Padfone-Like Tablet With iPhone Dock By ECS

The big buzz of the Computex 2011 pre-show was certainly the ASUS Padfone, the "revolutionary" tablet and smartphone hybrid. That announcement soon brought attention to similar concepts, including the Smart Book by AlwaysInnovating and the TransPhone by CMIT. And now we can add one more to the roster with an unnamed prototype from ECS.

ECS is more known for manufacturing motherboards, but they took the opportunity at Computex to show off a tablet and phone hybrid device of their own. Their tablet features a dock that's similar to the TransPhone in that a smartphone slides into the dock, but is also similar to the Padfone in that the dock encloses the smartphone. But what's unique about their prototype is that it's designed to work with the iPhone.

The model on display was shown to cradle an iPhone 4, but the company says that it should eventually have modular support for Android and Windows Phone as well as other iOS devices. Unfortunately, it wasn't a working prototype and it wasn't clear if the tablet works independently or relied on interaction with the smartphone. The tablet did have its own front camera, SD card slot, HDM out, and two USB ports.

Despite not having a working prototype, the company estimates that they are relatively close to having the tablet ready by next summer. They also plan on a price tag of under $200.