[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] BarryH_GEG:
It's easy for us all to speculate but we really don't have enough info on what Asus' motivation was for pushing the Prime out so early. To this day it still doesn't have any next-gen competition so, other than missing X-Mas (which they kind of did anyway with such limited inventory), if they launched it today it would still be the first Teg3/ICS device. It obviously wasn't finished because it launched with HC and needed some pretty serious s/w revisions.

Here are some reasons for Asus to keep the Prime:

1) Their CEO said he expected to sell "a million." If they contracted for parts from suppliers the penalties for missing commitments might be higher than just keeping the Prime in production.

2) Its Wi-Fi will always be challenged because of the metal back cover but it's decent on working Prime's. There are plenty of devices that don't have spectacular Wi-Fi that sell well. If they apply the fix the Prime will be able to generate sales alongside of or until the other devices are available.

3) A consistent and working Prime gives Asus an advantage over competitors who won't have anything earth shattering out for months and will help them boost sales and gain market share in the near term.

Here are some reasons to kill it:

1) It doesn't make sense to produce three nearly identical (to consumers and resellers) devices that haven't historically been at the segment of the market that sells well (Market-capable non-Apple tablets $399+). If Asus wants three price points a TF300 with a better SoC, flash, IPS+, and spiffier (but still plastic) back cover gets them to the same place. As would a TF700 without a HD display or 16GB of RAM vs. 32GB.

2) Because of the metal back, even with a "fix," people's wireless experiences are going to be different based on their surroundings. Anand got 36MB down from his Asus pre-tested Prime but had to go through flaming hoops to do it. The return/exchange/RMA rate due to wireless issues will always be higher on the Prime and Asus may not want to continue to lose profit over.

3) Even if their grand plan was to continue to sell it, lack of interest may kill it. Someone looking for a high-end device would compare the Prime to the TF700. Someone looking for value would compare it to the TF300. To Joe Public looking for value there's not a big enough gain over the TF300 for the Prime to potentially justify the $100 difference. For Jane Public looking for something premium the HD display (especially after the iPad3 launch) and it being Asus's "flagship" will help justify the $100. And nuances like DDR3 and a .X difference in clock speed aren’t even considered by most consumers. If they were single-core phones would be long dead. And with both non-Prime choices they'll get better wireless performance and the return of GPS. The Prime's issues will live on in Google search long after the "fix" is released.

4) Resellers may kill it. Based on their experiences so far they can’t be big fans of the Prime. It’s ludicrous of Asus to assume resellers care enough about 10.1” tablets to expect them to sell 11 different combinations of

their

tablets (TF300 red, white, blue, TF201 amethyst, champagne (32GB/64GB), and TF700 amethyst, champagne (32GB/64GB) plus all the dock combinations. I don't know about your B&M stores but here, that's twice as many tablets as they have on display from all manufacturers combined. Based on price alone resellers will be all over the TF300. At iPad prices there’s not going to be a lot of high-end Android tablets sold anyway. Because the HD display is a noticeable and marketable feature, if they had to pick two, they’d probably pick the TF700 as the second Asus device. All the devices in all combinations might be available online but keep in mind 2/3 of tablets are purchased B&M and 1/3 aren’t even researched online.

Just some stuff to consider...