At this price the FonePad will be hard to ignore

The official Asus FonePad release date and price has been confirmed by the Taiwanese manufacturer, and it will likely put a smile on your face.

It's an odd phone-come-tablet combo which allows you to make calls, send and revieve text messages - much in the same way as the Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0, but it's not going to set you back several hundred quid.

In fact it's only going to cost your £179.99. That's the same price as the 16GB, Wi-Fi only (and also Asus made) Google Nexus 7 - which doesn't come with 3G capabilities, nor a microSD slot although it does boast a meatier processor.

Nexus killer?

So what do you get for your money? Well the FonePad packs a 1.2GHz Intel Atom Z2420 processor, 7-inch 1280 x 800 display, 16GB of internal storage, microSD and microSIM slots, 1.2MP front camera, 4,270mAh battery and Android Jelly Bean 4.1.2.

Asus told us that it will get the Android 4.2 update out to the tablet as quickly as possible, and it also claimed the FonePad battery is good for 10 hours of HD video playback, or 32-and-half hours of 3G calls - which all sounds rather impressive and we'll be putting it to the test during our review.

In terms of the Asus FonePad release date the slate will be available for pre-order at Carphone Warehouse, Amazon and Sainsbury's this week (from April 12), with stock due to arrive on April 26.

We already have the FonePad in, so look our for our full, in-depth review soon.

There's still no getting away from the fact you're going to look pretty silly putting a 7-inch tablet up to your ear though...