Taipei, Taiwan – Asus borrowed a
concept from Motorola here at the Computex trade show, unveiling a mockup of an
Android-based smartphone that physically docks with a tablet to operate as the
tablet’s engine.
The
features 4.3-inch
touchscreen and docks to the back of a tablet whose screen size is 10.1 inches.
The phone supplies the tablet’s processing power and acts as an extended
battery for the tablet.
Asus showed a mockup, didn’t release details,
and didn’t say when the device would be available or in which countries.
The PC, netbook and smartphone
maker positions the device as giving consumers the choice of using the screen
size that best fits a particular activity. It is also being promoted as making
it unnecessary to transfer data from smartphone to tablet, and it enables users
to pay for one cellular-data connections instead of separate data plans, one
for a smartphone and the second for a tablet.
The device would likely use the
planned Ice Cream Sandwich version of Android, which is intended for use in
both smartphones and tablets.
Earlier this year, Motorola
Android smartphone, which physically docks in a recess in a
laptop-looking clamshell, which is called the Motorola Lapdock Dock and
features 11.6-inch display and QWERTY keyboard. The phone is an Android
2.2-based phone that operates on AT&T’s 4G HSPA+ network.
In the U.S., Acer markets
netbooks.
