 Technological convergence is the tendency for different technological systems to evolve towards performing similar tasks. Sometimes it happens smoothly and naturally, like the way that standalone pager devices became a basic feature on every cell phone. Other times, whether it's because the industry is trying to do something before the technology is really ready, or because a lone manufacturer is trying to shoehorn in features that just don't make any sense, this process feels more like a science experiment gone wrong than something that you should spend your hard-earned money on. So what is the ASUS PadFone X? Is it the next natural step in the evolution of phones and tablets that sees them ultimately become one device, or is it a Frankenstein monster that makes no sense and needs to be put down? Let's find out, shall we? The Jazz Mini phone and tablet stand from Cooler Master is now available in a variety of cool colors from these great retailers. Click now to learn more. So let's start with the phone part of the PadFone X. It's a flagship-class smartphone with all the usual fixings. A surprisingly bright, high contrast and generally beautiful 5-inch 1080p IPS Plus display dominates the front of the device, with only an earphone speaker, a mundane 2 megapixel selfie camera, a notification LED and a shiny logo to distract from it. Onto the edges, the trapezoid profile shape makes it easier for me to grip than other similarly large phones. On the top, we find a 3.5mm jack and a noise-canceling mic. On the right, the lock and volume buttons are easy to press on purpose while being difficult to press by accident, with nothing on the opposing side of the device to accidentally mash, and on the bottom is one of the most snug micro-USB connectors I've ever encountered, which has the stealth benefit of actually being a MyDP Slim port that supports up to 1080p 60fps video output over DisplayPort, HDMI or VGA with a cheap passive adapter. Around the back, we find a not quite as grippy as I'd like removable plastic backing, a 13 megapixel still camera, a standard one-tone flash, an unfortunately rear-mounted speaker, and I'm gonna keep harping on this until everyone moves into the front, and two logos, including an AT&T one. Yes, this is an AT&T exclusive device in the US. Taking this off reveals a micro-SIM slot and microSD expansion slot, and a beefy non-removable 2300mAh battery that I easily got a day plus out of while I was using it. Then on the underside of the cover, we see contacts for NFC with iSys mobile wallet support and PMA wireless charging. iSys shipped me a replacement backing with an integrated screen cover, but I actually prefer naked phones in general, and the build quality of it was nothing special, and unless you open up the cover first, it actually doesn't even fit into the included tablet accessory, so I didn't use it. Which gives me a great opportunity to talk about just how well this dock mechanism works. Between the textured low-friction surface against the screen, the combination of soft touch rubber grips and plastic guides on the sides, and the long micro-USB and dual prong system that penetrates the phone from the bottom, it works surprisingly well. It's easy to slip in and easy to take out, but it won't come out by accident, and it achieves this without needing a kludgy locking switch or anything like that. Full marks for how they go together. But of course, the pad part of the pad phone, if it sucks, then you're unlikely to use it anyway. So let's take a look around it, shall we? Like the phone, the overall build quality is nothing groundbreaking. It's got a simple plastic backing and an unbranded glass front instead of the corning glass on the phone itself. There's a 4990 mAh battery inside that can just charge the phone, charge the phone while powering up the tablet, or allow the tablet and phone to share battery life with each other intelligently. On the outside, there's a lock button, a volume rocker, a 1 megapixel selfie camera, I guess you'll do your video calling with it out of the dock, two adequately loud front-facing speakers, and finally, the 8-inch 1920 by 1200 IPS screen whose job it is to convince potential customers to buy this 2-in-1 device instead of a standalone phone. The good news here is that it gets plenty bright, colors look great, and unlike most phone makers, Asus actually gives us some cool tools for adjusting the look of the screen and the phone with their splendid app, and overall works darn well, other than having sort of wider bezels than I would have liked to see. Which leads us into the software. Preloaded app-wise, on top of splendid, you get some AT&T stuff, a sound tweaking app, a power profile adjusting app that lets you tweak screen brightness depending on what's running, and a file manager that doesn't seem particularly exceptional, but saved me the trouble of installing ES file manager, I guess, or Explorer, rather. But that's not what you really wanted to know. You want to know about the skin that Asus is running over Android 4.4.2. It's alright, I guess. Overall, responsiveness is solid, but I found the keyboard laggy