Tegra 3-powered Asus Transformer Prime delayed until Q2 2012

Asus has confirmed that its 64GB Transformer Prime tablet will be delayed until Q2 of 2012.

The news comes as a big blow for the shoppers who ordered the  64GB version of the Tegra 3 powered device.

Retailers had promised that all the Transformer Prime versions would be available before the end of this year, which is now definitely not the case.

The news comes via SlashGear, which reports that 'those who have ordered the 64GB version are being warned of a further delay to the second quarter of 2012. Those who aren't willing to wait are being offered the chance to cancel their orders and choose the January-scheduled 32GB version instead." 

Here's the official line via ASUS:

'ASUS started filling the inventory pipelines this past week for our new Eee Pad Transformer Prime and will continue to do so on an expedited basis for the foreseeable future. We will reach normal inventory levels in January for the North American market based on current orders and forecasts. Based on forecasted supply schedules to our valued partners we expect pre-order allocation fulfillment to occur shortly and online or in-store availability in the very near future. We will continue to work closely with our partners to fill customer orders as quickly as possible.'  

We are not not quite sure what led to the delay but rumors doing rounds on the internet point towards the  component supply. Apparently Asus has been struggling to acquire the needed 64GB NAND flash storage chips for the device.

So what makes the Transformer Prime a big noise?

The device sports a 10.1-inch screen with 1280x800 resolution and is the first to feature NVIDIA’s new quad-core Tegra 3 chipset.

The sleek and stylish tablet straps an impressive 8-mega pixel camera at the back and a 1.3-mega pixel camera on the front. Weighing just over 1.1kg, the tablet sports a a slim fit at  just 8.3mm and comes equipped with a 1GB RAM. Priced at $499 (Rs 25,000 approx) for the 32GB and $599 (Rs 30,000 approx) for the 64GB variant, ASUS Eee Pad Transformer Prime will be rolled out in other countries next year.

Its predecessor, the powerful Android honeycomb tablet, Asus TF101 Transformer which packs in a 1GHz NVIDIA Tegra 2 Dual Core Processor is available for Rs 30,499 in India.