Asus PadFone Australian release date announced, but no sign of the keyboard dock

Asus has announced the PadFone will officially be released in Australia on August 14, at a recommended retail price of $999.

The PadFone is an Android smartphone featuring a 4.3 inch Super AMOLED qHD display that can be docked inside a 10.1 inch tablet known as the “PadFone Station”.

According to PC World, the Australian bundle will include a PadFone, PadFone Station, stylus and tablet sleeve. It will come pre-installed with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, with Asus expected to release an upgrade to Jellybean shortly.

Asus also manufacture a keyboard dock that can be attached to the PadFone Station in a manner similar to an Asus Transformer tablet, allowing consumers to dock their PadFone smartphone in a PadFone Station tablet, and in turn dock their tablet on a laptop-style keyboard.

However, coming just a week after the official Australian release of the Asus Transformer Infinity, the company has stated it does not plan to release the PadFone keyboard dock in Australia.

Harvey Norman has confirmed that it will stock the device on its official release date. However, given the Asus Transformer Infinity TF700T was already being sold by online retailers on Monday despite an official release date of August 8, there is a strong likelihood that online shoppers will get their hands on the device ahead of traditional retailers.