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Updated Information for HP Slate 500 Order Delay

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It looks like quite a few GottaBeMobile readers had ordered the HP Slate 500 and had offered comments on the delay of the device’s shipment in our blog post yesterday. The good news is that my friend from the Genghis Khent blog had pinged me to give me some updates to the situation–you can also visit his blog for more information and compare your order status to his.

Updated information found at the end of this article.

With the delay shipment notification, SlashGear had ran a piece yesterday with a conspiracy theory, speculating that HP had received a large order from an enterprise customer and had postponed shipments of consumer orders for the enterprise-geared tablets in order to fulfill the large order. Speculation has it that HP is building the HP Slate 500 on demand rather than sitting on unsold inventory, which would add to the delay as well if a large order came through.

My friend notes on his personal blog that he did call an HP representative and was told that the discrepancy in shipment time notification is that the HP order tracking page isn’t updated regularly. That said, Slate 500 orders are expected to ship four weeks after they are ordered at this point, so most people are looking at the end of the month to receive their units if they were ordered when the devices were first made available for sale.

Regarding the conspiracy theory, the rep said that she had no information on that.

Update: Roger, one of our readers on GottaBeMobile, left a comment that says that the delay is in place to give HP time to fix some last minute bugs:

Have learned from [reliable] source that hp is having problem with slate 500. It freezes and has to be restarted each time. They are trying to correct this problem prior to shipping the units to avoid massive returns during the 30 day period.
Hp needs to respond and [clarify] the situation

63 Comments

63 Comments

  1. drnkusv

    11/10/2010 at 10:34 pm

    This whole thing makes no sense to me. I understand the idea of not setting on inventory, but many of us ordered on the first day they were available? Did HP think that perhaps not a single one would be ordered, such that they waited to start building any until orders came in?

    The rep I spoke to today said that they had 1,000 orders (at least through the Small and Medium Business channel) for the device. That sounds like a figure that a company like HP should be able to manage a little more professionally than it sounds like they are. I mean, nobody forced them to announce on October 22 — and certainly nobody forced them to announce “immediate availablity.”

  2. Roger

    11/10/2010 at 11:44 pm

    Have learned from relable source that hp is having problem with slate 500. It freezes and has to be restarted each time. They are trying to correct this problem prior to shipping the units to avoid massive returns during the 30 day period.
    Hp needs to respond and clerify the situation

    • Jacques Credule

      11/11/2010 at 12:53 am

      i leaned from a rollable sauce that apple will relese within a moth a new version of the ipad that can run all osx applicashuns nativitively, has 2 standard usb ports and can use a pen and it can reed your brainwaves to kno wen yoo want to rite wih teh pen and wheh yuu want to poke wit fingah.
      all cancel slate orders and wait for fat.

      Wheeeeeee!!!!!!

      • Mikhail Ratchkovski

        11/23/2010 at 7:14 am

        hot dang! that would be the day :)
        will they be swithching to Intel again?

      • Mikhail Ratchkovski

        11/23/2010 at 7:14 am

        hot dang! that would be the day :)
        will they be swithching to Intel again?

    • Chuong Nguyen

      11/11/2010 at 1:38 am

      Thanks, Roger, I’ll update the post with your information.

    • dstrauss

      11/11/2010 at 4:35 pm

      I have real trouble believing this rumor: (1) they expressly state on their website that the delay is due to overwhelming demand (if it were a product defect, that would be fraud in the inducement to attract buyers); and (2) the first rumor, of a big “corporate” purchase is just as plausible, and fits better with what little we actually know. One or two big institutional orders would put all of us solo buyers in the back of the bus, and I couldn’t blame them for that. Couple it with the fact there is no way they would have built a big inventory for an item they obviously don’t (or hopefully now “didn’t”) have a lot of faith in would explain the lag time.

      Either way, Pollyana here still sees a bright future for the Slate 5xx series of computers.

  3. GoodThings2Life

    11/10/2010 at 11:56 pm

    I wouldn’t be surprised if the large order rumor is true. Especially since I’m sure they’ve had prototype units in the hands of partners for testing– if one of the partners wanted to buy a boat-load of them, it would stand to reason that they’d get first priority.

    I ordered one via CDW– no word on when it is set to ship. I’ll call tomorrow and try to find out. In the mean time, I bought one to test and see how flexible it is and how it really performs. I would love to be able to use them for my upcoming electronic medical record solution *IF* it’s a fit. Providing it is, I’d be looking to buy about 50.

