Asustek

The Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime, the first quad-core tablet running the new Tegra 3 chip from Nvidia, is probably arriving Thursday, December 8, just in time for Christmas. Engadget points to a pre-order page over at Newegg which specifically mentions the December 8 date.

Asus chairman Jonney Shih confirmed that the device will be upgradeable to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich by the end of this year. Nvidia has published a nice video demonstrating Ice Cream Sandwich on a Transformer Prime. If you’re in the market for cool accessories, you may want to consider this origami like iPad-inspired smart cover case for the Transformer Prime.

According to DigiTimes, Asus is looking to ship over 350,000 Transformer Prime units this year. Sources estimate the company could cumulatively ship up to two million units of the Transformer tablet PC family in 2011.

The Tegra 3 chip inside the Prime really makes the difference: Per this benchmark, the forthcoming tablet/notebook hybrid has the power of the previous generation of Transformer and smokes competition, including the Galaxy S II, Motorola Xoom and Galaxy Nexus.

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After smartphones, tablets and cross-over gadgets such as Lenovo’s IdeaPad U1 with detachable display, Android and ARM technology could make its way inside notebooks by year’s end.

The vast majority of all-in-one chips powering today’s tablets and smartphones incorporate CPU designs from UK-based ARM Holdings, a fables semiconductor intellectual property firm headquartered in Cambridge, England. For example, chips from the likes of Qualcomm, Nvidia and even Apple all incorporate CPU designs licensed from ARM Holdings. Now that power-savvy mobile chips with two and four processing cores and flashy graphics are a reality, notebook vendors are taking notice.

We’ve previously heard whispers that Apple has a MacBook prototype designed around the iPad 2’s A5 chip which contains two ARM-designed processing cores. Not content with being left behind, first-tier device makers such as Samsung, Toshiba, Acer and Asustek plan on bringing ARM-powered notebooks to the market by the end of this year. From DigiTimes:

The sources pointed out that ARM-based systems using Android were already launched under the smartbook name two years ago with Toshiba and Lenovo both launching products in the retail channel. However, due to weaker than expected demand, the related products were soon phased out of the market. Asustek has already made plans to launch a 13-inch ARM-based notebook adopting Nvidia’s processor with Android. The sources pointed out that there are already several brand vendors reportedly set to launch ARM-based notebooks with prices lower than US$299 to compete for market share and the vendors’ processor choices include Nvidia’s Tegra, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon and processors from Texas Instruments.

There’s a lot to look forward to…

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