Asustek unveils 'Padfone' tablet-phone hybrid

It's a smartphone! It's a tablet! It's AsusTek Computer Inc.'s newest gadget. Taiwan's AsusTek revealed on Monday the 10.1-inch hybrid device that runs Google's Android operating system, allows users to display pictures or videos from a 4.3-inch smartphone seamlessly and extend the battery life of the phone when combined together. "The PC industry is reshaping," AsusTek Chairman Jonney Shih said a day before the start of Computex Taipei, the world's second-largest computer tech fair, according to a report from Taiwan's Central News Agency. Computex runs from May 31 to June 4. Shih said that as boundaries between notebooks, smartphones and tablets become blurred, the rules of the game for products will be broken. This will provide AsusTek with a good opportunity to take advantage of its creativity, he said. CNA quoted AsusTek as saying it expects the new gadget to go on sale on Christmas Eve this year and will be priced between a smartphone and a tablet PC. AsusTek earlier launched its Eee Pad Transformer, a 10.1-inch tablet with a detachable keyboard. The company expects to ship some two million tablet computers in 2011 - still a long way behind Apple, which is expected to have a 70-percent share of the market with the iPad. Meanwhile, AsusTek also launched a new model in its Eee PC netbook family, the Eee PC X101, which features Microsoft's Meego platform. It will begin mass production in July and be sold for as low as US$199 (NT$5,735). In January, AsusTek said it expected to sell six to seven million netbooks this year. — TJD, GMA News