Another area that Asus has been making strides on is in the mobile market. After getting their feet wet with Garmin (and their GPS phone) Asus has been working hard on developing phones that have some innovative features. One that jumps to mind is the Asus Padfone. Many of you will remember Asus’ phone that docked into a larger tablet and was the talk of many sites before and after it officially launched. Sadly the Padfone never made it to the US, however this may change soon if a statement made by Asus’ CEO is to be believed.

For a while now we have wondered when Asus would become their own channel and start selling direct like HP, Dell and others. We know they have the manufacturing capacity for this and they already have several products that they market directly to package stores like Best Buy and now we could see them push phones to the retail market as well. The question is; which phone would Asus lead the charge with and should it even be a phone? If Asus were to push a solid tablet with LTE onto the market first it would build consumer confidence in the brand at an early stage. US consumers already recognize Asus as a good product from their transformer line, but these are all Wi-Fi only devices in the US. Augmenting this line (Android, Windows 8 and Windows RT) would bolster sales on these devices and show US carriers that they can provide a solid product.

If, on the other hand, Asus decides to dive in with a phone that is un-tested by the US market first, it could be a bad move and would hinder future business with US carriers (look at the HTC Home). Asus might have a different view of the market based on their popularity with Google, but they need to remember that pushing a Wi-Fi tablet on a hungry market is not the same as pushing on phone onto a market that is already bloated we hope they make the right choice.

Tell us what you think in our Forum