The world’s first Android 4.0 tablet has been launched in Singapore. The 10.1-inch slate is also the first in the world to sport the new NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core mobile processor.
The Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime comes in Amethyst Gray or Champagne Gold and the 32GB version will be available from tomorrow at introductory prices at S$899 (with dock) and S$759 (without dock). All prices include GST.
Attending the launch event for the Transformer Prime brought back pleasant memories of our family holiday in Germany last year, when we had the opportunity to bring along the newly-launched Transformer.
The predecessor to the Transformer Prime was already a powerful performer and proved really useful for the parents and entertaining for the kids during our two-week drive down the castle route from Frankfurt in Germany to Prague in the Czech Republic.
Singapore is the third destination after Taiwan and Hong Kong to launch the Eee Pad Transformer Prime, which has been nominated as a CES 2012 Innovations Honoree.
The new tablet boasts the latest operating system, an extremely powerful processor, highly spec-ed camera and quality music.
100 units of the tablet were put up for pre-order on Facebook last week and all were snapped up within two hours on 4 January.
Another 200 units will be put up for sale on-the-spot today after the launch.
These pre-launch units come with Android 3.2 Honeycomb but will be upgraded over the air to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich tomorrow.
NVIDIA claims that the new Tegra 3 processor is up to five times as fast as its predecessor, the Tegra 2.
Although the Tegra 3 is named a quad-core processor, NVIDIA says there are actually five processors.
A companion processor handles most of the work until additional processing power is needed, at which time the remaining four processors begin kicking in one at a time.
A demo showed how the increased processing power of the Tegra 3 and its 12-core GeForce GPU rendered a smoother and better quality output when playing videos and graphics intensive games, when compared with competing tablets.
The Transformer Prime also boasts enhanced audio performance that is powered by ASUS SonicMaster technology, which is known for its crisp and acoustically accurate audio reproduction.
Check out the technical specifications here.