I have to admit we’ve been talking a lot lately about the ASUS EEE Pad Transformer Prime, but it’s the first announced quad-core tablet, and frankly there’s not much happening this week when it comes to tablets.

    That’s why news about the Prime don’t hurt, so here’s the latest! We’ll start with the first video review of the Transformer Prime, a sample unit in this case. The six minutes video takes us through the ports, full hd video playback, a 3D game preview with some nice graphics (the same from yesterday’s Nvidia demo) and the docking keyboard that’s pretty much the same as the first version, but with slightly stylized looks.

    There’e even the AnTuTu benchmark result that puts the quad core Tegra 3 tablet in front of any other Android device out there. It was to be expected. At the end of the video you’ll see the comparison in thickness between the Transformer Prime TF201, 1st gen Transformer and the iPad 2. It’s clear the first Transformer is from another league, but it’s nice to see the second gen catching up with Apple’s tablet, the difference being pretty much measurable, not observable.

    And here’s the video:

    Asus TF201-DOCK

    Yesterday we’ve told you the EEE Pad Transformer has showed up for preorder, so today we clarify a little bit the shipping schedule, which points at December 16th as the date when Amazon will begin shipping it. Don’t know if the same day we’ll get to receive also the docking keyboard, the one that will extend battery life by up to 6 hours. And speaking about the docking keyboard, it just showed up for pre-order on Amazon, but no price is mentioned (expect it to cost around $150 initially, just like the previous model).

    ASUS Transformer Prime – versions and accessories with pricing

    Here’s a detailed look at the TF201-DOCK:

    Asus TF201-DOCK in one look

    Asus TF201-DOCK in one look

    And a top shot of the keys layout:

    Top view of the Transformer Prime docking keyboard

    Top view of the Transformer Prime docking keyboard