HP Scrambling to Meet Demand for Windows Slate
HP is struggling to meet demand for its newly available Slate PC.
It's been a long and winding road for HP's Slate 500. First announced at CES in January, HP was quiet about a release date for the product and it was eventually shelved, only to be revived a few months later as a enterprise-only device. The company officially launched the Slate 500 last month and it seems demand for the product has taken HP by surprise.
Despite its high price-tag, pre-orders for the $800 Slate have been delayed after HP was hit with "extraordinary demand" for the device. Originally expected to arrive on November 12, customers with pre-orders are reporting word of a 10- to 15-day delay. HP is telling customers that they don't have enough "on-hand stock" to fill orders and have had to reroute orders to manufacturing so they can build more devices.
"Due to high demand on the portable system you have selected we will not be able to fulfill the order from on hand stock, therefore we have routed your order to manufacturing for your product to be built. The average lead time to get these portables ready to ship may vary from 10 to 15 business days."
While a 15-day delay may not sound like much, it's important to note that those receiving such emails from HP ordered their Slates at the earliest opportunity. Ghengis Kent, who received the email above, says he ordered his Slate 500 on October 25, just a few days after HP made the device available for purchase. People ordering today are being told that it will be six weeks before their Slate even ships.
So HP is having problems keeping up with demand for the Slate 500, but just how many people have put in orders for the device? One insider spoke to Engadget and said that HP ordered an initial production run of 5,000 devices but received 9,000 pre-orders. The source said that HP has had to re-hire production workers and is currently attempting to placate angry customers by offering them a discount of over $100.
Source: Maximum PC, Tom's Hardware, Engadget

This tablet was in the works long before HP bought Palm, and was designed to run Windows. Thus it's no surprise that it was released long before any WebOS device.
They've announced that there will be a number of WebOS devices (phones, tablets and printers) released next year. Don't hold your breath though - these things take time.
Yea but the WebOS technology was available long before they bought Palm....you know, the way they make business looks like they buy-and-sell off Craigslist....
Nook Color is better for reading than iPad and better for everything else than Kindle. Nook Color is better for $249. Nook Color screen is supposed to be better (less reflective) for reading than iPad thanks to new LG screen with anti-reflection coating. It allows to watch videos, listen to the music, view Office documents and PDF's. Barnes & Noble special Nook SDK runs on top of the standard Android one and gives developers access to exclusive extensions and APIs for the Nook and its interface. So porting Android apps is not difficult. B&N says it is more like optimising them for Nook than porting them.
Nook Color specs:
- $249 with free shipping
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- Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g/n), USB port
- OS: Android 2.1
- Processor: TI 800 Mhz ARM Cortex A8-based, 45nm OMAP3621
as in:
"we simply cannot meet the millions of pre-orders"
or
"holy crap!? there is actually demand for this thing? shit! we better get a factory actually making them or something!"
While IPad sold 46,000 per day.....
HP slate's demands is this HIGHT.
Not really... they sold 9,000 of these.... they made 5,000... barely a success story. They've been purchased by a small percentage of the die hard fans and HP employees.
Shitty battery life, high price, full-fledged OS on a netbook hardware = failure.
This tablet was made for enterprises not for general availability, hence the full-fledged OS. Also netbooks come with a full-fledged OS.
High Price? Doesn't the 64Gb iPad costs $700? This is $100 dollars more expensive but it comes with a much more powerful CPU, GPU and twice the memory.
And how many corporate ipad sales are there? Oh right...zero because nothing meant for actual productivity works with the ipad. The Slate for $800 is purely for businesses, so I'd bet hands down 90% of those orders are enterprise users.
I would anyday spend 100 more to get the best hardware in a shiny case or not... i actually use my hardware rather than boosting my e-peen like some clueless peeps seems to do!
If it's good for doing work, and a little play outside of work, this could be a great purchase.