The Asus Fonepad is either a huge phone or a small tablet, depending on how you want to look at it. Either way, it’s an Android device with a 7 inch display, WiFi and HSPA+ connectivity, and the ability to make phone calls.
In other words, it’s a tablet for people who aren’t sure they want to buy a phone and a tablet, or a phone for people who think phone screens are way too small. Or something.
The Fonepad weighs about 12 ounces and measures 0.4 inches thick, making it similar in size to a Google Nexus 7 or Amazon Kindle Fire.
The tablet features a 1280 x 800 pixel IPS display, a 1.2 GHz Intel Atom Z2420 processor, 1GB of RAM, and 16GB of storage. It has a microSD card slot for additional storage, and a front-facing 1.2MP camera front-facing camera and a 3MP rear camera.
Asus says the tablet gets up to 10 hours of battery life. The Fonepad will be available in two colors: gray or gold.
This isn’t the only category-blurring device Asus has. The company’s Padfone Infinity takes a different approach toward the same problem by letting you use dock a 5 inch smartphone into a 10 inch tablet dock when you want to use a larger screen and get longer battery life.
Prices are expected to start at $249 for a Fonepad with 8GB of storage. That model will be available in March. Come April, a European model with 16GB of storage will launch for 219 Euros.
Despite Asus giving a price in US dollars for the base model of the phone, there are currently no plans to sell the Fonepad in the United States.
