Introduction
The Asus PadFone X for AT&T is the Taiwanese manufacturer's first offering from the family of hybrid devices to officially hit the US market. Announced during this year's CES in Las Vegas, the device consists of a high-end Android handset and a tablet docking station with 9" IPS display and stereo speakers.
Asus PadFone X official photos
At a quick glance, the Asus PadFone X could well be the dream device for an Android power user. Thanks to the combination of Snapdragon 800 SoC, 13MP camera with 4K recording, and 5" 1080p Super IPS+ display, the handset can rub shoulders with most high-end offerings out there.
The bundled docking station on the other hand, will surely appeal to the budget-minded, as no competitor offers such functionality for the price. To top things off, the optional full keyboard cover will transform the device into a capable compact notebook.
Key features
- 5" Super IPS+ display with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels
- Android 4.4.2 KitKat with Asus Zen UI out of the box
- 2.3GHz quad-core CPU; Adreno 330 GPU; Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 SoC; 2GB RAM
- 13MP PixelMaster camera with 4K video recording and LED flash; 2MP front-facing unit; 1MP front-facing unit on the tablet tock
- 16GB of built-in memory; microSD card slot
- Bundled tablet dock with 9" 1920 x 1200 pixels IPS display; stereo speakers
- 2,330 mAh built-in battery; 4,990 mAh unit on the dock
- PMA wireless charging support
- Optional full keyboard dock with touchpad
Main disadvantages
- Not the best looking handset around
- Rather late to hit the market (six months after the product announcement)
- No IR blaster
- Tablet has huge bezels
- Heavy in tablet mode
By the looks of it, as far as available features go, the Asus PadFone X is anything but lacking. The device packs a powerful chipset, a top-notch display, and capable camera, topped by an Android KitKat build with useful additions from Asus.
The bundled tablet dock is what truly separates the Asus PadFone X apart from its competitors. Available out of the box at no additional cost, the docking station is certain to make the PadFone X a mighty attractive option for those who cannot shell out additional cash for a tablet.
However, as is the case with many devices that try to offer multiple talents, the Asus PadFone X is not exactly perfect in all departments. The handset is hardly one of the best looking in its segment to begin with. The tablet dock has also seen some engineering compromises as it's bulky in size and has wide screen bezels.
Asus PadFone X live photos
As always, we will kick our review off with an unboxing of the Asus PadFone X, followed by a design and build quality inspection.
Editorial: You may notice that this review is shorter than usual and doesn't include some of our proprietary tests. The reason is it has been prepared and written away from our test labs. Still, we think we've captured the essence of the device in the same precise, informative and detailed way that's become our trademark. Enjoy the good read!Unboxing
Asus PadFone X ships in a large orange/white box with AT&T logo. Inside it, you will find the handset and its tablet dock, a charger, a microUSB cable, a pair of Asus headphones (yay!), as well as the usual set of booklets.
The retail package
The retail package of the Asus PadFone X covers all the basics. There are no essentials missing out of the box and we are glad to see a headset included with a US smartphone for a change.
Additional accessories
Asus offers additional accessories for the PadFone X. They include a set of flip covers for the phone and the tablet (sold together), as well as a full keyboard dock.
The flip covers are made from high-quality TPU. They are cleverly designed so that the phone can dock into the tablet station with its cover on - the phone case replaces the back cover of the device.
The original covers for the Asus PadFone X
The full-QWERTY keyboard dock features a mouse pad and transforms the device into a capable notebook. It connects to the device via Bluetooth 3.0 and features a 450 mAh battery of its own, which gives it up to a month of heavy use.
The QWERTY keyboard dock
One major downside of the dock is that it is extremely heavy. In order to accommodate the PadFone X and its tablet station, the keyboard dock features a metal docking mechanism. The entire setup rivals some of the lighter 15" notebooks in terms of weight.
Design, build quality, handling
Both the PadFone X handset and its tablet station are highly unlikely to wow you with their appearance - they simply look plain next to their competitors.
The handset and its docking station look a bit dull
We particularly miss the circular design pattern, which was a staple of previous PadFone family members. In the case of the PadFone X, it has been replaced by matte-finish plastic with tiny glitter elements embedded into it.
Build quality is outstanding on both the smartphone and the tablet station. The two devices are crafted from high-quality polycarbonate and have their displays covered in Corning Gorilla Glass - they will certainly handle a user's routine without breaking a sweat.
