Ready for some quad-core Tegra 3 love? According to CRN, the Eee Pad Transformer Prime hits ‘normal retail channels’ on January 18 after recently being upgraded to Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0.1). The downside: you’ll reportedly need to wait until April for the high-def 1080p version that Asus announced this week at CES. Pricing info after the jump.
CRN says the regular Transformer Prime (TF201) will sell for $799 (32GB) and $899 (64GB), bundled with the docking station keyboard. Unfortunately, the uber tablet won’t be available on its own for the first few months.
In the States, the new TF700T model won’t replace the TF201, it just costs US$100 more for the HD 10.1-inch display. It’ll also have an upgraded back panel due to reports of people suffering poor Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and/or GPS reception through the first Prime’s aluminium back pane.
So…to buy or not to buy? Let us know the in the comments below.
Update: We’re also hearing that some who purchased online have already receieved theirs from some retailers, including JB Hi-Fi. Thanks Jamie!
Props to Fabian for the tip and CRN for the pick-up [CRN]
MORE: Gizmodo’s In-Depth Transformer Prime Review And Video
Roland
Friday, January 13, 2012 at 11:44 AMthe graphings on it look awesome… now if only I could really justify a tablet… :-\
Chris M
Friday, January 13, 2012 at 12:35 PMThis! I’ve been sitting here waiting for a decent tablet for a while now, wasn’t willing to jump on the first thing that came along. However after having bought my wife an iPad2 for christmas, I think I have picked the device up 2 or 3 times total. I just can’t see how I would use one as a daily practicality when I have a laptop for work (I’m an IT consultant) and a desktop PC at home. If I want to do anything I use one of these devices. When I’m sitting on the couch, I use my HTC phone. I just cannot justify having yet another device sitting in a room with only the 1 purpose being to couch-surf the internet.
Jack
Friday, January 13, 2012 at 11:54 AM800$ for a tablet. I don’t understand why people would need a tablet at such an expensive price. Why wouldn’t you get a powerful laptop for that price?
Roland
Friday, January 13, 2012 at 11:58 AMI wouldn’t say you could get a powerful laptop at that price Jack it would just be a laptop… Generally a powerful laptop (can perform decent fps in modern games at decent resolutions) cost anywhere from $1800 upwards. But that’s my definition of a powerful laptop. :)
Max
Friday, January 13, 2012 at 12:14 PMBecause this is a laptop that can be pulled in half to make a tablet, and also has a much, much longer battery life than any regular laptop.
Chris M
Saturday, January 14, 2012 at 2:15 PMThis is exactly what you need. My pc at home is always rendering, ipmporting, in another room my work laptop is heavy and slow my phone is to small to read anything. A tablet is perfect.
Andy
Friday, January 13, 2012 at 12:00 PMwould anyone know if ‘normal retail channel’ includes Myer as well?
The Other Luke
Friday, January 13, 2012 at 12:12 PMI struggle with the idea of getting this model when the improvement is on its way.
Is there any word on if/when Aus might be getting the TF700T?
Danny Allen
Friday, January 13, 2012 at 12:31 PMApril apparently
Cameron
Friday, January 13, 2012 at 12:15 PMJoises, $800, who are they trying to kid here? I don’t really want 32Gb of storage to be honest, and if I did want it I’d suspect I’d just use a SD card to obtain that level. That in mind, why on earth would I get this over the much more dominant iPad?
Ollie
Friday, January 13, 2012 at 12:22 PMiPad? rollen for a trollen there dude.
Elias
Friday, January 13, 2012 at 12:26 PMthe ipad is too limited. No external storage, no customization, half the processing power and it is not android :)
I moved from the iphone to the Samsung Galaxy S2, I am now regretting using the iphone all those years.
dave
Friday, January 13, 2012 at 12:26 PMThis comment has been deemed inappropriate and has been deleted.
