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Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime shown off in official photos

The Transformer Prime still turns from tablet into laptop, but now packs a whopping quad-core processor. We take a closer look.

Andrew Lanxon
Andrew is CNET's go-to guy for product coverage and lead photographer for Europe. When not testing the latest phones, he can normally be found with his camera in hand, behind his drums or eating his stash of home-cooked food. Sometimes all at once.
Andrew Lanxon
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Far removed from the low-power single core chips of early tablets, the Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime packs a whopping quad-core processor running at a nippy 1.3GHz. It should chomp through the most demanding of tasks with a slobbering snarl and a look that says "come at me, bro".

There's even a fifth core in there, running at lower power, which it'll switch to for less demanding work. That should hopefully mean its battery power can be used more efficiently.

The Transformer Prime is the son of the original Eee Pad Transformer, so like its proud dad it's still a tablet that becomes a netbook when it docks with the keyboard add-on. The Prime will also be running the latest version of Android's unified mobile and tablet operating system, named Ice Cream Sandwich -- or at least it will after an update (due before it reaches the UK).

The screen on the Prime has a resolution of 1,280x800 pixels, which should make web browsing a pleasing experience. It's covered by hardened Gorilla Glass too, so you don't need to worry too much about accidentaly leaning on it. There's an 8-megapixel snapper on the back with a 1.2-megapixel video calling camera on the front.

Due here in January and costing £499, including the keyboard, we're really very excited about the Transformer Prime and can't wait to get our hands all over its sleek body and benchmark the brains out of its hefty processor.

In the meantime, click through the photo gallery above to see just how sharp this thing looks and make sure to tell us your thoughts in the comments below, over on our Facebook page, or on our shiny new Google+ page.

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