Will the Asus Transformer Prime UK release be delayed?

You may have all heard of the Asus Transformer Prime, it’s the upcoming Tegra 3, slightly over hyped tablet from Asus and over the weekend three things have happened regarding the Asus Transformer Prime.

First of all UK retailer Clove announced the Transformer Prime for pre-order of which details can be found here. I had to be physically restrained by two people to stop me giving them my credit card details there and then. Upon reflection I now think it will be a better idea to see if any other retailers announce pre-orders at different prices. But this wasn’t the most worrying/exciting thing.

The second thing that happened was that a US retailer stopped taking pre-orders for the Prime and actually emailed some of their customers advising them that their orders had been cancelled because the Prime was going to be delayed due to issues with the WIFI not working properly. They also said that this issue would delay shipments worldwide.  Here is what the emails contained.

“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.”

Pretty disastrous really. At this point I was glad that I had been restrained the day before. Who knows how long the Prime would eventually take to get to the market.

The third thing that happened was that Slashgear having heard about the delays and having already reviewed the Prime and not noticed any problems with WIFI, decided to contact ASUS asking for more info and they got a rather peculiar response.

“We are trying to confirm who released this statement and for what purpose right now. 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.”

Which is very interesting. Is it sabotage from some iPad wielding fanatic? Or just an admin error? Hopefully we will hear soon from them. Obviously the above quoted release date is the US release date. But reading that response makes me feel a little more comfortable regarding the January UK release. All I have to do now is decide whether to pre-order it or not.

Sources – Phandroid – Slashgear

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