BARCELONA, MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS 2012 –When Asus first announced the PadFone at Computex 2011, they did so with a level of gleefully cheesy showmanship that set Apple fans sarcastically hailing chairman Jonney Shih as South Korea’s next Steve Jobs. To many Apple fans, the PadFone — a laptop with a tablet inside with a phone inside the tablet — represented the worst of the rest of the industry’s “kitchen sink” approach to beating Cupertino. If we can’t build a phone to beat the iPhone, a tablet to beat the iPad, or an ultraportable to beat the MacBook Air, why not beat one device to beat all three at the same time?

But it’s wrong to dismiss the PadFone just because of cheesy showmanship, or because it’s not likely to topple Apple’s three pillars in one go. We had a hands-on with one, and it’s far from a cheesy device. In fact, it’s actually a little marvel.

BARCELONA, MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS 2012 — Fujitsu’s made the first Android phone that I, as an iPhone lover, found myself drooling over… which makes it a doubly good thing that the phone in question is waterproof. And not just waterproof! As thin and light and as perfect in the hand as a dream.

The only problems? Because of Fujitsu’s bizarre way of selling their devices, this phone, which has been on sale in Japan for months, doesn’t even have a set name. And forget about getting one Stateside. How does a company make a phone this beautiful and then have no idea how to market it?