ASUS PadFone S: Finally, a more accessible hybrid smartphone

 Overview

The ASUS PadFone series has been around for two years now, and continues to be the only 2-in-1 phone-tablet hybrid around. The basic form factor has remained unchanged since the original PadFone was released in April 2012, in which the smartphone can be docked into a tablet, turning it into a full tablet device. After the original PadFone, ASUS released the PadFone 2 later that year, and followed up with the PadFone Infinity in 2013. This year, ASUS released the PadFone S (also known as the PadFone X in the U.S. market - the only difference between the two is that the X is fitted with the slightly older Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor).

The PadFone has always been at the top of ASUS' phone line-up, with the Infinity originally retailing for S$898. However, with a number of handset manufacturers now releasing flagship devices at much lower prices, such as the OnePlus One and Xiaomi Mi 3, ASUS has followed suit, and drastically slashed the launch price for the PadFone S, which retails for just S$449.

But to achieve this price, what compromises did ASUS have to make? Can the PadFone S still be considered a premium flagship device and a worthy sequel to the PadFone Infinity? Or is the S just a budget entry to ASUS' PadFone range? We find out. 

First, let's take a look at the specs, and how the S compares to the old Infinity:

Design

Picking up the PadFone S, it's immediately obvious that it is significantly thicker than other flagship models, and indeed, at a chunky 10mm, it's actually thicker than its predecessor, the PadFone Infinity (8.9mm). PadFones have never been thin, due to the internal hardware required to make the tablet dock connection work, but it's always disappointing to see a new model increase in thickness. Actually, the S is the thickest PadFone ever - even the original first generation PadFone was thinner  at 9.2mm. Looking across devices that are not far from the PadFone S price range, such as the Motorola Moto X (2014), a flagship device, it's also spec'ed to have a 10mm profile, although it does taper dramatically at the edges, whereas the PadFone S remains 10mm throughout.

Despite its bulk, the phone isn't too heavy, coming in at 150g, which is slightly over average but nothing too alarming - putting it on par with flagship devices like the Samsung Galaxy S5 or Motorola Moto X. Like the previous PadFone Infinity, the PadFone S sports an aluminum frame with chamfered edges. However, the rear gets a downgrade design-wise as it's now a removable polycarbonate plastic. It feels quite cheap, and it's certainly not up to the quality of previous PadFones that sport aluminum backing.

The power and volume buttons are found on the right side of the phone, and the micro-SIM and microSD card can be found under the rear cover. Despite the rear cover being removable, the battery is sealed and can't be removed.

The docking station

Like other PadFones, the PadFone S can be docked into an optional docking station to transform it into a tablet. This time round, you'll get 9-inch form factor for an additional S$199. You can dock the phone by sliding it into the back of the tablet, no reboot is required, and the phone switches to and from tablet form in less than three seconds.

If the PadFone S is considered thick, then its docking station could be considered practically monstrous. While the tablet itself is only 11.6mm thick, which isn't too bad, the docking section is much thicker, and sticks out the rear. This results in a tablet that is effectively thicker than most Ultrabooks and even some multimedia notebooks. It could be due to the extra battery in the dock, but nonetheless, most users will find the tablet to be too bulky for practical use.

The combined weight of the docked PadFone S is not flattering either. The dock weighs 514g - more than three times the PadFone S. Combined, the two weigh 664g, which by current standards, is too heavy for everyday tablet use.

Display and Audio

The ASUS PadFone S is equipped with a 5-inch Super IPS+ LCD screen, with a 1920 x 1080 pixels resolution. This gives it a pixel density of 441 ppi, which yields very crisp and sharp images; pixels are indiscernible under such pixel density. On the other hand , the color reproduction of the screen is rather average. While it retains color at wide viewing angles, it doesn't fare well compared to Samsung's Super AMOLED, Microsoft's ClearBlack or Sony’s Triluminos and X-Reality displays.

