MWC 2012: Asus unveils 'affordable' Transformer Pad 300 Series

Asus is full of surprises at Mobile World Congress. It has just taken the wraps off an unexpected budget model of the Transformer Prime called the Transformer Pad 300 Series.

It will still be a quad core Nvidia Tegra 3 powered tablet with a keyboard dock just like its premium cousin, and the form factor seems much the same, but this time the slick brushed aluminium has been mostly replaced with plastic to save on production costs.

Don't let that fool you into thinking this is a flimsy device, however, as reports indicate it still has a solid feel and Asus hasn't skimped on the actual build quality.

Just like the Prime, the Transformer 300 Series features a 10.1-inch display, this is an LED-backlit number with a 1280x800 pixel resolution, which is still on the higher end of most tablet devices currently available.

The Prime had a pretty decent audio setup and Asus hasn't pulled any punches with this new model either. It features Asus' SonicMaster technology and a speaker each side of the screen.

There's also an 8-megapixel primary camera capable of 1080p video capture and a 1.2-megapixel front-facer for video calling while the keyboard dock boosts the tablets 10 hour battery life by a further six hours.

Asus hasn't revealed availability or pricing just yet but we're sure it won't be too far off.