The much talked about Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime tablet may come to India in the month of February this year, a spokesperson of the company told The Mobile Indian.
Asus is currently finalising the specifications and marketing communications for India. There are as yet no details of the launch price, but we expect it to be slightly higher than that of its predecessor — Transformer TF101.
Transformer Prime TF201 features a 10.1 inch touchscreen display. It houses a quad-core Nvidia Tegra 3 mobile processor, runs Android 3.2 Honeycomb, and Asus has promised that the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich update will be rolled out from January 12 onward.
Besides that, Asus also clarified its stance on the locked bootloader and GPS in Transformer Prime. Bootloader is a string of hardware-specific code that loads immediately when the device is turned on and then loads the operating system. Locking down the bootloader prevents advanced developers and custom ROM developers to flash modified versions of Android 4.0 ICS OS, which they would have done in the near future.
Asus states that bootloader lockdown was intended to protect Google’s Digital Rights Management requirement for its Digital Video rental service. Unlocking the bootloader voids the device’s warranty.
Asus said it will not mention the GPS feature in official specifications. Notably, early reports of the Transformer Prime tablet hint at poor performance of its GPS and location services.
The Asus Eee Pad Transformer TF101 with keyboard dock was made available in India for Rs 29,999 which was indeed a best feature package against competing tablets like Samsung Galaxy Tab 750/Tab 730 and Acer Iconia Tab A500.
Transformer Prime is expected to hit the Indian market at a price between Rs 32,000 and Rs 35,000.