The physical measures of Asus PadFone X are 143.4 x 72.5 x 10 mm for the handset and 250.4 x 172.3 x 11.6 mm for the docking station. Weight of the phone alone comes in at 150 grams, while the tablet setup checks in at 514 grams.
While the handset alone weighs in line with similarly equipped devices, the tablet setup is a tad heavy compared to a standalone slate with similar screen size. The extra bulk of the tablet is caused by the docking mechanism, so we reckon that it is a fair tradeoff.
Handling only the handset of the PadFone X is easy thanks to the soft-touch finish of its polycarbonate body. It enhances grip, thus making accidental drops unlikely.
Handling the Asus PadFone X
The device is not as comfy to hold in tablet mode though. It requires two hands practically all the time due to the combination of its considerable weight, thickness, as well as the hump on its back that accommodates the phone.
Display
The handset of the Asus PadFone X totes a 5" Super IPS+ LCD capacitive touchscreen with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels and 441ppi. The tablet dock features a 9" IPS unit with 1920 x 1200 pixel resolution.
The display of the Asus PadFone X
Asus is well known for equipping its flagship devices with quality displays and the PadFone X is no exception. The screen of the smartphone boasts good brightness, great contrast, and pleasingly vibrant colors.
A closer look at the handset's display
Viewing angles are impressively wide and the overall image quality is generally stellar. Sunlight legibility turned out good as well.
User can also calibrate the color reproduction of the device's display. Color hue and saturation can be tweaked via a duo of sliding toggles.
Calibrating the screen
The screen also features Vivid Mode. It will likely appeal to those switching from devices with AMOLED displays.
At first glance, the tablet dock's display is not as impressive as that of the handset thanks to the lower pixel density. However, due to its IPS nature, the screen offers good color rendering, coupled with respectable contrast and viewing angles. Its sunlight legibility is nowhere near as good as that of the smartphone, though this is hardly a surprise - the tablet has an IPS unit as opposed to an IPS+ solution on the handset.
A look at the tablet's screen
Smartphone controls
The earpiece, the ambient light and proximity sensors, as well as the 2MP front-facing camera are located above the display. There's nothing but an Asus logo below the screen.
The view above and below the display
The left side of the device is bare. The power/lock key and the volume rocker are located on the right.
The sides of the handset
The 3.5mm audio jack and a microphone pinhole sit on top of the smartphone. The microUSB port, the mouthpiece, and the docking mechanism are all located on the bottom of the device.
The top and bottom of the PadFone X
The back of the device is home to the 13MP camera and its single LED flash. The lone speaker sits right below the camera. A PadFone logo and an AT&T globe complete the landscape.
The back of the device
Removing the thin back cover reveals the SIM and the microSD card slots. The battery is non-removable.
A peek under the back cover
Tablet controls
The controls' layout of the tablet is simple. It consists of a power/lock key on top of the device, as well as a volume rocker on its left side.
A look at the controls of the tablet
Switching the Asus PadFone X from smartphone to tablet is easy - you simply slide it into the docking station and you are good to go. The mechanism is sturdy and holds the handset firmly during usage.
A duo of stereo speakers flanks both sides of the tablet. They make the slate quite convenient for watching videos, as well as for gaming.
Battery life
The Asus PadFone X handset is powered by a non-removable 2,330mAh battery, which propelled the device to the highly respectable endurance rating of 80h in our dedicated battery test. This means that you can use the PadFone X well over three full days if you opt for an hour each of telephony, web browsing, and video playback daily.
Asus has equipped the PadFone X with the increasingly popular battery saving mode. When on, it disconnects the network connection when the device is suspended.
Battery saving mode
The docking station of the device packs its own 4,990mAh Li-Polymer battery, which charges the handset when it is docked. We gave Asus PadFone X tablet setup the same go around our battery test track as a regular slate. See how it did below.
