14 DAY TRIAL // After a long wait, US retailers have finally started to ship the Transformer Prime to customers who have pre-ordered the tablet in the last month or so, but it now looks like the rest of us are pretty much out of luck as Asus announced that availability isn’t expected to reach normal levels until January of 2012.
“Pre-orders for the Transformer Prime starting to be fulfilled this week. Inventory set to reach normal levels in January,” reads a recent post from Asus’ US official Twitter account.
The Transformer Prime was first showcased by Asus at the end of October, while the official announcement was made one month later.
Soon after this, the tablet went on pre-order from several retailers in Canada and the US, with the first orders starting to be delivered yesterday from Amazon, Best Buy, Tiger Direct, and others.
As many of you know, the Asus Transformer Prime is a 10.1-inch tablet powered by Nvidia’s quad-core Tegra 3 SoC that is paired together with 1GB of RAM, an GPS, a gyroscope, SonicMaster audio and a 1.2 megapixel front-facing camera.
The rear 8MP resolution camera comes with auto-focus support, an f/2.4 lens, a back-illuminated CMOS sensor, and is capable of recording 1080p video.
The basic Transformer Prime model comes with 32GB of storage space and can be upgraded via a microSD slot, but users also have the option of going for a beefier 64GB version of the tablet.
Outside of the tablet, Asus will also release a keyboard dock for the Transformer Prime (the original Asus Transformer dock isn't compatible with the Prime) which adds another six hours of running time to the tablet's 12 hours battery life estimate.
Pricing for the Transformer Prime starts at $499.99 (384 EUR) for the 32GB model, but if you haven’t pre-ordered yours by now there’s a very slim chance to find a retailer that is able to ship it in less than four weeks.