The display on the docking station is also rather average in quality. Sporting a 9-inch screen with a 1920 x 1200 pixels resolution, it falls short of other flagship tablets, such as the Apple iPad Air 2  (2048 x 1536 pixels) and Galaxy Tab S series (2560 x 1600 pixels). Yielding a pixel density of 251 ppi, the display is rather unimpressive, although the viewing angles are still fairly good due to the IPS screen.

Regarding the audio subsystem, the speaker on the PadFone S is located just right below the camera lens - in a mono configuration. Despite that, audio output is fairly decent. It is even better when docked, as the speakers are front-facing on both sides of the tablet dock, in stereo configuration, making it ideal for watching movies.

Software

The ASUS PadFone S runs on Android KitKat (4.4.2), with ZenUI overlay. ZenUI is loaded on most phones released in 2014, including the ZenFone series and the recent Transformer T103C. We have covered the ZenUI extensively previously, many of which are common across all ASUS ZenUI equipped devices.

With the PadFone S and ZenUI, ASUS has continued the tradition of being able to smartly transition between phone and tablet form. The ZenUI interface looks identical to the ZenFone series’s interface when undocked, and is reminiscent of the Transformer 103C when docked. In both modes, ASUS has made the ZenUI experience as close to stock Android experience as possible, with the notable exception of the tablet having only a single app drawer, instead of two in the stock Android KitKat interface.

One notable UI problem with the PadFone S is that ASUS has not implemented the multi-user capability that is present in all Android tablets running Android KitKat. This is probably due to the fact that the PadFone S is ultimately still a phone at its core, and as such, ASUS can only implement features that are common in both phone and tablet form. Still, given that Android Lollipop, the next iteration of Android OS, offers multi-user support on phones, we hope to see the feature being implemented in a future update (if available).

Performance

Despite its new low price, one area where the PadFone S maintains its flagship bearing is its underlying processing subsystem. The PadFone S is powered by a fairly powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 2.3GHz Krait 400 processor, with 2GB of RAM, a slight improvement over the Snapdragon 800 processor found in last year's PadFone Infinity. We'll be comparing the newcomer with other devices running similar specs - so expect performance comparisons with other higher tier products that normally cost more. This is because such capable processing subsystems are only accorded to top-tier products from major brands. 

Sunspider

SunSpider Javascript helps measure the browsing performance of a device when processing Javascript. It not only takes into consideration the underlying hardware performance, but also assesses how optimized a particular platform is at delivering a high-speed web browsing experience. The Sunspider score of the PadFone S is comparable to that of other major flagship devices. Interestingly, the old PadFone Infinity actually scored better here. Nevertheless, Apple's iPhone 6 once again wins by a huge margin, which may partly be due to the inadequately optimized Chrome browser preloaded in most stock Android phones.

Quadrant

Quadrant evaluates a device's CPU, memory, I/O and 3D graphics performance combined. The PadFone S’s Quadrant score ranked below some of the flagship devices, but still held out at an acceptable 20,000 points range. Once again it didn't score as well as the older PadFone Infinity. 

3DMark (2013)

Originally developed as a PC benchmarking tool, 3DMark is now expanded to support multiple platforms including Android OS. The Ice Storm benchmark is designed for smartphones, mobile devices and ARM architecture computers.

For an in-depth understanding of 3DMark for Android, do head over to our article, "3DMark - Android Device GPU Performance Review." In a nutshell, it is an OpenGL ES 2.0 benchmark test that uses fixed off-screen rendering to run two graphics tests designed to stress the GPU performance of your device and a physics test to stress its CPU performance. The benchmark consists of three test portfolios:- Standard (720p resolution rendering), Extreme (1080p resolution rendering with higher quality textures and post-processing effects) and Unlimited (disabled v-sync, display scaling and other OS factors that make it ideal for chipset comparison).