Web browsing
- Sony Xperia Z2 Tablet12:53
- Oppo N19:05h
- Samsung Galaxy Grand 29:05h
- Apple iPhone 5c9:05h
- Samsung Galaxy Note 39:04h
- Motorola Moto G9:04h
- Asus PadFone X9:00h
- Samsung Galaxy Note II N71008:48h
- BlackBerry Q108:42h
- Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.58:25h
- Asus PadFone 28:20h
- Nokia Lumia 8108:20h
- Samsung Galaxy Nexus I92503:01h
Video playback
- LG G Flex19:57h
- Apple iPhone 5s10:31h
- Apple iPhone 510:12h
- HTC First10:03h
- HTC One10:02h
- Sony Xperia Z1 Compact10:01h
- Asus PadFone X10:00h
- Samsung I9105 Galaxy S II Plus10:00h
- Nokia 808 PureView9:53h
- Alcatel Hero9:49h
- Sony Xperia M9:49h
- Samsung I8530 Galaxy Beam9:42h
- Nokia Lumia 7103:27h
Clearly, the device is not as energy efficient as a slate, compared to when you use the handset on its own. It is important to note that the PadFone X uses the batteries of the phone and the docking station simultaneously in tablet mode.
Connectivity
The Asus PadFone X packs of kitchen sink full of connectivity features. The GSM network connectivity includes support for quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE/3G/HSPA+/HSDPA, Cat 4 LTE (Bands 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7 and 17).
There is also dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac with Wi-Fi Direct and Wi-Fi hotspot, as well as Bluetooth 4.0 with A2DP.
The microUSB port supports USB host and allows you to plug USB flash drives or connect mice/keyboards. There's also TV-out (via MHL A/V link).
The device packs an on-board GPS/GLONASS chip. NFC is on board, too.
The handset also supports wireless charging out of the box. It utilizes the PMA standard, which is the standard that AT&T is currently backing.
One connectivity feature missing on the Asus PadFone X is the IR blaster. While many will perhaps consider this to be nitpicking, most of the device's rivals on the US market offer the functionality out of the box.
User interface
Asus PadFone X boots Android 4.4.2 KitKat out of the box. The Android build is covered by the Taiwanese manufacturer's own Zen user interface. Here's a quick look of the device in action.
The lockscreen contains shortcuts to the camera, the messaging menu, the web browser, as well as Google Now. It displays a large clock, current weather info, as well as the status of any alarms you might have.
The lockscreen
Beyond the lockscreen sits the Android homescreen. It consists of five docked shortcuts on the bottom, including one for accessing the application drawer. It can also display up to four shortcuts above the ones on the bottom.
The Android homescreen
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.
Managing homescreen panes
The application drawer lists the apps in four columns with four rows each. It contains buttons for showing all apps, only downloaded apps (the ones that did not come preinstalled), as well as the most commonly used applications. To top things off, there is a search button for applications, as well as shortcut to the widgets' gallery and the Google Play store.
The app drawer
Long pressing the homescreen reveals a customization menu. It includes options to change wallpaper, add apps and widgets, as well as edit the page layout.
A look at the homescreen customization menu
The available widgets out of the box include stock Google ones, as well as custom solutions from Asus. Naturally, the list will grow as you download more apps on the device.
Some of the available widgets • changing a wallpaper
The notification area contains shortcuts to the settings menu and to a list of quick toggles for tweaking the various connectivity settings of the device. The layout is with a flat design and easy to ready and operate.
The notification area
Once you get several apps running, you can use the task switcher to go back and forth between them. It's a vertical list with name and preview for each app. A sideways swipe removes the app from the list.
The app switcher
Once you switch the PadFone X into tablet mode, you are greeted by the same user interface as the one of the handset, but with more screen real estate to work with. The overall layout is familiar and easy to get around.
A look at the user interface in tablet mode
Overall, the Asus Zen UI is a departure from the company's previous efforts, which stuck almost completely to a stock Android layout. All changes made by the manufacturer however, are beneficial to the overall experience
Synthetic benchmarks
The Asus PadFone X is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 chipset with 2.3GHz quad-core Krait 400 CPU. The GPU is Adreno 330, while 2 gigs of RAM ensure smooth operation at all times.
The PadFone X doesn't feature the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 SoC as most of the high-end Android devices do these days, but this is hardly a deal breaker in our book. After all, the 801 is essentially a version of the Snapdragon 800 with slightly higher GPU and memory frequencies.
GeekBench 3 and AnTuTu 4 are all-round benchmarks that test the entirety of the hardware build. The Asus PadFone X posted flagship-worthy results on both occasions.