and quickly replaced it with SwiftKey. Multitasking is snappy, but their text highlighting feels slow, and my on-screen buttons disappeared sometimes. The dialer and SMS apps are simple to use, but I don't really like some visual design elements like the notification pulldown that looks out of place with a light blue and white color scheme. So, in summary, again, it's alright, I guess. They thankfully didn't change much interaction-wise, so there's like no other random crap in the Google Now swipe up like LG's done with the G3. But the question this all raises, then, is why bother changing anything, then? Why not just go the mostly stock Android route that Nvidia and Motorola have gone, and just build in the functionality that you need to differentiate your device? Because they do have that. Their dynamic display technology allows your home screens and even certain apps to switch between tablet and phone view on the fly when you dock the phone. It's fast and allows the two device modes to feel different from each other, like separate home screen layouts, for example, while still being the same device with all your content available at a moment's notice. I was surprised at how well it worked with certain things, like the browser and SMS app, but it's unfortunately not compatible with Google apps or really many third-party apps like games. So often you'll find yourself reopening apps as you switch modes. Thankfully, it does that pretty quickly, though. On to the camera. Asus brags a fair bit about it in their reviewer's guide, but I didn't really find it that special. It supports the usual exotic modes like 720p, 120fps slow motion with audio, thankfully, and 4K recording, albeit at only 12fps. But while Asus did a good job of staying true to life without over-saturating colors like some other manufacturers, and the app offers a surprisingly deep amount of configuration, the image quality with the phone set to auto, how I do most of my phone shooting, didn't take my breath away. I'll put some comparison test shots versus the one I made in the iPhone 5S in the pricing and discussion link in the video description, which you'll be able to check out soon. We're almost done here. But first, a look at a couple of the optional accessories that Asus sent over for the tablet. This tablet cover is just plain not very good. Don't buy it. And this keyboard needed a bit more work. The hinge is all metal and feels really well constructed, but it's heavy, and the tablet slips out of it fairly easily when opening and closing it because it doesn't actually lock on anyway. And on top of that, it's actually just a Bluetooth keyboard that needs to be charged separately and everything, which is disappointing coming from the creator of the much more elegant Transformer series of tablets. But all of that could have been forgiven if the layout wasn't so bad. I understand they eliminated a column of keys here, but who decided that chevrons and braces should be accessed with shift and question mark apostrophe and quotations should be accessed with the unnaturally positioned function key? That is a deal breaker on what is otherwise a pretty useful tool, considering how much more productive you can be with a trackpad and a full keyboard on Android, which leads us to conclusion time. If you want both a phone and a tablet, there are better standalone devices that can be obtained separately for the same price off contract, with the added bonus of being able to be used separately at the same time. This is just a dummy on its own. But what those other devices can't do is be perfectly in sync. With the PadFone X, your apps, your data plan, and even your battery life with their various charging modes can be balanced and shared across your phone and tablet experience. It's unlike anything else that I've used before. But not everyone buys devices off contract, and this can be obtained for 200 bucks with a two-year plan. So if I was going to sign up for a new AT&T deal, in spite of it being a little bit thick and having build quality that feels kind of last-gen, I would have to recognize that the features and versatility of the PadFone X make it a serious contender. And I'm definitely excited to see what comes next, because I really like the overall concept, and I think with a little bit more refinement, this can be one freaking awesome combo type device. Thanks for watching, guys. Like or dislike the video according to how you felt about it. Leave a comment if you have something to say about the PadFone X. I mean, do you think a tablet phone combo device makes sense for the future? I'd love to hear what you guys think. I do read the comments on my videos, you know. Also, I guess the last thing that I usually say is right in the video description. You can buy a t-shirt, you can give us a monthly contribution, or you can support us in the easiest possible way by changing your Amazon bookmark to one with our affiliate code. And that gives us a small kickback whenever you buy cereal or whatever it is that you buy on Amazon. It all helps. Every little bit helps. Thanks again for watching, and as always, don't forget to subscribe.