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Asus has begun rolling out a firmware update for its Eee Pad Transformer Prime that some owners are suggesting goes some way to solve the tablet's GPS problems.

Meanwhile, British Prime owners are being offered an extended warranty period in case they're troubled by ongoing GPS issues - or are struck by newly emerged Wi-Fi woes.

The over-the-air update certainly patches the tablet's GPS driver, taking it to version 6.9.13 from 6.8.13, and a number of users are claiming GPS now works properly.

As one forum poster put it: "HOLY SHIT GPS WORKED!!"

The downside: the patch removes root access to the tablet.

At the start of the year, Asus quietly dropped GPS from the Prime's spec sheet after it emerged that the tablet's pick-up was taking users an age to lock on to satellites.

Soon after, Asus confirmed the issue, admitting that the Prime's "metallic unibody design… may affect the performance of the GPS when receiving signals from satellites".

Since then, an problem with the tablet's Wi-Fi has cropped up. The latest OTA patch doesn't appear to tackle it - at least, it doesn't up the Wi-Fi driver's version number, forum posters say.

Asus UK doesn't believe any Britain-bound Primes suffer from the Wi-Fi issue, but they will be affected by the weak GPS performance. The company said buyers can have a full refund if that's a problem for them, or gain an extra six months of warranty coverage. ®

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