Asus has just informed us that the Eee Pad Transformer Prime, its latest and arguably Android's best tablet to date, will be going up for pre-order in the UK starting today. Currys, HMV, PC World, Carphone Warehouse, Ebuyer, and even Tesco.com will be ready to take your order in exchange for £499. Yes, that price includes the keyboard dock as well! The actual release date has been left strategically off the press release, but Asus expects to be shipping these pre-orders out in January and also makes a solemn promise to soon deliver Android 4 to the Prime via an over-the-air update.

In the UK, the Transformer Prime will come with 32GB of storage plus microSD expandability and 8GB of cloud storage. No mention is made of any other SKUs, such as ones with 3G or without the transformational laptop dock, so for now we'll have to assume that this is the only option Asus will offer.

If you are on the hunt for a bargain, the Eee Pad Transformer, the Prime's predecessor, has been discounted from today until December 30th to £299 for the 16GB variant, £349 for the 32GB option, and £399 for the keyboard-equipped 16GB model.