Transformer Prime bootloader unlock tool available soon and Ice Cream Sandwich coming Jan 12th

One of our wonderful writers, Kevin Shen, headed out to take a look at the recently released Transformer Prime. He was impressed with the device and was ready to pick one up. That was until he did a little investigative work and found the bootloaders were locked. To the general population, that is no big deal. To the slightly more advanced Android user and ROM flasher, this is a turn off when it comes time to spend some hard earned money. He of course turned the other cheek and started looking at other tablets in the market.

I am sure many of you might have done the same thing, waiting to find out what the great developer community and ASUS were going to do before you bought one. Well, ASUS Taiwan, US and other regions have now confirmed that they will indeed offer up a bootloader unlock tool. Following suit to how HTC ans Ericsson are doing things now. ASUS’s reason for locking the bootloader was simply to comply with DRM protected content. Which a fair response. Not really something many of really are interested in any ways with services like Netflix and Google Music though.

To make the tablet stand out even more, ASUS let the world know that they plan to ‘start’ the world wide roll out of Ice Cream Sandwich to the Prime January 12th. That is big news in my opinion and makes this tablet a must have. With the key word being ‘start’, this means that it will take time for every device in every region to get some icy goodness. It might be another month or 3 months before the U.S. sees the update. You can bet you bottom dollar though that if the bootloader unlock tool hits before that time the devs will get the first OTW update ported and running in no time to all versions.

The real question now is does this make the Prime an even more attractive tablet? With an bootloader and unlock tool confirmed along side ICS, are you more at ease and ready to pick one up? If so, feel free to click on the Amazon links below to get an order placed.

Source: Phandroid