Best Buy and Amazon delay ASUS Transformer Prime

ASUS' claims of the Transformer Prime arriving on time have been cast into doubt on Monday. In spite of an intended launch Monday, new reports from Engadget readers buying from Amazon have seen their orders "inadvertently cancelled" and ask them to pre-order again with a $10 gift card as compensation. Best Buy, meanwhile, has told advance order customers that theirs have been "back-ordered" by one to two weeks.

In either case, the device itself is listed as out of stock.

ASUS in a response said it had "started filling the pipelines" last week and was supplying stock daily, although logistics and the holidays likely meant that any shipments on Thursday or Friday wouldn't arrive until next week regardless. Those orders that reportedly had shipped would be going solely to pre-orders.

The shifts follow multiple European reports of arrivals in January, in one case characterized as a delay. ASUS as a result might not see broader availability of the Transformer Prime until the start of 2012, by which point companies like Lenovo will have their own quad-core tablets and where companies like Apple will soon have either their own quad-core tablets or much faster dual-core models.

ASUS has developed a recent history of overpromised stock. The original Eee Pad Transformer officially launched in April but wasn't genuinely available to most buyers until June, as the company was supply-limited to just tens of thousands of units for the first few months.

By Electronista Staff

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Amazon, industry, gadgets, ASUS, Android, NVIDIA, Best Buy, Tegra, Apple, iPad, Transformer Prime