Asus reaffirms December launch of Transformer Prime tablet

Asus shot down rumors this weekend from NCIX about a possible launch delay of the highly anticipated Transformer Prime tablet.

"We are trying to confirm who released this statement and for what purpose right now," said an Asus representative to SlashGear. "At this point, we still show to be on schedule to start shipments the week of 12/19. I will provide an update once I have additional information.”

If there were truly a delay, it may have been due to concerns of short supply and high pre-order demands. Amazon, who had been offering pre-orders for the tablet beginning late November, recently stopped accepting additional pre-orders and claimed that they may even be able to fulfill all existing pre-orders. A launch delay could have given Asus more breathing room to manufacture more units, but would have risked missing the all-important Holiday shopping season.

The 10.1-inch Transformer Prime is slated to be the first mass produced tablet to ship with the Tegra 3 platform. While it won't run Ice Cream Sandwich out of the box and instead ships with Honeycomb, Asus promises an update to the latest Android OS at some point in the future.

The quad-core tablet is scheduled to be available this December 19th starting at $499.

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