By 
Dongle may have been a bit of an understatement when describing the hardware add-on ASUS will provide to Transformer Prime owners to correct GPS issues that have plagued the tablet since its launch. The long signal-enhancing bar will lock into the Prime’s docking port using ASUS’ proprietary 40 pin connector. The downside here is that the GPS dongle cannot be used concurrently with the keyboard dock or while charging the tablet.
The dongle will be available free of charge to Transformer Prime owners starting this week. Support for the hardware was silently pushed in a recent update to the slate.
[via LandofDroid]
Wow that is huge and Ugly, guess I will wait and buy a different tablet. My XOOM is still working fine but would like to hand that down to the wife for her to use as an e-reader and get myself a new quad-core tablet.
Wait for the tf700? 1080p display and they fixed the wifi issue the prime had.
I really enjoyed my time with the xoom too , but to me the xoom is just to heavy as a dedicated ebook reader.
I am holding off on replaceing the xoom , until the windows 8 tabs have a chance to show what they can do.
Even a quad core android is really really weak compared to a barebones intel chipset driven tablet
Your tablet is upside down.
You should try enabling auto-rotate ;-)
Not a bad solution if you don’t want to wait for the tf700. It’s resolving an issue and staying dedicated to your customer base.
heh… you said “dongle”
So glad I returned my prime, this size of that so called “dongle” proves how broken the design of that tablet was, and even with this it doesn’t fix the slow wifi issues with that tablet, which was my major concern, I became a traitor after that and bought and ipad3 and have to say I’m very happy with it, I hope google can get the tablet app development moving faster, lack of good tablet apps pushed me to apple for my tablet.
I remain loyal to my android smartphones though :)
Maybe you had a defective shipment? My GPS and Wifi work perfectly. No hickups. (after the OTA update last winter)
I have the original Transformer (and never use the GPS on it), but I’ve got to say that I’m pretty impressed that ASUS is willing to go to this much trouble to appease their customer’s concerns. Sure it’s bulky and inconvenient, but I’ve heard three prime owners report that they do not even have the wifi or gps troubles.
Appleseeds rave about their customer support, but the build issues of apple products are just looked at as quirks (overheating in portrait mode, poor phone signals on a phone, etc.)
I’ll stick with ASUS.
The problem with trusting reports on the internet are that some issues only affect a portion of the people who buy a product and some are just plain over stated.
I owned a transformer prime and while I didn’t have disconnects the wifi performance was very poor in any room other than the room where the router physically was, I didn’t care much about the gps, but it didn’t seem to work. I commend them for creating a fix for the gps issue, but the larger issue the wifi performance couldn’t be fixed.
The heat issue with the new ipad seems to be overstated, yes people have noticed a higher temp on the new ipad, but it hasn’t “overheated”, the device does not fail or shut off due to temp, the temps recorded aren’t even that high for an electrical device and shouldn’t affect the life of the device at all, I have mine in a case and I have no problems with it.
Personally I’ll take the device that heats up a little but shows no signs of problems with that temp, over the device with slow wifi and borked gps.
What a joke.
I own the prime with keyboard..personally I don’t use GPS on a tablet, but mine works fine. Also, don’t have wifi disconnects and I can use it outside away from the router in direct sunlight without issue.
Sorry others had problems, cuz mine is perfect and my iPad friends love it.
I’ve only used GPS on my Tab a couple times for stupid games and nothing more….. So I don’t see the big deal. But one thing they said flush, that is not my idea of flush.
May be worthwhile to add to the OP for those that would like to order one. They can do so by going to http://vip.asus.com/user/tf201gps_ext.aspx?SLanguage=en-us. You will have to register free at the site though. They are only offering free until 7/31/12.
Lol, even that character is like SHOOT ME!!!
I don’t have wifi issues with my Prime.
I was streaming baseball games via wifi and mlb at bat app from my router in my bedroom to my garage through 4 walls and 60 ft.. Also was able to use Sling adapter through same 4 walls.
GPS issues? Somewhat.. But I am not using it to navigate. I can understand others being upset if it’s not working.
As mentioned, this is a huge effort to fix a wrong. I applaud Asus for going to this extreme, of actually designing and manufacturing a add on, that will be free, that will fix the problem.
Hats off to Asus.
A user that posted a comment on the source Web site made a good point… They could have added a wifi radio in that thing.. Not a perfect solution, but, two birds with one.. Well, in this case, boulder.
They had to add a piece to get GPS to work?. That’s not a transformer prime, That’s a Lego prime.
Nice troll. My Prime’s GPS works wonderfully without it.