GeekBench 3
- Oppo Find 73178
- Oppo Find 7a3093
- Galaxy S5 (Snapdragon 801)3011
- Sony Xperia Z22856
- Alcatel Idol X+2842
- LG G Pro 22585
- LG G3 - EU version2563
- Asus PadFone X2514
- LG Nexus 52453
- HTC One (M8)2367
- LG G22243
- Huawei Ascend P71895
AnTuTu 4
- Oppo Find 738484
- HTC One (M8)37009
- Galaxy S5 (Snapdragon 801)36018
- Asus PadFone X35909
- LG G235444
- Oppo Find 7a33344
- Sony Xperia Z233182
- LG G3 - EU version32780
- Alcatel Idol X+31717
- LG G Pro 229603
- Huawei Ascend P725812
- LG Nexus 525097
Next up we have the Adreno 330 GPU put to the test with GFXBench's 2.7 T-Rex and 3.0 Manhattan. Once again the handset showcased similar performance as the heavy hitters in the Android realm.
GFX 2.7 T-Rex (1080p offscreen)
- HTC One (M8)28.4
- Oppo Find 7a28.4
- Asus PadFone X28.1
- Oppo Find 728
- Galaxy S5 (Snapdragon 801)27.8
- Sony Xperia Z227.2
- LG G3 - EU version27.2
- LG Nexus 523
- LG G Pro 222.9
- LG G222
- Huawei Ascend P712.3
- Alcatel Idol X+10.9
GFX 2.7 T-Rex (onscreen)
- Asus PadFone X30.1
- HTC One (M8)30.1
- Oppo Find 7a28.8
- Sony Xperia Z228.7
- Galaxy S5 (Snapdragon 801)28.1
- LG G Pro 224.1
- LG Nexus 524
- LG G223.1
- LG G3 - EU version20.5
- Oppo Find 719.9
- Huawei Ascend P712.4
- Alcatel Idol X+10.6
GFX 3.0 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)
- Asus PadFone X11.9
- Galaxy S5 (Snapdragon 801)11.8
- Sony Xperia Z211.7
- Oppo Find 7a11.4
- LG G3 - EU version11.4
- HTC One (M8)11.1
- Oppo Find 711.1
- LG G Pro 28.7
GFX 3.0 Manhattan (onscreen)
- Asus PadFone X12.8
- Sony Xperia Z212.2
- HTC One (M8)11.9
- Galaxy S5 (Snapdragon 801)11.7
- Oppo Find 7a11.4
- LG G Pro 29.2
- LG G3 - EU version7.2
- Oppo Find 76.7
BrowserMark 2.1 looks at HTML 5 performance, while Mozilla's Kraken 1.1 is JavaScript-centric. The Asus PadFone X did fine on both occasions, but didn't shatter any records.
BrowserMark 2.1
- LG G3 - EU version1474
- Oppo Find 71452
- Galaxy S5 (Snapdragon 801)1398
- LG G Pro 21346
- Oppo Find 7a1327
- LG Nexus 51286
- Sony Xperia Z21224
- HTC One (M8)1069
- Asus PadFone X1035
Kraken 1.1
- Galaxy S5 (Snapdragon 801)6043
- Oppo Find 76363
- LG G Pro 26578
- Oppo Find 7a6660
- LG G3 - EU version6987
- Sony Xperia Z27041
- LG Nexus 57148
- Asus PadFone X7867
- HTC One (M8)10296
Basemark X is designed to put the Adreno 330 GPU to the test by throwing a heavy load of graphics to render. The PadFone X bested the likes of LG G3 and Samsung Galaxy S5, and came slightly short from topping the HTC One (M8).
Things change considerably in the anti-cheat version of the benchmark. On this instance, the PadFone X didn't post such impressive numbers and came in last among the other high-end devices we tested.
Basemark X
- Oppo Find 714968
- HTC One (M8)12396
- Asus PadFone X12213
- LG G3 - EU version11552
- Galaxy S5 (Snapdragon 801)10660
- Asus PadFone X (anti-cheat)8143
Basemark OS II tests the overall CPU performance. Again, we witness a score that is typical for a high-end device. The anti-cheat version however, showcased a slightly lower result by the device.
