

The Asus Padfone 2 is a fine example of the kind of out-of-the-box thinking we like to see from more manufacturers. The hybrid is a unique concept which makes so much sense that we wonder why more OEMs haven't explored it.
Not only do you get access to your files and apps at all times without having to use any kind of sync service or install them twice, but you will also enjoy the power of the Snapdragon S4 Pro chipset and its 4 Krait cores and network connectivity on both devices without paying extra for it. Of course, you obviously cannot use both devices simultaneously, but unless you plan on sharing, that's a non-issue.
The actual execution of the idea has also been notably improved with the second generation Padfone. The hybrid is now properly powered, it's lighter and looks more stylish than its predecessor, and allows you to switch between the two displays much faster. We also like the Zenbook-inspired design much better. The upgraded camera also makes a difference and the new spring system makes sure everything remains locked firmly in place.
However, if you look at the two pieces of the combo separately there is certainly a lot of room for improvement. First and most important, a tablet with so much power definitely deserves a better screen. The modest resolution can't fully take advantage of the monstrous chipset and give you the high-res gaming experience that S4 Pro devices are known to deliver.
The other thing is the non-expandable storage, which means you'll need to at least get the 32GB version (it's the most widely available, too). You could probably live with 16GB on a 720p smartphone, but the fact that you carry the tablet apps with you at all times makes it insufficient for the hybrid device.
The Asus Padfone 2 itself a brilliant smartphone, but the recent onslaught of 1080p flagship sees it slide down the food chain. Costing as much as the newly unveiled HTC One, the Asus flagship simply cannot match the 1080p monster in any of the key aspects (even though it probably holds an advantage in camera quality).
So is this a disappointing end to a story with such a promising beginning? Not really - the Padfone 2 is just a case where the whole is better than the sum of its parts. You have to be one of those who need both a tablet and a smartphone to be interested in the Padfone, but if you go for it you'll be getting value for money. Hard to believe? Let's have a look at a couple of alternative tablet and smartphone combos that you can get right now.
An Asus MeMo Pad Smart is about €340 for the 16GB Wi-Fi only option and while its Tegra 3 chipset won't match the S4 Pro in performance it should offer a tablet experience similar to that of the Padfone 2 docking station. After that you'll have to go for the cheapest quad-core smartphone out there - currently, the LG Optimus 4X HD - to fit within the Padfone 2 budget.
Depending on how important it is for you to be able to use the two devices simultaneously, you might find the deal worth it, but you should know that both the tablet and the smartphone experience are a step backwards from the Asus offering. You'd be losing network connectivity on the slate and the better camera, more capable chipset, and Jelly Bean on the smartphone. Plus after the waste of space needed for two separate Android installations and all the apps twice you will actually have far less storage available for your media (which you'll need to sync back and forth all the time, too).

LG Optimus 4X HD P880 • Asus Memo Pad ME172V
You can get the cheaper Nexus 7 to compliment a more capable smartphone, but a 7" tablet and near-5" smartphone make little sense to us.

Asus Google Nexus 7
Alternately, if you happen to live in a country where the Google phone I available at the Play Store, you can opt for a Nexus 4 and Nexus 10, which will be the ultimate combo - and one with great pedigree too. They both have powerful chipsets so you won't be missing much in terms of performance, and the tablet screen is vastly superior to that of the Padfone 2 docking station. You will need to spend nearly €700 to get 32GB of storage on those two combined, though, and again you will actually have far less of that left for your personal files.
If you don't have a devices section of the Play Store in the country where you live, this deal is hardly in the same league as it will run you over €1000.

LG Nexus 4 E960 • Samsung Google Nexus 10 P8110
So at the end of the day the Asus Padfone 2 will only cater for the needs of a specific group of people, but it will do so quite well. And as tablets continue to gain popularity, a combo like this will only be getting a bigger field to play in.
Asus needs to play its part too. The company has already shown that it can release timely updates, so we are hoping Android 4.2 won't take long to hit the Padfone 2. We'd also like to see them convince more developers to update their apps to support the seamless Dynamic display transition from phone to tablet and vice versa.