    • ABA

      11/11/2010 at 8:19 am

      Drew, CDW wont’t ship for another 5 weeks, good luck
      ABA

  4. Roger

    11/11/2010 at 1:23 pm

    HP Website is updated, Slate 500 is back ordered for 6 weeks. They do not give you any specific ship date anymore.
    I can’t wait to receive mine.

  5. Mac

    11/11/2010 at 3:11 pm

    I’ll bet it overheats. LOL

  6. Anonymous

    11/11/2010 at 9:57 pm

    Every large business buyer that has helluva many tablet PCs that they are still supporting is probably jumping on this with both feet. I figured if I put in an order on the first day that I wasn’t going to get it. I’ll wait until January. Our state lab has a ton of TC1100s still kicking around. Not to mention the megagroup hospitals and clinics looking at these. Tablet PCs are very popular among the hospitals and clinics around here (Mid-Missouri). HP is going to swim in money just from the support deals if they can get these shipped out in quantity. I would push back individual orders too. Businesses and support contracts are where the cash is.

  7. dstrauss

    11/12/2010 at 5:25 pm

    I agree. From the perspective of the technorati in the tech press (unlike real tech sites ike this one and TabletPCReview), medical and other vertical markets are niche markets at best. This will be a goldmine for HP if they just ramp up volume. However, that may really be beyond their control if Apple has tied up supply as rumored in the market (supposedly Apple “owns” the flash and LCD markets for these types of devices – a Tim Cook speciality).

    Not to mention the totally unmined fields like education, law, insurance, real estate, etc. If they worked a deal with Microsoft to bundle OneNote with these Slates, they’d never have enough time to putter around with that consumer grade WebOS stuff…oh…right…that may be where our real problem is coming from – hoarding supplies for the iPad competitor they really don’t need.

  8. dstrauss

    11/12/2010 at 5:25 pm

    I agree. From the perspective of the technorati in the tech press (unlike real tech sites ike this one and TabletPCReview), medical and other vertical markets are niche markets at best. This will be a goldmine for HP if they just ramp up volume. However, that may really be beyond their control if Apple has tied up supply as rumored in the market (supposedly Apple “owns” the flash and LCD markets for these types of devices – a Tim Cook speciality).

    Not to mention the totally unmined fields like education, law, insurance, real estate, etc. If they worked a deal with Microsoft to bundle OneNote with these Slates, they’d never have enough time to putter around with that consumer grade WebOS stuff…oh…right…that may be where our real problem is coming from – hoarding supplies for the iPad competitor they really don’t need.

    • Anonymous

      11/12/2010 at 8:42 pm

      If HP is smart, they would be coding the crap out of some handwriting recognition software for WebOS and getting pen and touch drivers ready. Then they could tackle it from both sides. A thin and light WebOS tablet with OS-level handwriting recognition would sell a crazy amount of units.

  9. Mircea

    11/12/2010 at 8:25 pm

    I had ordered early on Oct. 22 and until today did not get the dreaded “wait” message, so I was fully hoping that I would be one of the few to get the slate on time, but alas, I just received this message:

    “We regret to inform you that your order xxxxxx has encountered a delay due to a temporary material shortage. We are working to fulfill your order as soon as possible and we will contact you again within 10 days if your order has not shipped.

    If you agree and if applicable, we could ship items separately to expedite your order. If you are unable to wait for shipment or would like to make any changes** to the order please contact HP by replying to this email or calling 800-888-0292 (Option 3). If we do not hear from you in the next 10 days we will assume that you agree to the delay and we will leave the order open.

    I remain at your disposal should you have any questions about this.

    With kind regards,
    HP Customer Service”

  10. dstrauss

    11/13/2010 at 4:21 pm

    How in heavens name can you make a day one order (I did as well) and run into delays beacuse of “temporary material shortage,” either:

    1. They only planned for a handful of orders (1,000?)
    2. There is (never was) any inventory
    3. “Big Corp” placed order bigger than first product run
    4. Not ready (yet) for prime time

    I ordered mine so early in the process it wasn’t even online yet – had to call direct to SMB sales desk, and it’s a no-show here as well. At first I tended to believe #3 (most logical that big order gets jumped in the queue), but now I beginning to worry it is leaning towards #4.

  11. Gog Gog

    11/15/2010 at 3:06 am

    Was abt to place my order and then thought so checking leading time as they are offering free shipping and found this site. I don’t want to place an order for something i am not sure when i will get it and why in the first place it’s delayed.

  12. Anonymous

    11/16/2010 at 11:45 pm

    For the last 2 days HPs tracking system has been telling me that mine has shipped. And that it will arrive “Today”… ???Something is definitely odd and/or fishy.

