Asus officially announces the Transformer Prime

Image courtesy of Engadget.com

While previously seen at AsiaD the Transformer Prime had yet to have an official announcement. Well suffice to say now there has been one. The Transformer Prime is officially being released Worldwide in December 2011.

As a sequel to the popular Asus Eee Pad Transformer, the Prime has some rather large shoes to fill as a hybrid tablet computing device. Thankfully it appears to have some pretty amazing specs that include a Tegra 3 processor and a slim Zenbook-esque design to boot. 

You can check out the specs and what we think after the jump

If you've been reading AndroidNZ for any considerable amount of time you may have realised that many of us have Asus Transformers, and we love them. 

We previously wrote articles about why the Transformer is the future of computing, why we think it's the best Android tablet and even how to play Shadowgun using a PS3 controller on the Transformer. Suffice to say we are all pretty excited about the upcoming Transformer Prime, especially with a graphics performance increase of 2-3x.

So without further ado here's a spec comparison of the old and the new:

Device	Transformer Prime	Transformer
Processor	1.3GHz Tegra 3 (Kal-El) Quad Core	1GHz Tegra 2 Dual Core
RAM	1GB Single Channel DDR2	1GB Single Channel DDR
Screen
Size	10.1”	10.1”
Type	Super IPS with Gorilla Glass and hydro-oleophobic coating	IPS with scratch resistant glass
Resolution	1280x800	1280x800
Physical Attributes of Tablet
Dimensions (HxWxD)	263 x 180 x 8.3mm	271 x 171 x 12.98mm
Weight	586g	680g
Battery	25Wh	24.4Wh
Physical Attributes of Dock
Dimensions	unknown	271x185x28mm
Weight	544g	640g
Battery	22Wh	24.4Wh
Cameras
Rear	8MP autofocus f/2.4 lens, backlit CMOS sensor and LED flash	5MP (possibly fixed focus)
Front Facing	1.2MP	1.2MP
Storage Options (Tablet)
Internal Storage	32/64GB	16/32GB
Micro SD Slot	Yes	Yes
Storage Options (Dock)
USB Storage	Yes, USB 2.0	Yes, USB 2.0
SD Card	Yes	Yes
Connectivity Options
HDMI	Yes, Mini HDMI	Yes, Mini HDMI
Audio	Yes, 3.5mm	Yes, 3.5mm
Wi-Fi	Presumed Wireless N	802.11 b/g/n@2.4GHz
3G/4G	No	Yes 3G (not at release though)
Software	Android 3.2 Honeycomb, will upgrade to Ice Cream Sandwich shortly after release	Android 3.2 Honeycomb, will be upgraded to Ice Cream Sandwich but dates are unknown
Rated Battery Life	12hrs standalone + 6hrs on dock 18hrs total	9.5hrs standalone, +6.5hrs on dock 16hrs total
Pricing	32GB $499 USD (~$630 NZD) 64GB  $599  USD (~$755 NZD) Dock $149 USD  (~$190 NZD)	16GB $399 USD (~$500NZD) 32GB $499 USD (~$630 NZD) Dock $149 USD (~$190 NZD)

If you'd like to see some more images then Engadget has a great gallery here
Anandtech has a great article comparing the theoretical GPU (graphics processing unit) performance against some other popular devices here.

If you're interested in finding out more about the beastly Tegra 3 (Kal-El) processor that's inside then check out these whitepapers:

• The first is on the fifth companion core that helps reduce power consumption. You can find it here
• The second whitepaper is about the benefits of a quad core processor, including what you would actually use it for and you can find that here

Sources:
Engadget
Asus
Anandtech

Note from the NZtechfreak:
It's no secret I'm a fan of the original transformer, after all, I wrote a piece declaring it Android's best current-generation tablet. Bearing that in mind it's hardly a leap to surmise that I'm excited by the Transformer 2, which looks to bring amazing internals, this time fused with some sexy aesthetics too. As you might expect I will have one of these ASAP upon release, so keep it locked here and on my Twitter account to get the low-down on this one when it arrives in December.