Last night we caught wind of an update for the ASUS Eee Pad Transformer Prime that, to ASUS’ thinking at least, was going to be “awesome”. Today the Italian arm of ASUS spilled the beans on the new features, and while “awesome” is a relative term, there are at least a few new features that Transformer Prime owners will be happy to receive. Chief among the additions in the 9.4.2.21 update is support for Ethernet networking, acheived via a USB converter. Ice Cream Sandwich’s Face Unlock feature is now fully supported on the Prime’s forward-facing camera.

Other small additions include updates to Google’s apps to conform with the new Google Play branding, an updated interface for the ASUS Vibe cloud storage pack-in app, and support for ad-hoc wireless networks. The HDMI-out connection has received a considerable overhaul, with the added ability to display in portrait mode. You can also choose between a full-screen upscale or a crop on 1080p television sets or monitors. Lastly, you can control incoming notifications directly from the lockscreen.

ASUS Italy says that the latest update will be here on Thursday for Italian Transformer Prime owners. That being the case, you can expect the update to go out to all territories sometime between today and late Friday. ASUS is usually pretty consistent with its mass-market software updates. Prime owners, if you’ve just got to have Ethernet, face unlock or an updated icon for the Google Play Store, start checking your settings menu now.

[device id=1934] [via XDA]