First look at the Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime 1080p tablet – video

Asus is showing off a new version of the Transformer Prime tablet with a high resolution 1920 x 1200 pixel display and a 2MP front-facing camera. The rest of the specifications for the Eee Pad Transformer Prime TF700T are identical to the TF201 model launched in late 2011.

Both tablets have 1.3 GHz NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processors and 8MP rear cameras. But the new model has a screen that’s capable of displaying every single pixel of a 1080p HD video.

Text and images also look sharper — although to be perfectly honest, it’s kind of hard to tell the difference most of the time. The original Transformer Prime’s 1280 x 800 pixel display was already pretty sharp.

The Transformer Prime is expected to ship in the second quarter of 2012. A 32GB model will run about $599 while the 64GB version will cost $699. Asus will also continue to offer the original Transform Prime for customers that don’t need the high resolution display and who want to save a few bucks.