Owners of ASUS’ Transformer Prime have most likely noticed the tablet’s poor GPS performance. ASUS has tried to remedy the situation by releasing a myriad of software updates, but the issue seems to really be around bad hardware design. According to an ASUS support employee, ASUS will soon be sending out a free GPS dongle to Transformer Prime owners. The dongle will connect via the proprietary charger port, to offer better GPS performance.

A member on the XDA Developer Forums posted an email between him and a support rep. The rep says that ASUS will be shipping out the dongle soon and will match the color of the Prime and have a “flush fit.” An apparent tester for the dongle weighed in on the thread:

well the cat is out of the bag now. I can confirm this also. was supposed to be a secret..lmfao
I’m one of the people Asus has testing it out

The dongle is very cool though. very minimalistic and made to look like part of the prime.

Furthermore, a screenshot of the registration page to get the free dongle has been leaked.

An ASUS support rep has also confirmed in an email that ASUS has been working to fix the issue in newer shipments of the Prime. The rep said “there is a definite improvement in wifi transfers and speed on the newer batches that I have.”

It’s great to see ASUS actively working to fix issues that users are seeing with their flagship tablet. The GPS dongle will most likely ship by mid-April. Have you been experiencing the issues described, on your Prime?

Update: ASUS has confirmed in a statement to AllThingsD that customers can register to receive the GPS dongle on April 16th. Interestingly, there’s no word if it’ll be free or not like indicated by forum users.

, Land of Droid

• SourceXDA Forums