As all of the recent flagship smartphones have been maxing out the scores for the Standard and Extreme tests, we will only be looking at the scores for Ice Storm Unlimited. Finally, we noted that the ASUS PadFone S was able to outperform the older PadFone Infinity, and actually scored quite well here, equaling or surpassing many of the compared devices.

Camera performance

The PadFone S comes with a 13-megapixel rear camera, and a 2-megapixel front facing camera. Despite its low price, the PadFone S' camera performed rather well under normal lighting conditions.

The rear camera also comes with Pixelmaster technology, which serves to illuminate photos better when taken in the dark. As can be seen in the photo below, it is also able to snap night photos fairly well, though the noise captured may be significant as well.

Battery Life

Our standard battery test for mobile phones includes the following parameters:

• Looping a 800 x 480-pixel video with screen brightness and volume at 100%

• Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity turned on

• Constant data streaming through email and Twitter

The ASUS PadFone S managed to run close to 7 hours, which is somewhat low when compared among other flagship phones. This is not surprising, given that the phone has a relatively modest battery capacity of 2300 mAh, but fortunately for it, the Moto X (2014) model fared even worse.

Paired with a chunkier profile, it's portability ratio was on the lower scale of the compared products, similar to the Motorola phone. 

When docked with its tablet station counterpart, overall battery performance was good but not enough to rank as well as some of the leading devices. Despite a 4,990mAh battery in the dock - yielding a combined total of 7,290mAh battery capacity - it only managed to last for 8.5 hours. Clearly, it losses out to the Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5 and other devices (including their own tablets), which are also significantly slimmer than the PadFone S. Of course the device in question is a 2-in-1 phone and tablet  hybrid, hence it will naturally have some inefficiencies along with a compromise on form.

Conclusion

ASUS' first sub-S$500 PadFone is an interesting proposition. On the one hand, at just S$449, it's the most accessible PadFone ASUS has ever made. The Infinity's S$899 launch price was a lot to ask for, especially for such an eccentric design, but S$449 might just be low enough for anyone intrigued with its hybrid proposition to give it a go. On the other hand, the PadFone S is probably the worst PadFone advancement ASUS has ever made, with the low price resulting in cutbacks for both design and choice of build. Even with the slightly improved processor (which actually resulted in lower performance scores than the PadFone Infinity in most benchmarks) there isn't much here for PadFone Infinity users to get excited about, and it's hard to advocate the PadFone S as a true successor to the Infinity.

Having said that, there's still lots to like about the PadFone S. Even if you ignore its docking tablet capabilities, you're getting a lot of value for S$449. It boasts flagship-level performance, and the aluminum frame is fairly attractive, if not particularly exciting to behold. Camera performance is on par with previous PadFone devices, and the Full HD display boasts great clarity too (if not particularly amazing color reproduction or contrast).

As for its tablet docking capabilities, unfortunately, the PadFone S' docking station tablet didn't receive the same price cut treatment as the phone and is sold separately for a hefty S$199, nearly half the price of the phone itself. The bulkiness of the tablet section, its average display, and only marginal boost in battery performance make this a very hard sell indeed. It's also worth noting that the PadFone S dock is incompatible with any other PadFone device to-date, and the reverse is true as well. Like the smartphone arena, Android tablets have come under a lot of pressure and and average selling prices have dipped a fair bit. If you really need a capable, yet portable tablet, ASUS offers a pretty good option with the S$499 Memo Pad 8 which has a much better form and design. However, if you do intend to purchase both the phone and tablet together, you can have them at a bundle price of S$598 at the online store, saving you nearly S$50.

All things considered, the PadFone S probably works better as a separate phone rather than a 2-in-1 device. It delivers fantastic performance, along with a decent camera and great display, and at this price level, we're willing to overlook its bulkiness and uninspired design. If you are interested in the 2-in-1 phone/tablet functionality and your tablet mode usage is likely to be low, there's never been a better time to try it out. Just be warned that the experience provided by more premium PadFones, like the Infinity, is better from the perspective of performance and form.

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