Pre-orders for the Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime go live in the UK with expectations to ship in January

Clearly, anticipation is rising for the highly coveted Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime, since it’s going to be the first quad-core tablet coming to market – while retaining the lovable convertible aspect of the original model.

Even though it’s scheduled to go on sale in North America this month, overseas, pre-orders for the tablet are being made available in the UK right now. Specifically, online retailer Clove is now happily accepting your hard-earned cash, where you’ll be able to obtain a pre-order for the anticipated Honeycomb powered tablet. As much as you’ll be comforted to know you’ll be guaranteed a unit once it’s made available, it’s worth knowing that you won’t probably see the tablet until well after the new year – well, sometime in January.

Right now, you can choose to side with either the 32GB Transformer Prime with the keyboard dock or simply the 64GB one without the keyboard – both of which will cost you £550.80 ($860). Therefore, if you have the disposable income to blow, by all means place your pre-order right now.

source: Clove (1 & 2) via Unwired View