Basemark OS II
- Asus PadFone X1306
- Oppo Find 71212
- LG G Pro 21140
- HTC One (M8)1126
- LG G3 - EU version1126
- Galaxy S5 (Snapdragon 801)1082
- Sony Xperia Z21080
- Oppo Find 7a1057
- Asus PadFone X (anti-cheat)766
Basemark OS II (single-core)
- Oppo Find 72606
- Oppo Find 7a2580
- Asus PadFone X2549
- HTC One (M8)2428
- Galaxy S5 (Snapdragon 801)2415
- LG G Pro 22401
- Sony Xperia Z22253
- Asus PadFone X (anti-cheat)2227
- LG G3 - EU version2213
Basemark OS II (multi-core)
- Oppo Find 710391
- Oppo Find 7a10256
- Galaxy S5 (Snapdragon 801)10063
- Asus PadFone X10046
- Sony Xperia Z210044
- HTC One (M8)9860
- LG G Pro 29802
- LG G3 - EU version9611
- Asus PadFone X (anti-cheat)6657
The real-life performance of the Asus PadFone X was as stellar as we expected. The handset ran every app and task we threw at it with no hiccups.
Phonebook
The phonebook is a standard affair. It's made up of four tabs that you can switch between with sideways swipes. Contacts are listed by name with a picture to the left. They can be sorted by first or last name, and viewed as first name or last name first.
The phonebook
There's a permanent scroll bar available that you can grab and jump straight to contacts starting with a certain letter. There's regular search as you type too.
The quick contacts feature triggers on tapping a contact image to bring up a tabbed popup window. The tabs are phone and email with a list of the available numbers or addresses. These tabs can be navigated with sideways swipes as well.
The single contact view displays the contact's name along with a star to favorite a contact and a Settings button that lets you edit, share or delete a contact, as well assign custom ringtones to them or set the phone to redirect calls from that contact straight to voice mail.
The other two major tabs in the phonebook are Groups, Starred contacts, and Favorites. Groups are listed by service (e.g. your Gmail account), while favorites are a listed as a grid of large contact photos for quick access.
Telephony
The dialer features an Asus theme and offers smart dialing. It is just the first tab of the phone app, the other two being the Call log and the Favorites tab (you get the same in the Phonebook). In the Call log, you can't delete individual entries, which was mildly annoying.
The dialer
The in-call audio quality of the Asus PadFone X was superb. This is hardly a surprise as AT&T's coverage in the New York City area is as good as it gets these days.
Messaging
The messaging section is business as usual. All SMS/MMS communication is organized into threads - each thread consists of all messages between you and one of your contacts. You can select multiple threads to mass-delete.
The messaging menu
Each thread is presented as an IM chat session, the latest message at the bottom. You can manage individual messages (forward, copy, delete) and even lock them to prevent deletion. You can use search to find a specific message in all conversations.
Quick contacts work here too and there's a call shortcut at the top of the screen when viewing a thread.
In addition to the ubiquitous Gmail app, Asus PadFone X features an email client for other email accounts you might have. It can handle multiple POP or IMAP inboxes and gives access to the messages in the original folders that are created online, side by side with the standard local ones such as inbox, drafts and sent items.
The email client
The app supports a combined inbox view. It color-codes the inboxes so you can easily tell where each message came from. In case you don't fancy it, the Play Store is brimming with third-party options.
A keyboard developed by Asus handles text input. It takes full advantage of the ample screen size of the device and offers plenty of input of options and available languages.
The Asus keyboard
Naturally, the keyboard works as expected in tablet mode too. Naturally, more options are readily available in the Play Store.
Gallery
Asus PadFone X features a capable gallery app with customizable layout. As expected these days, you can also sync various cloud storage accounts to display images too.
The gallery app
An image editor is present as well. It allows you to make basic alterations to the stored images and includes creative filters a la Instagram.
Viewing and editing a photo
Video player
The default video player from Asus is surprisingly short on capability. It lacks support for either DivX or XviD codecs, so we highly recommend that you turn to the many third-party options that are available in the Google Play Store.
The video player
Playable videos can be accessed directly in the gallery app. The only video file format that the device played smoothly was .MP4.
We can partially explain the lack of rich video codec support in the PadFone X with the specifics of the US market. The latter is dominated by video streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime - both ran on the device with no hiccups.
File manager
The PadFone X features a capable file manager out of the box. It allows you to access both the phone and its microSD card.
The file manager app
The app offers an option to hide the device's system files.
Music player
Google Play Music is the default player of the PadFone X. It gives you the option to upload music onto the Google-branded cloud and stream it on your device via Wi-Fi or mobile data. There's also the nifty option of downloading the content onto the device if you want to have there for connection-less times.
