Earlier this month ASUS announced that the Transformer Prime, the world’s first tablet to feature the quad core NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor, has begun shipping out to retailers and that customers would be able to pick one up in time for the holiday season. Now we’ve yet to review one, but we did publish a round up of several reviews that sites such as Engadget, The Verge, AnandTech, and C|Net had posted. The latter two specifically mentioned that their review units had WiFi issues, so that made us wonder if the problem was more widespread? Turns out it is. Canadian retailer NCIX sent the following email to people who preordered the Transformer Prime:
“Unfortunately, we just received word that the ASUS Transformer Prime has been delayed worldwide and will most likely not be available before Christmas. ASUS feels the WiFi range does not currently meet their standards and has delayed all shipments worldwide. At the moment there is no ETA and no information on available quantities on the first batch.”
The folks from The Verge reached out to ASUS and asked them what gives? This is the response they received:
“At this point, we still show to be on schedule to start shipments the week of 12/19. I will provide an update once I have additional information.”
Right now the online shopping site Newegg says that they’re going to receive the Transformer Prime on December 27th, but then again that’s always subject to change. This makes us wonder, who are we supposed to blame for all these issues? ASUS for not doing enough testing and designing a device that has a body made out of metal? The as yet to be identified company that designed the WiFi chip inside the Transformer Prime? NVIDIA for not making sure that the first product to use their new flagship chip actually worked?
We’ll keep you updated as to when, if ever, the Transformer Prime ships. Remember ASUS is the same company that announced a combination tablet/smartphone back in May and has yet to deliver it. Our gut feeling is that ASUS doesn’t want to ship the Transformer Prime running Android 3.0 Honeycomb, and that they’re working their ass off making sure Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich run smoothly on this thing. That’s just speculation on our part though.