Trog was kind enough to let me know that Asus are now addressing the GPS issue that has been plaguing the Transformer Prime tablet since release. Basically at current time the tablet is unable to gather a good enough GPS signal for certain games/apps (Google Maps is one) that it renders the device not useless, but a tad annoying.

Asus has today brought out a new offering, a free GPS dongle for all Asus members who have registered their Transformer Prime. I'm currently in the process of signing up, but hopefully this new dongle will boost the performance of the GPS signal, something that is a tad annoying when I want to get directions on a device that doesn't cost me $200 to update the maps.

You can find the website here: http://event.asus.com/ASUSPad/TF201GPS/

So the tablet has a hardware problem, so their solution is to give you a bulky usb dongle to fix this?

The USB dongle, as I understand it, only works for you if you have the (optional) keyboard base part of the device. So if you just have the tablet I think it is useless.

This was probably my tablet of choice to buy but I'm a bit bummed by the poor GPS... is this just a v1.0 sort of issue that will be fixed in later revisions of the hardware?

It doesn't seem to be a "USB" dongle, more so it connects to the part where the keyboard dock would normally go.

Check out the pictures here: http://www.landofdroid.com/2012/exclusive-first-pictures-of-the-asus-transformer-prime-gps-dongle/

So the tablet has a hardware problem, so their solution is to give you a bulky usb dongle to fix this?

The tablet is encased in metal and it ruins the signal. There's plenty of mods which prove that the metal case is the cause of the problem and creating a GPS "window" solves it.

The problem is whoop, the GPS isn't the selling point of the device, much like if your car has trouble with the window winder and they replace it with an updated window winder. You can complain that you liked the colour which matched your interior and the one they gave you was black but really it's a solution.

So your anology sucks.

Also it never claims it can DO gps. They removed that from the spec sheets before the device was on sale. It's just that there's an implied expectation so they've kindly sent one free to anyone who wants one.

It's like your car didn't come with aircon, but they never said it would. All the aircon shit is hooked up, but to funnel it in they offered you a hose instead of airvents.

Edit: My source comes from http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/transformer-prime-tf201-tablet-review,3175-4.html

Edit2: as an aside

Oddly, I don't understand the whole rush for the transformer prime over the original transformer. All the apps in the market are designed for phones, and the original transformer only recently has been surpassed by them. All the apps couldn't run faster because they're designed so they can't. You miss out on some effects on a couple of games which I doubt most transformer buyers would actually pay for.

Then again i'm biased because i have a tf101 and i can't possibly justify a tf201. Although of course, my tf101 does have fantastic gps. Which i've used, about 3 times in 8 months.