Joey
Friday, January 13, 2012 at 1:34 PMWhat are you smoking? Android is a fragmented Operating system with secuirty holes and hardly no tablet applications. Also IPAD 2 is dual core, it has 512 MB ram, but still runs faster and smoother than Android, Android has a lot of work to do on its dodgy memory management where apps can just start up whenever they like without the user been able to disable them.
Scott
Friday, January 13, 2012 at 1:55 PMDo you live under a rock?
Joey
Friday, January 13, 2012 at 3:13 PMdo you trust google?
Scott
Friday, January 13, 2012 at 4:11 PMThey are no worse then what apple does.
Jamie
Friday, January 13, 2012 at 12:21 PM$799 is a bit steep. But I’d still snap one up if the cost of this wasn’t going to put a huge dent in my savings for a Nikon D4 which is more important to me.
Joe Jones
Friday, January 13, 2012 at 12:31 PMI’m more interested on the release date of the 7 inch tablet that was $249 announced at CES. Anyone know?
Nicholas
Friday, January 13, 2012 at 12:34 PM$799 with keyboard makes me sad. The fact that I can’t get the tablet on it’s own, makes me sadder!
Nicholas
Friday, January 13, 2012 at 12:39 PMThat’s some high prices for something that has connectivity issues.
Ron Sykes
Friday, January 13, 2012 at 1:08 PMCan I justify replacing my TF101 with the TF7001 when I don’t play any games? Hell yes I can!
When it comes out can I make a logical argument to get my wife to agree… probably not.
Joey
Friday, January 13, 2012 at 1:19 PMI had a ASUS transfomer, then I got the IPAD 2, i havent put the IPAD down since, at the end of the day untill Adroid catch up to Apple in terms of quality and number of tablet apps then Im sticking to IOS.
Scott
Friday, January 13, 2012 at 2:00 PMYou may be getting “Quality” and “Tyranical Apps approvel process” mixed up.
Joey
Friday, January 13, 2012 at 2:49 PMno mixup here. with Android you need to ensure you tablet device will even support the app/game before you purchase it, alot of times its hit and miss. and in terms of the number of tablet apps available Android isnt even close to Apple, and I dont see Android cathcing up any time soon, the main problem is Adroid devices are usually cheaper than Apple, attracting the lower end of the market who dont spend as much on apps, or simply dont even pay for them. This is why developers are investing alot more with Apple IOS, eg, gameloft, firemint.
Scott
Friday, January 13, 2012 at 5:13 PMWon’t argue on the device and app side of things. Some apps are dodgey on certain devices but its far from a buying point when it comes to andriod devices. If some one is buying a devices on app compatability then they are asking the wrong questions. Even though it just my own opinion I think that most people would much rather the range of options, choices and points of differnce andriod offers rather then some company ( Apple) blatently telling me what I want in a device.
Fabian
Friday, January 13, 2012 at 1:24 PMgray import from taiwan ends up 650 + shipping… undecided
Scott
Friday, January 13, 2012 at 5:11 PMWon’t argue on the device and app side of things. Some apps are dodgey on certain devices but its far from a buying point when it comes to andriod devices. If some one is buying a devices on app compatability then they are asking the wrong questions. Even though it just my own opinion I think that most people would much rather the range of options, choices and points of differnce andriod offers rather then some company ( Apple) blatently telling me what I want in a device.
Scott
Friday, January 13, 2012 at 5:11 PMWhoops wrong reply
vin
Friday, January 13, 2012 at 3:08 PMmeh… when winows 8 comes out, tablets will start pumping and, and the price-point for this (or the HD version) SHOULD drop significantly!
fingers crossed anyways…
i dooo think that if Victorinox can supply a 1Tb thumb drive, that we need to be able to move well beyond 64Gb for something that could/will, essentially, be a media repository!
EvoNautic
Friday, January 13, 2012 at 3:17 PMI have the galaxy 10.1, the Asus transformer, and the iPad 2. So far in terms of fluid movements and instant response, the ipad has been trumps. For further customisation and options, the galaxy tab has been brilliant. Unfortunately i could not stand the android tablets being glitchy and just that tad microsecond slower and so got rid of them. For those prices that Asus are charging for the prime , I much rather purchase the iPad 3 when it comes out in the next few months. Asus’s pricing was the key to their success with the transformer.
