Asus introduced the new Padfone Infinity today at MWC in Barcelona. The successor to the company’s hybrid tablet/smartphone has a redesign with an aluminum back and edge-to-edge glass display, a 5-inch display with 1920 x 1080 resolution and 441 PPI. The LTE phone can plug into a 10-inch tablet dock, which itself offers 1920 x 1200 resolution.
The PadFone Infinity boasts a 13-megapixel camera with an f/2.0 aperture camera, with a dedicated image sensor to boost low-light capture. It can also grab 1080p HD video, and there’s a 2-megapixel shooter on the front. Asus is also very proud of the PadFone’s redesigned rear speaker, and onboard digital audio equalizer software, which allows users to optimize sound depending on their environment.
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The PadFone logo on the back is also an NFC antenna, and the phone is powered by a 1.7GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 quad-core processor to help it handle the magic of switching from phone to tablet mode. The PadFone Infinity also has 2GB of RAM on board, 64GB of flash storage, and ships with 50GB of Asus’ cloud storage. It has voice input, and offers hands-free operation via Asus Echo for use in-car, as an alarm clock, and more. The company seems to be offering it up as somewhat of a Siri competitor.
Battery life on the device is advertised at 19 hours talk time, 6.5 hours browsing, 9 hours of video playback and 410 hours standby time. The PadFone Station tablet compoent also acts as a battery pack, with 57 hours talk time, 19.5 hours browsing, 27 hours video playback and 1230 hours standby time.
Asus’ latest single-sim tablet/smartphone combo is coming to European markets in Apri 2013, and will cost €999 euro, or around $1,325 U.S. The PadFone has traditionally been much more successful internationally than in the U.S., so it’s very likely we’ll see it in overseas markets before (if) it makes its way stateside.