[Updated] ASUS To Provide Transformer Prime Owners With Free GPS Dongle, New Prime Builds To Have Improved WiFi Performance

The ASUS Transformer Prime is the hottest Android tablet on store shelves right now, and for good reason; it's thin, fast, powerful, and well-featured. But there's one shortcoming that ruffled a lot of feathers: very poor GPS performance. The company acknowledged the issue and rolled out numerous OTA updates to the device in hopes that a software patch would fix the issue, but to no avail. So now, they're doing what's right and solving things by sending free hardware to owners to improve GPS performance.

According to XDA member demandarin, the dongle has been in the hands of testers and it's "very cool though... very minimalistic and made to look like part of the Prime." It is, again, available to all Prime owners free of charge. To get yours (courtesy of Zephyrot):

1. Please ensure you have already joined our ASUS Membership program. If not, please click Sign Up.
2. Please proceed with "Product Registration" after you have joined as an ASUS Member. There are two methods:
A. After activating the ASUS Member account successfully, please proceed with Product Registration.
B. After login, please click on "Product Registration" on the left side menu.

After you register, you'll receive the following message - again, courtesy of Zephyrot (sorry for the size!):

The dongles are expected to begin shipping in mid-April (which should mean within the next week or two).

Update: We reached out to our ASUS contact for more info about the dongle and were told to expect an official announcement on or around April 16th. Given the expected ship date of mid-April, it's probably safe to assume that ASUS will begin sending out the dongles around the same time.

But wait, there's more! According to an ASUS Junior Technical Product Manager, newer builds of the Prime have received tweaks to improve WiFi performance, putting it on par with the original Transformer (TF101).

Dear Gregory,
*
Also to update the wi-fi.* I have been testing our newer versions of our Primes over the last week and they are getting better signal strength with the wi-fi.* Wifi will vary depending on routers being used and the router settings.* I can tell you there is a definite improvement in wifi transfers and speed on the newer batches that I have.* I have been doing side by side comparisons with the TF101 and Prime with my RT-N13U router.* They are very close in performance now and I could not distinguish difference albeit very minor ones in transfer rates on both the units.* So this area has also been improved with our newer release Primes.*
*
Let me know if you have any more questions as I can be your direct contact for communication on making your new Prime purchase a good one.

Well handled, ASUS.

[Source: XDA. Thanks SD!]

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[Updated] ASUS To Provide Transformer Prime Owners With Free GPS Dongle, New Prime Builds To Have Improved WiFi Performance