It might have sounded like a bad pun at first or an uninspired hoax, but, believe it or not, the Asus Fonepad could be real.

Just 48 hours after hearing about the weirdly named 7-incher for the first time, Digitimes seems to be “confirming” both the existence of the tab and the peculiar branding. Granted, the Taiwanese website might not have the cleanest slate when it comes to the reporting of unconfirmed rumors based on “confidential sources”, but they do sometimes get their facts straight.

The newest report doesn’t add much to the already leaked details, although the price bar is lifted a bit (from $265 to “around $271-305). That doesn’t sound awfully promising, especially when the rumored specs remain the same.

And if the 1,280 x 800 IPS display, 1 GB of RAM, 16 GB of on-board storage, Android 4.1, 3 MP rear-facing camera, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS and 3G support don’t worry us too much (quite on the contrary), the Intel Atom Z2420 CPU does.

As a quick reminder, Intel very recently introduced this new “Lexington” SoC, but painted the picture of a mediocre platform capable of saving up “juice” and not much else. Not quite what we’d like to see inside a $300 7-inch tablet, eh?

The last couple of details mentioned by Digitimes are that Asus “may unveil” the Fonepad at this month’s MWC and the 7-incher will be equipped “with voice communication functions”. Should we already start the countdown to the start of Barcelona's exciting event?