Asus Padfone to Ship by Year End with Ice Cream Sandwich

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Tablet hybrids are all the rage, what with the popularity of the Asus Eee Pad Transformer among Android devices. But with the Padfone nearing launch, will Asus produce another winner in the Android smartphone/tablet market?

An official from Taiwan’s Asustek has announced that its upcoming Android-powered Padfone smartphone/tablet hybrid is coming by end of 2011, just in time for the holiday shopping season. Alex Sun, Asus’ chief of mobile devices, says that by  the time the device is released, it will come shipped with Google’s latest Android 2.4 or 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

Asus believes that ICS will be the best operating system for such a tablet and smartphone crossover because this Android variant is supposed to have better integration across platforms. Note that currently, smartphones run FroYo, Gingerbread or any 2.x Android variant. Meanwhile, tablets run Honeycomb or 3.x. Ice Cream will effectively reduce or minimize fragmentation, which will be beneficial to a device that can switch between smartphone and tablet mode.

Apart from the ICS announcement, Asus also says a variant with 3D graphics and LTE connectivity is in the works. This update is planned for the first half of 2012.