The ASUS Transformer Prime has been somewhat of a roller coaster ride for consumers. This hot ticket item has been available and unavailable ever since its pre-order announcement. Some people have had their orders canceled while others have been lucky enough to have one delivered. Then, after everything is said and done and you actually receive one, it’s possible you might end up having GPS issues. According to numerous users, the ASUS Transformer Prime has one heck of a time locking onto a GPS signal, especially when offline. While ASUS hasn’t publicly stated a cause, they have released a couple of updates which we assume were attempts to fix the problem.

The latest update for the Transformer Prime adds to the ups and downs of this quad-core monster by giving users a few things to be happy about, and yet also carrying a few disappointments. The first thing users will notice about software version 8.8.3.33-20111223, is that it’s not Ice Cream Sandwich. After getting over that little disappointment, users will be happy to see the performance boost the update provides. Last, and most disappointing to developers and modders, ASUS has gone ahead and locked down the Transformer Prime’s bootloader. Why they went ahead and decided to lock the bootloader is beyond me, but I’m sure that decision is going to fill up the inboxes over at ASUS.

I’m sure the bootloader will get unlocked eventually, until then, the biggest issue for the Transformer Prime is its GPS problems. If anyone grabs the latest update and wants to chime in on whether or not it fixes the GPS issues, we’d love to hear about it. ASUS may want to handle things fast, because once the next gen devices get announced as CES, it may be too late. They should take advantage of being the first quad-core Android tablet and grab as many customers as possible before the market gets saturated. I bet an Android 4.0 update before CES would boost sales of the ASUS Transformer Prime (that and being able to actually pick one up).