Google Play music
From the Settings key you can get into the equalizer. It can be turned on and off and features several equalizer presets along with a custom user defined one. If you plug in a headset, you can also play around with the Bass boost and 3D effect sliders.
The Now Playing screen uses the song album art and gives you a quick shortcut to the rest of the artist's songs along with the play controls.
The Now Playing interface
While the player is working, the entire lockscreen features the album art and track info for the current song along with dedicated playback controls. The notification area also lets you control the playback via an expandable notification.
Asus has added its own audio customization suite. Dubbed AudioWizard, the app allows you to choose from a six different presets. They include Music Mode, Movie Mode, Gaming Mode, Recording Mode, Speech Mode, and Power Saving.
Asus AudioWizard
Due to the fact that we received a pre-production unit for our review, we didn't test the audio quality of the Asus PadFone X.
The Asus PadFone X features a 13MP auto-focus camera, which shoots stills of up to 4160 x 3120 pixels in 4:3 ratio. There's also a 16:9 mode available, which produces shots with a resolution of up to 3360x1890.
The camera interface consists of still and video capture buttons on the right and options on the left. There is a burst toggle on/off right on top of the still camera button.
The camera UI
The camera of the PadFone X features a number of shooting modes, including HDR, panorama, night, and GIF animation. When in auto mode, users also get a prompt when another shooting mode is more appropriate.
Camera settings
The images produced by the Asus PadFone X camera have a nice level of detail, accurate colors and good contrast. The noise is a bit high but it's nothing too bad. The processing is relatively sparing but at 1:1 magnification, the image is not as natural as we would have liked. That is especially noticeable with foliage. Of course, that may be just nitpicking. For most practical purposes, the PadFone X has an excellent camera.
Unfortunately, the much touted Low light mode is not very usable when handheld due to the really low shutter speeds it uses, but as long as you prop the phone on a sturdy surface it does fine with brightening otherwise completely dark scenes.
Asus PadFone X camera samples
Asus PadFone X low light camera sample
Asus PadFone X low light mode: Off/On • Off/On
Asus PadFone X HDR samples: Off/On • Off/On
Video camera
The video camera interface is the same as that of the still camera. It holds no surprises.
Video camera UI
The 1080p videos have a bitrate of 17Mbps and the stereo audio stream is encoded with a bitrate of 96Kbps. The 1080p videos are recorded with a variable framerate with an average of 24fps and they seem fluid enough. The level of resolved detail is nice and the colors and contrast are good.
The 2160p videos have a bitrate of 46Mbps and the stereo audio stream is encoded with the same bitrate of 96Kbps. Unfortunately, these videos were not a smooth as the 1080p ones. The framerate was varying and quite often it went down below the average of 17fps. In the best possible conditions it maxed out at 25fps. The level of resolved detail is noticeably higher than the 1080p videos even when you watch them at a 1080p screen - there's just more clarity to them. However, we are not quite sure whether the compromise with the framerate is worth the extra resolution.
You can see a 4K video sample capture with the device below. Don't forget to change the video quality setting in order to see the full resolution.
And here goes a 1080p video sample.
If you'd like to check out what the uncompressed videos look like, you can download this 2160p@17fps sample (10s, 58MB), as well as this 1080p@30fps sample (15s, 32MB).
The Asus PadFone X comes with two excellent web browsers - the stock KitKat edition skinned by the manufacturer, and Google Chrome. The two browsers feature similar layout, though we found Google Chrome to be more to our liking - it is simply more up to date than the stock Android 4.4 solution.
Two browsers out of the box
Web browsing is a great experience on the PadFone X in both handset and tablet mode. There's nothing to frown at on this instance.
Web browsing in tablet mode
Other apps
The Asus Padfone X has the full version of the Polaris Office 5 productivity suite for viewing and editing documents. It features user-friendly interface and handles documents, spreadsheets, and presentations with ease.
Polaris office
The calendar has three different types of view - daily, weekly and monthly. The lower section of the screen is reserved for a list of upcoming events. Adding a new event is quick and easy, and you can also set an alarm to act as a reminder.
The calendar
There is also a calculator aboard. It is nicely touch-optimized - the buttons are really big and easy to hit. You can enable advanced functions (trigonometry, logarithms) in either portrait or landscape mode.
