ASUS Eee Pad Transformer Prime priced: Cheap Ultrabook or expensive iPad?

So you want an ASUS Eee Pad Transformer Prime? The UK-based retailer Clove has just announced its pricing for the combination tablet-laptop, landing it in a bit of a weird place in the market.

The price including VAT is £550.80 for just the tablet half. We say that’s weird because it it’s way more expensive than the iPad – it’s obvious rival.

While the ASUS Eee Pad Transformer Prime does boast a raft of decent specs, including a Tegra 3 quad-core processor and 64GB of storage, we can’t help but think that it’s still priced too high.

When coupled with the sold-separately keyboard dock, however, the ASUS Eee Pad Transformer Prime becomes a pretty solid Android 4.0-powered laptop. While it doesn’t have the Intel Sandy Bridge processor necessary to be called an Ultrabook, it’s thin and portable enough to be considered similar to ASUS’ Zenbook.

If you look at in this light, the ASUS Eee Pad Transformer Prime is pretty cheap, but therein lies the problem with such a device: what exactly is it? As it is, £550 is either an expensive tablet or a cheap Ultrabook-style laptop.

We suppose the proof is in the sales figures. Are you tempted? If so, would you mostly use it as a laptop or as a tablet?