Pre-orders for the ASUS Padfone begins on Friday, April 6, in Taiwan, ahead of the April 20 launch. A U.S. launch will take place later this year, though no official date has been revealed.

ASUS also confirmed that the device will be launching later this year in Germany, Singapore, the UK, Hong Kong and other European countries. The device will be available with or without the docking station.

According to a ASUS spokesman who spoke with ZDNet, the device will be coming to the U.S. "We're still talking [to retailers and operators]. We want to do this right," he said. He didn't reveal when specifically.

The device is a smartphone with a Super AMOLED 4.3-inch display and a dual-core 1.5 GHz Snapdragon processor that docks inside a 10.1-inch tablet, along with 1GB of RAM. The phone also runs Android 4.0 - Ice Cream Sandwich - with both the smartphone and tablet using Gorilla Glass, with resolutions of 960 x 540 pixels and 1280 x 800 pixels respectively. The tablet can dock onto a keyboard and trackpad.

Also included is a stylus that doubles as a Bluetooth headset, which is needed to make and take calls when the phone is docked.

It's unclear whether data plans will cover the smartphone and tablet individually or collectively, as PCWorld noted. The Motorola Lapdock, which is a laptop powered by a smartphone, only requires one plan on Verizon. On AT&T, there is only a tethering plan.

All of the apps run on the tablet since the phone is effectively the brains of the device. Apps scale automatically on each device, using the same UI, if developed for Ice Cream Sandwich. Other apps might scale up as a phone app, which has been the problem for Google as there aren't a wealth of tablet apps for Android.

The phone and tablet can also be bought individually. Engadget Chinese reported (translated by Engadget) that the phone will cost NT$17,990 (US$610), while the tablet will cost NT$28,901 (US$980). ASUS is also saying pre-orders will come with an extra battery, which is needed if all three devices are going to be used concurrently. Those prices are unsubsidized though, so we're expecting a significant reduction in prices if data plans are offered by wireless carriers.

(reported by Jonathan Charles, edited by Surojit Chatterjee)