  13. dstrauss

    11/17/2010 at 9:36 pm

    The HP tracking system continues to spiral downwards. It is advancing the “planned” shipment and delivery dates by one calendar day each day so that it matches the current date (for example, my “planned” shipment was now 11/14 and planned delivery 11/17). Why – only heaven knows…but it is far below confidence inspiring and a I sense the restless natives are about to start an avalanche of cancellations (which probably the result they are looking for in the first place.

  14. Dzar

    11/22/2010 at 9:27 pm

    New information; Today I got this:

    We are still experiencing product availability challenges and, as a result, your order XXXXXXXXXX will be further delayed. We appreciate your business and will do our best to work with you to resolve this situation quickly.

    The following items are on backorder: SLT500UIN540RbTN064NBBNCN22Ya SLT500UIN540RbTN064NBBNCN22Ya

    It may be possible to ship available items separately or change one or more of the items on your order to expedite shipment. Please contact us by replying to this email or by calling 800-888-0292 (option 3) if you would like to make any adjustments to your order. You may also contact your designated Sales Representative to discuss the situation and alternative options.

    If we do not hear from you and we have not shipped the specified products prior to 12/30/2010, your order will be cancelled with a full refund. This action is consistent with federal regulations.

    —–

    So the B.S. continues (and the misspelling of “canceled” is odd…) It seems they DON”T WANT our orders. I banged on them and they gave me an updated ship date of December 16; that’s about the 10th date I’ve been give so I don’t believe it; I order on October 22.

    • Santino006

      11/23/2010 at 4:12 pm

      Same email I received yesterday. Does it even exist?

    • Santino006

      11/23/2010 at 4:12 pm

      Same email I received yesterday. Does it even exist?

    • thewerewolf

      11/25/2010 at 3:59 pm

      Actually, “cancelled” is how it’s spelled pretty much everywhere BUT the US. It’s possible the person who wrote the email was Canadian, for example.

  15. Dzar

    11/22/2010 at 9:27 pm

    New information; Today I got this:

    We are still experiencing product availability challenges and, as a result, your order XXXXXXXXXX will be further delayed. We appreciate your business and will do our best to work with you to resolve this situation quickly.

    The following items are on backorder: SLT500UIN540RbTN064NBBNCN22Ya SLT500UIN540RbTN064NBBNCN22Ya

    It may be possible to ship available items separately or change one or more of the items on your order to expedite shipment. Please contact us by replying to this email or by calling 800-888-0292 (option 3) if you would like to make any adjustments to your order. You may also contact your designated Sales Representative to discuss the situation and alternative options.

    If we do not hear from you and we have not shipped the specified products prior to 12/30/2010, your order will be cancelled with a full refund. This action is consistent with federal regulations.

    —–

    So the B.S. continues (and the misspelling of “canceled” is odd…) It seems they DON”T WANT our orders. I banged on them and they gave me an updated ship date of December 16; that’s about the 10th date I’ve been give so I don’t believe it; I order on October 22.

  16. Mikhail Ratchkovski

    11/23/2010 at 7:12 am

    We are still in the world where the best tablet money CAN’T buy

  17. Mikhail Ratchkovski

    11/23/2010 at 7:12 am

    We are still in the world where the best tablet money CAN’T buy

  18. Jeff Jackson

    11/23/2010 at 7:57 pm

    Bob, over on Tabletpcreview.com reported that he was told the following:

    “I was told that the forecast was to sell 5,000 units in two months. They have received about 12,000 orders so far. The first 5,000 were shipped and they are currently shipping 100 per day. I ordered on October 22. I was told to expect delivery around December 15th. And that a refund will be applied to my credit card upon shipment”

    If he was told the truth, then I imagine this 5,000 that has been shipped was to large corporate orders that were made before real persons were able to order on October 22. Let’s see. 7,000 backorders, 100 per day, 70 days to clear the current backlog. I think they need to ramp of production. If these things really work OK, once someone who actually knows how to use a tablet demos it on you-tube (I know I’m planning to film an in-depth review), they’re liable to see another order of magnitude (or two!) increase in orders. Shoot, even the Samsung Tab thingie has sold 600,000 already (and what is it good for?)!

    • acerbic

      11/23/2010 at 9:11 pm

      Does not compute, unless that order of 5000 went to NSA. Otherwise it wouldn’t stay secret for a month: there would have been unboxing videos all over Youtube by now.

    • thewerewolf

      11/25/2010 at 4:02 pm

      I agree… there’s something very fishy about the story.

      I ordered mine the morning it was ‘officially’ announced and mine hasn’t shown up. Unless they sold 5000 units in the first 4 hours – a LOT of people here should have theirs by now.