The calculator
The clock app has great-looking UI with flat design. It offers the usual set of functions that include world clock, alarm, stopwatch, and timer.
The clock app
An Asus weather app comes preloaded as well. It gathers data from AccuWeather.
The weather app
Final words
The Asus PadFone X is one of the best-rounded high-end propositions available in the Android realm at the moment. It skillfully blends a powerful chipset, a good display, and a capable camera into a solidly built package, thus offering a mighty good alternative to the established players on the US market.
The device surely is a welcome sight on the busy smartphone field in the United States by offering a combination of talents which none of its direct competitors can exactly match. Having a PadFone device offered by a major carrier such as AT&T ends years of anticipation and overpaying for grey imports to online retailers. It also gives Asus access to the vast, highly lucrative US smartphone market.
Key review findings
- The smartphone has a high-quality display, the tablet - not so much
- The tablet setup is heavy and has large bezels
- Battery life of the handset is good
- Performance is excellent, though we suspect it of cheating at benchmarks
- The camera captures excellent photos
- The recorded videos look good, but only 1080p videos have a high enough average framerate (25fps) to be called smooth; 4K videos score an average of only 17fps
- The Android UI enhancements by Asus are useful and nicely laid-out
- Video player has poor video decoder support out of the box
The bundled tablet dock is what truly differentiates the Asus PadFone X from its competitors. It turns the device into a powerful multimedia tool in an instant. The optional keyboard dock on the other hand (another Asus specialty), elevates the entire setup into a serious office tool while away from a desktop PC.
The rest of the device's hardware isn't too shabby either. The Snapdragon 800 chipset and the 5" 1080p IPS+ display, while not exactly cutting edge by today's standards, offer stellar performance across the board and will surely hold up well through a standard 2-year upgrade cycle.
What really caught us by surprise was the feature set and the performance of the device's 13MP camera of the PadFone X. The snapper boasts an impressively rich set of controls that few Android competitors offer at the moment. The 4K video recording is a nice addition too - we were actually surprised about how quiet Asus is about its presence.
One area where the Asus PadFone X falls short is its design. Both the handset and its tablet dock look plain dull when compared to the rest of the high-end Android establishment. Considering that Android OEMs essentially have access to the same hardware, we were surprised that Asus took the design side of things when developing the PadFone X so lightly. We believe that the tablet dock functionality might have stood in the way of more design flare.
The tablet setup is far from perfect too. The docking station is heavy and offers a large footprint for a 9" device due to its large screen bezels. We can't be too picky on this instance though - the tablet dock is bundled with the smartphone for free after all.
AT&T has priced the PadFone X at $199.99 with a two-year contract and $549.99 with no commitment. Like we mentioned to you already, the tablet dock is included in the package. The optional keyboard dock is priced at $99.99.
As always, we took a look at the available alternatives to the Asus PadFone X. Here's what else you can pick up at moment with similar budget.
LG G3 is the best-equipped Android smartphone available in the United States at the moment. The Korean offering with 2K display tops the Asus PadFone X on all departments hardware-wise, but cannot transform into a tablet and its battery life is less impressive. LG G3 is priced at $199.99 with a two-year contract.
LG G3
Samsung Galaxy S5 is another attractive alternative from the top echelons of the Android hierarchy. Tablet functionality aside, the latest Galaxy S member offers more than the PadFone X on all instances. The Galaxy S5 can be picked up for $99.99 on a contract.
Samsung Galaxy S5
HTC One (M8) is as gorgeous as it is capable. However, its 4MP camera is nowhere near as good as that of the Asus PadFone X. The metal-clad handset is also missing the additional tablet functionality of the PadFone X. Like the Galaxy S5, the HTC One (M8) can be found for less than $199.99 these days.
HTC One (M8)
After spending enough time pondering over the good and the bad about the Asus PadFone X, we realized that the hybrid device could well be the ultimate Android offering for user seeking the most value for their money. The gadget does everything a flagship device is expected to do, but with the added benefit of full-sized tablet functionality. It deserves a spot on the shopping list of anyone who wants top-notch hardware in a phone and tablet, but can't stretch his/her budget for two standalone devices.
A proper marketing budget will likely be the key to the device's success in the United States. We really hope that the PadFone X gets the necessary attention - it certainly has everything it takes to match the expectations.
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