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I'm getting the padfone soon.

Steve Adams

Well-Known Member
Nov 8, 2010
188
14
Newfoundland Canada
I was going to order a new MacBook air but I think I'm going to wait for the Acer s7 and get a padfone. Getting both of those will be close to the cost of the MBA I spec'ed out. Also looking at the nexus 7. I think I will have a pretty sick setup with these products.

The padfone is a great piece of hardware. With rooting it will be down right awesome. I wanted one ever since they announced it. I have an iPad now, and its solid and functions great. But I'm back to finding apple so plain, that I have gone back to using my Archos tablet and Samsung s2x. I think having both setups a bonus for sure.
 
I want to order mine, but I'm still hesitating.

The padfone sounds and looks really cool, but the Samsung Galaxy S3 + Nexus 7 combo is very interesting too.

Anyone would prefer the above setup over the padfone?
I went through pros and cons a few times in my head, but I'd like to hear what you guys think...
 
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I wanted to order it already, but still hesitating. I'd love to wait until UK release, but it's catch 22 honestly.
I don't mind paying heavy hundreds for my gadgets, but I love to have top of the line hardware.

The padfone has great hardware, but it's not the latest tech, and with all the delays in introduction to european markets, it gets outdated really quickly.:thinking:
 
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I wanted to order it already, but still hesitating. I'd love to wait until UK release, but it's catch 22 honestly.
I don't mind paying heavy hundreds for my gadgets, but I love to have top of the line hardware.

The padfone has great hardware, but it's not the latest tech, and with all the delays in introduction to european markets, it gets outdated really quickly.:thinking:

Its outdated before its released. Just buy it if you want it. It I'll still work great.
 
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If this thing were available through Sprint, it'd already be my choice for upgrade.

If the ports are positioned upside-down from how the Photon ports are, but I'd almost venture to say the the placement is close enough that I could see it working with the Photon or some other Motorola devices that have the HDMI/microUSB ports set up similarly (on the side of the phone).
 
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This may be a stupid question/s 1. In laptop mode can I connect a printer (I've never printed off an Android device) just like with a windows laptop? 2. In laptop mode can I connect an LCD projector (RGB adaptor)? 3. In Laptop mode can I connect a usb flash drive and or an external USB hard drive (How many USB ports does it have)? 4. I assume there is no dvd drive, can I connect 1 through the usb port? 5. Can this device replace my windows laptop (Dell inspiron) if not what are the drawbacks? 6. What is a good price for the entire set unlocked?
 
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This may be a stupid question/s 1. In laptop mode can I connect a printer (I've never printed off an Android device) just like with a windows laptop? 2. In laptop mode can I connect an LCD projector (RGB adaptor)? 3. In Laptop mode can I connect a usb flash drive and or an external USB hard drive (How many USB ports does it have)? 4. I assume there is no dvd drive, can I connect 1 through the usb port? 5. Can this device replace my windows laptop (Dell inspiron) if not what are the drawbacks? 6. What is a good price for the entire set unlocked?

I think they are all unlocked because you buy from asus. and the rest of your questions are yes as far as i know.
 
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This may be a stupid question/s 1. In laptop mode can I connect a printer (I've never printed off an Android device) just like with a windows laptop? 2. In laptop mode can I connect an LCD projector (RGB adaptor)? 3. In Laptop mode can I connect a usb flash drive and or an external USB hard drive (How many USB ports does it have)? 4. I assume there is no dvd drive, can I connect 1 through the usb port? 5. Can this device replace my windows laptop (Dell inspiron) if not what are the drawbacks? 6. What is a good price for the entire set unlocked?

the things that need to be unlocked is only a padfone itself...other
devices no need...only an extension to padfone...:D
 
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(Originally Posted by stevegar)
This may be a stupid question/s 1. In laptop mode can I connect a printer (I've never printed off an Android device) just like with a windows laptop? 2. In laptop mode can I connect an LCD projector (RGB adaptor)? 3. In Laptop mode can I connect a usb flash drive and or an external USB hard drive (How many USB ports does it have)? 4. I assume there is no dvd drive, can I connect 1 through the usb port? 5. Can this device replace my windows laptop (Dell inspiron) if not what are the drawbacks? 6. What is a good price for the entire set unlocked?
No stupid questions, stevegar: only questions that aren't asked :)
When fully docked, the only accessible port on the tablet is the headphone socket.
The keyboard has 2 USB ports and a (full-sized) SD card slot on it (+ the proprietary Asus charging port that can't be used for anything else).
So:
1. Printer. Sorry, I don't know enough about Android to definitively say yes or no: other forums I've looked at suggest wireless printing can work with caveats: suggest you investigate
1) PrintBot (for any printer)
2) SmartOffice 2
3) HP ePrint Home & Office for HP Printers
4) Samsung Print for Samsung Printers

2. LCD projector: highly unlikely in laptop mode (unless you could find a USB-VGA adapter with Android drivers). However, the micro-HDMI port on the phone would likely see a projector just the same as any other screen: suggest removing the phone and plugging it directly into the proj as a workaround would highly likely work.

3. USB flash and external HDD: I've succesfully copied between 2 USB drives, the (external full-sized) SD card slot and internal memory/uSD card. However: these were formatted FAT/FAT32. My ext HDD winds up OK, but the machine doesn't "see" it: think this is because its formatted NTFS. I will reformat a smaller HDD at some stage and report back with results.

4. DVD drive you are correct, there is no optical media drive on the unit: again, I will try an external unit once at home and report back.

5. Laptop Replacement: TBH, it really depends on what you're trying to do.
I have a Windows background & found the learning curve for most of the office suites pretty steep. Having stated which, I can now do 95% of my daily duties on the PadFone (and take my data with me and use it!)-which I think is pretty good for only having been around Android for 3 months.
You're unlikely to find replacements for speciality programmes -eg CAD or Accounting software-and I wouldn't go producing high-end, macro'd-up spreadsheets on the unit.
I look at the unit as a whole as about the functionality of a well-specc'd netbook (with a better keyboard than most) with an "unusual" operating system-not bad, just needs learning-but with a full multimedia stack.

6. Price: no idea sorry as to what is a good price in your part of the world.
For comparison: the bundle has more functionality than an iPad, has a great, usable keyboard (that charges the other parts) is an excellent phone in its own right and you can take, access and use your data wherever you are.
IMO, if you can buy the set for less than the price of a good tablet and an excellent phone you're winning :D

Hope that helps: as said, will report back once I've had a play with some of the other aspects.

Edit:
Just received my replacement PadFone (my old one died and I got a full replacement): with firmware update 4.04, the unit _can_ both read and write to NTFS-formatted drives. Now if I could only rename the drives (or have the phone pick up their "windows" names) I'd be a very happy camper!
As it is-there's no longer any reason for me to carry a netbook when travelling: massive battery life plus the ability to copy photos from camera, SD card and USB to HDD makes this a 1-stop device for me.
 
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