  19. Ghost74

    11/24/2010 at 12:27 am

    Ordered my Slate on 10/23. I just contacted HP regarding returning the AC adapter I ordered that was supposed to work with the Slate. The AC adapter listed as an accessory has a round plug and the Slate’s power socket is rectangular. They credited my CC and said keep the adapter. No big deal, I really want a 2nd dock anyway.

    While I had him on the phone I asked for an update on the status of my Slate. He told me some of the ones that were ordered on the 22nd started shipping. He couldn’t give me a date for mine but estimated next week.

  20. Fasta

    11/24/2010 at 6:27 pm

    I did order my slate on 11/3. Today finally on the Hp order status page i have a planned delivery date and it’s 21 december…. will see. Anyway they did’t take my money from credit card yet… How do you get that 100$ discont?

  21. Alex

    11/24/2010 at 10:45 pm

    I heard from someone else who posted on another forum that the discount was only for those who ordered prior to November 1st, but call the 1-800 number and ask. I can’t believe its taken this long to ship the Slate. It’s almost as if Steve Jobs himself bought out the first 5000 slates to sent HP scrambling to produce more. And that would also fit in with the fact that even though Slates have been supposedly shipped that no one has posted saying they recieved it .Just a suggestion :) I also heard that an HP rep told someone who ordered the first day that theirs should ship by Dec 5th. Guess we’ll have to wait and see.

  22. dstrauss

    11/25/2010 at 5:05 am

    I ordered mine on 10/22/2010 around 9:30 CDT. I was told yesterday by a telephone rep that mine is supposed to ship on Monday (11/29) from El Paso, TX and I should have it by 12/1. However, online order system still just rolls on one day at a time – advancing to the current date as the “planned delivery date.” We’ll see.

  23. Jeff Jackson

    11/25/2010 at 4:13 pm

    Looks like they solved the problem of getting too many orders. It’s no longer available for sale. :-( Nothing like ordering a product on day one and seeing it discontinued before you even get the order. I know product life cycles are short these days, but that’s rediculous. I not to thrilled about owning a product that’s already end-of-lifed. It better be spot-on perfect if and when I get it. I don’t want a repeat of the Gateway C-120X fiasco that was discontinued the month after I got it and never did get its sleep problems fixed. I’m tired of three years of using hibernate.

  24. thewerewolf

    11/25/2010 at 7:00 pm

    Errr… what do you mean ‘it’s no longer available for sale’? It’s still up at HP’s site. Nothing’s changed – still the 6 week backlog and call for availability…

  25. thewerewolf

    11/25/2010 at 7:02 pm

    Sidenote – the latest TX line tablet has replaced the nTrig screen with a Wacom one… I’m wondering if this is what’s caused the delay? That they’re replacing the nTrig screens on the Slates with Wacom ones? That would be fairly awesome…

    • Jeff Jackson

      11/26/2010 at 12:55 am

      I don’t think there’s any chance at all they changed it to Wacom. There is a post 10/22 update on HP support page that showed up a couple days ago. I think it’s the software for handling the keyboard button. That is most likely the software issue that was rumored. Last rumor of numbers I head was 12000. I wonder how many world have been ordered if they actually tried Go sell them?.

  26. Jeff Jackson

    11/26/2010 at 12:50 am

    How did you find that page? When I go to the HP site, I find this page:https://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF05a/321957-321957-64295-3841267-3955550-4332585.html?jumpid=re_r602_slate_body_psg_oct10_product

    Clicking on buying options tells you in nice big bold letters “The product you selected is not available in HP’s online store.”

    Is anyone surprised about getting an inconsistent story from HP still? They seem to be trying real hard to fail.

  27. Jeff Jackson

    11/26/2010 at 11:23 pm

    The page I looked at can be found by going to hp.com/slate and clicking through to the product page. Yeah, the ifanbois have been running scared at this thing, running it down sight unseen. The digs at the ctl-alt-del have been especially insane. You know a reboot anymore, but is used for domain logins. I haven’t seen a blue screen for years now. And that was due to a hard drive failure.

    • The Werewolf

      11/27/2010 at 4:23 am

      I just point out that the “advantages” of the iPad are that it’s simpler, easier to use, doesn’t require a pen and the ability to write with one, doesn’t have too many confusing buttons, only runs one app at a time so you’re not distracted or bewildered, doesn’t let you do complex painting or drawing… in other words – the iPad is the tablet of the proudly mentally challenged.

      • ChrisRs

        11/27/2010 at 3:16 pm

        But it is available and you can actually touch one in a store.

