The Asus Eee Pad Transformer prime is currently king of the hill as far as Android tablets go, but that doesn’t mean it’s perfect. As we’ve seen with other high-profile devices, a single critical failure can sound a sour note for an otherwise great piece of tech. For the Transformer Prime, that sour note appears to be the GPS radio, according to a growing thread over at XDA Developers. Users are reporting extremely poor GPS performance when not connected to wireless networks.

Android uses cellular and WiFi networks as a backup method for determining a device’s location, and in the case of the Transformer Prime (which has no cellular connection at this point) WiFi is the best option for getting around this problem. Of course, that’s small comfort to users who want to make their tablets into navigation systems, or just play with Google Maps outside of a WiFi area. At this point, there doesn’t seem to be any other way around the issue.

Many commenters suspect that the all-aluminum construction of the Transformer Prime is to blame. There’s something to be said for that – when smartphones use metal as a primary means of construction, they always leave a plastic portion of the case for the cellular signals to pass through. It could be that during the engineering phase, Asus just didn’t consider other wireless communications essential, or didn’t sufficiently test them. It could also be a software bug, not entirely unlikely in a product so new. We’ll be keeping a lookout for a more permanent solution, should one arise.

[device id=1934]

[via Android Police]

7 COMMENTS

  1. This article plays down a fundamental flaw with the Prime – one that led me to cancel my order.
    GPS is broken.  Activating WIFI is not a “fix” but more of a shoddy workaround.Also, in light of the issue, Asus actually CHANGED the spec of the prime on their official website but you don’t mention that…Those of us trying to use GPS in the car (which is not unreasonable usage) may well not have wifi access on the move.  Therefore, the broken GPS is useless.

    • who cares if the gps isnt working at top performance the rest of the specs for which most users are buying the prime for work just fine for a top of the line just released tablet.

      •  Its no use if wifi isn’t working either. What good is a tablet when you cant browse on it. Might as well get xbox or ps3 if you want gaming and thats about it.

  2. This article plays down a fundamental flaw with the Prime – one that led me to cancel my order.
    GPS is broken.  Activating WIFI is not a “fix” but more of a shoddy workaround.Also, in light of the issue, Asus actually CHANGED the spec of the prime on their official website but you don’t mention that…Those of us trying to use GPS in the car (which is not unreasonable usage) may well not have wifi access on the move.  Therefore, the broken GPS is useless.

  3. I’ve cancelled my order for two (2) Primes and one (1) dock.  The fact that Asus removes mention fo GPS from the specifications pages around the world says they would rather sweep the problem under the table than fix it.  For shame!

  4. The WiFi that doesnt work either isn’t really gonna fix it unless you feel like hugging your router or paying to ship it to ASUS.

  5. i had better gps reception when i first got it then after the “update” the same day.. since then i have seen 1 satellite out of about 200 tries, even tried the squeeze the tablet trick that worked for some… nothing at all gps wise… wifi is great.  I’m wondering about external GPS

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