14 DAY TRIAL // After some strong tablet sales in the first part of this year, Asus is now also expecting a high demand for its slates in the fourth quarter of 2011, thanks mainly to the consumer interest in the upcoming Nvidia Kal-El-powered Transformer Prime.
The company's CEO, Jerry Shen said that until the end of Q3 2011, the company has shipped 1.2 million tablets and that during Q4 it expects this number to reach 1.8 millions.
Out of the 600,000 units Asus plans to ship in the last three months of the year, a large part are expected to be Transformer Prime tablets, reports DigiTimes.
Asus will unveil and presumably launch its next-gen Transformer slate just a week from now, on November 9, 2011, and the tablet made its first public appearance at the AsiaD conference in the second part of October.
The 10.1-incher is built around an Nvidia Tegra 3 system-on-a-chip (SoC) device that is fitted inside a 8.3mm thick chassis that reminds us of the company's recently launched Zenbook ultra-thins.
The use of Nvidia's Kal-El SoC is a particularly interesting addition as Asus is the first company to install the quad-core ARM processor in its devices.
Nvidia's Kal-El is expected to bring a boost in processing power while also delivering improved battery life thanks to the inclusion of a fifth companion core.
Just like the original Transformer tablet, the Prime can also be connected to a keyboard docking station to provide a more laptop-like experience.
The rest of the Transformer Prime features list includes WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity, an SD card slot, a mini HDMI port as well as a battery pack that can deliver an impressive 14.5 hours of running time.
The initial version of Asus' upcoming tablet will run the Android Honeycomb operating system, but the update to Ice Cream Sandwich is expected to start rolling out in December of this year. No information regarding pricing is available at this point in time.