        Fess up HP! What its going on?

        • The Werewolf

          11/28/2010 at 1:40 pm

          This is true – but clearly the fact that 12,000+ people have ordered the HP Slate and have been waiting in a holding pattern for over four weeks now for a product that so far doesn’t exist says a lot. The Slate has what is, unfortunately, a unique combination: a slate with capacitive touch AND a wacom-style digitiser pen running full Windows 7.

          None of the existing slates – iPad included – can do what we think the HP Slate will be able do.

        • Steve S

          11/29/2010 at 1:19 am

          Were: To the best of my knowledge, the Slate 500 digitizer is N-trig, not Wacom. However, it’s gen 2 digital components and N-trig’s Digital Pencil, so it’s different hardware than that used on the tx2…

  28. Norman D. Robinson

    11/28/2010 at 2:18 am

    I too am very concerned as to what is really going on at “HP”….!!! What are you really up to “HP”…!!! I want what I ordered. Without issue.

  29. Jeff Jackson

    11/28/2010 at 1:16 pm

    I don’t think I really care about integrated 3G. It’s too expensive to pay separately for every device. When I need to go online while on the go, I’ll just run wmwifirouter on my phone. The advantage of having real applictions instead of toy apps is I can do most of my work with it offline anyway. Logos4, OneNote, Word, a little Photoshop, maybe some FrameMaker. What I wish is it had the integreated GPS. Hopefully they’ll support adding that in later.

    • The Werewolf

      11/28/2010 at 1:42 pm

      There are several *very* small external Bluetooth GPSes you can use with the slate. And as for 3G, you can connect most smartphones to the slate over BT as well.

  30. The Werewolf

    11/28/2010 at 1:43 pm

    HP’s order status page just changed. The old link I’ve been using to jump directly to my order no longer works and they’ve changed the Order Status request page for SMB to require different information.

    VERY frustrating.

    • Jeff Jackson

      11/28/2010 at 8:12 pm

      You can get to an order status page? I just get page not found even from hp.com’s links.

      • The Werewolf

        11/29/2010 at 10:13 pm

        I couldn’t get to my order from the new page – but this morning it reverted back to the original order page and Im’ getting the usual ‘expected delivery date’ is today thing… *sigh* Still, Santino said he’s gotten an actually shipment notification today.

        6 weeks from 22 Oct is this Friday… so hopefully we’ll all start getting shipment notifications.

  31. Santino006

    11/29/2010 at 7:25 pm

    I received a shipment notifcation this morning, appears to be droped shipped from far east. Ordered 10/22

    • Roger

      11/30/2010 at 1:44 pm

      did they provide any tracking information?

  32. Roger

    11/29/2010 at 10:55 pm

    I just received e.mail from hp confirming shipdate of Dec.7th. Lets see what happens.
    I ordered my slate on Oct.23rd

    • Jeff Jackson

      12/07/2010 at 3:51 pm

      Did it ship today? I ordered on 22nd and they tell me they have no idea when it’ll ship.

  33. dstrauss

    11/30/2010 at 8:05 pm

    The SLT500 is indeed shipping (from Shanghai, CN) – some folks will see their’s Friday, but it appears that a larger group will hit the ground next Monday (12/6). Expect first reviews over the weekend and a lot of activity next week.

  34. Santino006

    12/01/2010 at 10:42 pm

    They arrived today for me. The first thing I noticed is the win 7 interface needs some work to make it pad ready, you’ll need the pen to set the time correctly. Other then that I just patched it out today. I have to see if there is a usb to wired ethernet device so I can join to to the domain and load up software.

  35. Anonymous

    12/09/2010 at 1:13 am

    hp has no clue when my order will be shipped. I ordered it on oct.23rd. Each time i call they give me a different ship date. Now they are assuring me the ship date of end of dec.
    Lets See.

  36. Jeff Jackson

    12/19/2010 at 9:03 pm

    I ordered Oct 22. Friday, I was told my ship date is Jan.7. So much for getting to play with mine over Christmas.

  37. [email protected]

    12/20/2010 at 12:41 am

    Friday the 17th, I was told mine would ship on December 20th. I ordered Oct 24th, so Jeff, I wonder which date is correct and if HP call center even knows or are just being told to give random dates. Really not cool, out of principle I will cancel if not available by the end of the year. I’m sick of this crap from a giant computer company like HP, and I’m a physician, and will tell the major arizona health system I work with that HP is completely unreliable. HP should at least be honest with us as to what exactly the delay is from!!

  38. les

    12/29/2011 at 12:28 am

    does this thing support mobile calling

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