Phil
Friday, January 13, 2012 at 3:31 PMWhy would anyone buy this tablet for a premium price knowing it has design issues with the GPS and WiFi and knowing an upgrade has already been launched that will hit end April . Asus stuffed up big time with this tablet.
Charles
Friday, January 13, 2012 at 4:15 PM$799 is a bit steep for a non 3g tablet but considering its a quad core tablet, one can excuse Asus to a certain extent. I’d wait till the rest of the manufacturers release their quad core offerings which should be during the course of 2012. As for the Android and Apple bashers, it comes down to how you would like to use a tablet. If you like to tinker and customise, then you are probably better off with an Android tab. If you want to just use a tablet, then look no further than an iPad. I’ve owned both an iPad 2 and now a Galaxy Tab 7.7 and I got tired playing in Apple’s ecosystem.
Stu
Friday, January 13, 2012 at 7:01 PMBy the way, many JB stores and some HN stores are already selling this.
Nomak
Saturday, January 14, 2012 at 4:58 AMWhat stores would they be? I have emailed both JBHifi and Harvey Norman and they have just replied with ‘they do not know as of yet’ and nothing is on the websites either. :(
Deshan
Friday, January 13, 2012 at 9:55 PM“It’ll also have an upgraded back panel due to reports of people suffering poor Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and/or GPS reception through the first Prime’s aluminium back pane.”
hat frustrates me. gizmodo make it seem okay for this android tablet to have wifi/bt/gps issues yet slammed the iphone4 for its similar issue.
i will most definitely not buy this. iPad 3 will be greater. just like how all apple products are. thats the truth
George
Saturday, January 14, 2012 at 8:13 AMAsus it looks like you intend to keep the Prime at that price, $300 extra.and 400 in the US come on, I hope you do not sell.
Resytep
Saturday, January 14, 2012 at 12:14 PMI actually bought one the other day at jb, and once upgraded to ICS, the thing is easily as fluid as the iPad if not more so. I also picked up a Microsoft arc touch and paired the two causing me to remind myself constantly that it is indeed actually just a tablet. Wifi can take a hell of a time to logon, and isn’t as strong as my sensation’s but regardless it seems to be the quickest internet gadget in my household and renders web pages more completely than anything else I have. Haven’t tried GPS so I cant comment there.
Tas
Saturday, January 14, 2012 at 7:03 PMI’m sorry Asus Oz, but $800 less $150 keyboard is 150 odd more than they’ll be paying in U.S./Canada for the tablet alone. Not happy Jan. You can take your ‘Prime’ meat with bonus litany of undercooking RF issues and shove it up your proverbial.
Lazy Lee
Saturday, January 14, 2012 at 7:13 PMReally sorry ASUS, I love you too much, but I live in Melbourne … suck of Aussie price. Just hope someday all Company know the way how can avoid TAX in AUSTRALIA like APPLE did.
– English not my 1st language
Frank the tank
Tuesday, January 17, 2012 at 5:58 PMI love my TF101 which will be even better when ICS comes out.
But I can’t see myself spending $900 on another tablet, especially the Prime since it has a GPS bug…
I don’t think this tablet will do well in Australia simply due to that price.
I would start to consider it at $650 – anymore than that and I don’t see the point.
In the end it’s simply a toy, a better toy then the ipad 2 anyday but still a toy
David
Friday, January 27, 2012 at 9:41 PMGive me android any day. iPad too limited that’s why app designers are preferring android to apple more these days. FACT.
Dryade
Sunday, February 19, 2012 at 4:27 AMHave one, love it – it is easy to carry around for being mobile, the keyboard functionality pretty much wipes out the need for a laptop etc, and I only use a desktop in general now for formatting documents etc.
Battery life is incredible, processing speeds and quality of graphics have meant I can stream and watch in hd.
The entire package is flexible, performance driven. I am a convert.