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Asus Remains Committed to Transformer 2 Tablet

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Amidst heated competition in both pricing and specs from Amazon’s announcement of its dual-core $200 Kindle Fire touchscreen tablet that runs a heavily skinned version of the Android operating system, Asus, which had gained fame for the success of its Transformer tablet, remains committed to the Transformer 2. The Transformer successor will up the ante with beefier specs, rumored to be a quad-core processor, presumably from NVIDIA codenamed Kal-el.

According to the Transformer-maker, the company has no plans to slash the price of the current dual-core NVIDIA Tegra 2 Transformer 1 model, which starts at a $400 MSRP though you may find discounts at select retailers. The Transformer 2, with better and improved processing power, will cost extra and that model will start at $500. The Transformer 2 is said to be launching on schedule.

According to Asus CEO Jerry Shen, Android Ice Cream Sandwich will help the Transformer 2 win ground against Apple’s market-leading iPad:

Shen pointed out that the Android tablet PCs have been seeing improvements and the upcoming Android 4.0, which will be released at the end of 2011, should be able to satisfy market’s demand and help Android tablet PC to compete against Apple’s iPad on the same ground.

Though the Kindle Fire is putting downward pressure on tablet pricing, with Apple’s 10-inch iPad setting the baseline $500 price, Asus sees the 10-inch form factor to dominate slate sales and the 7-inch Kindle Fire will only account for about 20-30% of the market. Most recently, the Kindle Fire has placed pressure on RIM to lower the price of the PlayBook and Best Buy discounting the HTC Flyer tablet by as much as $200.

While the original Asus Eee Pad Transformer was launched with more budget-friendly prices, especially when compared to the then higher pricing on the Motorola Xoom tablet, it appears that Asus does not want to continue the downward spiral with pricing like what happened with netbooks as the successor will cost $100 more than the original tablet.

Via: DigiTimes

19 Comments

19 Comments

  1. Anonymous

    10/05/2011 at 2:28 pm

    Asus is smart…. they know that people like me who have a transformer will buy this one as well… so they might as well charge $100 more. If it was the same price or less or $100 more I will still buy it… I’m very happy with my current transformer. I wish it were a little bit faster at times, even though it’s usually ok. But as much as I use the thing, I might as well buy the new one.

  2. Matlokk

    10/05/2011 at 3:34 pm

    Good for ASUS.  They realize that you can’t compete on price alone.  In a race to the bottom, every-one loses.  Glad to see they’re focused on making an excellent product with unique and innovative features and able to keep it a reasonable price.

  3. Tim Ulf Georg Andersson-Lind

    10/06/2011 at 5:32 am

    So will it be $650 total if buy the keyboard dock? (Tegra 3, Ice Cream Sandwich, Keybaord dock, Polaris Suite) I just wish the price is ending up on 450 for the tablet and then maybe $100-125 for the dock.

  4. msrTransformer

    10/06/2011 at 12:45 pm

    It will be $100 more, as said.   $399 and $499 now for 16 and 32 gigs + $149 for dock.
    So yes, $650 and $750 for both pad and dock after 100 increase. 

  5. Keif Hunniford

    10/06/2011 at 2:01 pm

    So it will be “on schedule” but what is that schedule.. and will it work with the current keyboard? More questions than answers.

  6. J D _90

    10/07/2011 at 10:53 am

    This thing will be awesome. Especially if NVIDIA’s claims of increased battery life with the penta-core beast are true.

  7. L C

    10/07/2011 at 12:49 pm

    So the price advantage against iPad goes away, we don’t know if it works with the old keyboard, and they won’t confirm when it is coming out? 

    Damn, I had been holding off on buying something based on this being competitively priced and coming out in October. So much for that plan.

  8. Michael

    10/10/2011 at 3:06 pm

    The ASUS EEE pad is nice but teasing the market without providing details and now suggesting a $100 dollar premium over current models has sent me looking at the incredibly thin Galaxy Tab 10.1 which is a really polished piece of technology and one which may dissolve my Asus eee pad aspirations pretty quickly unless Asus comes to the party asap. Good luck.

    • msrTransformer

      10/12/2011 at 12:43 pm

      Most people buy the TF for the keyboard and ports.  If your buying the Samsung tab, then yes, its 6 of 1 – half a doz of the other because you don’t want ports or an attachable kb.

  9. Anonymous

    10/16/2011 at 8:50 pm

    I was really looking forward to getting a tablet this holiday season. Seeing that the price point is going to be the same, I’ll continue to sit out.

    The only way I could justify that high price, is if it had hardware upgrades. An ultimately disposable wafer should cost far less than $500.

  10. msrTransformer

    10/20/2011 at 12:04 pm

    If it has hardware upgrades?  Isn’t that what we’re talking about here?  It IS a hardware upgrade.  The dual core is being upgraded to a quad core.

    Also, has anyone seen the teaser?  Looks like a totally different look.  Looks like a new keyboard too.  Both thinner.

  11. Jack Coleman

    10/30/2011 at 4:51 pm

    The New Tegra 3 sounds sweet but id perfer they went with just a 2 core (with an extra like then current tegra 3) and brought the clocks up to around 2 ghz. heck with 2gb ram that could function as a real laptop!

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