When you think of Asus and Android you most likely think of tablets. Asus has been one of the premier tablet makers and really helped Android as a whole push through those early days of Honeycomb with their beautifully designed devices that paired good hardware, software, innovation, and design. Asus is also responsible for that wonderful little 7 inch tablet that many have come to love, the Nexus 7 (both current and previous).
Despite their success in the tablet market, they have never really made a splash in the smartphone market, particularly in North America. Their only two smartphone-esque devices are the PadFone and FonePad, both of which actually double as tablets and both of which never made it to North America (at least not officially). Now don’t get me wrong, I think their PadFone is one of the coolest devices I’ve seen to date but as they never released it here, it was never an option for my next smartphone.
Well it seems as though Asus is finally ready to give the US market (and hopefully the Canadian one too!) a go. According to Asus Chairman Jonney Shih who recently spoke with AllThingsD, Asus is already hard at work at bringing smartphones to the US market but doesn’t anticipate anything until 2024. Shih goes on to say that “for the phone, frankly speaking, we are still the latecomers” but Asus could definitely win people over with their innovative devices, like the PadFone.
Speaking of the PadFone, Shih also stated that the next generation PadFone is in the works and that “[he] think [they] are going to have something even more revolutionary for this series.” I would definitely consider the PadFone as my next device if it makes its way to Canada. I like the idea of being able to use my phone as my tablet (and possibly as a netbook) so that I don’t need to worry about syncing data across multiple devices. In some ways, it’s the same idea as the Ubuntu Edge and their Converge concept; one device to do everything.
What do you guys think? Would you buy into Asus if they started to offer phones?