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Asus looks to be declaring war on the Transformer Prime’s GPS issues, launching an intercontinental ballistic update that upgrades the tablet’s GPS version.
Since its release, owners of the quad-core Android tablet have been bemoaning the Transformer Prime’s general awfulness when it comes to GPS. The jury is still out on whether the new update, which can be downloaded from Asus’ support site, actually fixes the problem. Android Police reports that a Transformer Prime they updated is having no more luck getting a GPS fix, while Engadget is seeing signs of success.
It’s possible that the GPS problem is hardware-based. A teardown by Anandtech places the blame at the feet of the Prime’s aluminium construction.
Hacker types take note: discussion over at XDA Developers strongly suggests that performing this update will unroot the Prime. It looks like you’ll need to get root access back yourself if you’re the sort that likes to tinker with your tablet and add lots of custom modifications.
While the obscenely powerful Prime had us excited when it was announced last year, the launch has been rocky, to say the least. Aside from the persistent GPS issues, the Prime arrived with a locked-down bootloader, making tinkering impossible. Asus has since bowed to pressure from the customisation collective, offering an ‘unlock tool’ that voids your warranty.
Shipping delays and Wi-Fi problems (though these apparently won’t affect UK models) have added to the Prime’s pain, prompting Asus to extend the device’s warranty to 18 months, also offering full refunds for disgruntled buyers.
We were impressed by the Prime when we gave it the full review treatment, but is it now simply too much trouble to bother with? Let us know if your confidence has been shaken in the comments or on our Facebook wall.
