Talk Me Down, ASUS

Thanks Dangerously Drawn for summing up the wait process for my Blue Object of Desire.

I would like to call this drawing, "Preeee-release Madness"

As you know from my last post, I pre-ordered a blue ASUS 1000HE 10" netbook from Amazon. I ordered from Amazon not only because we had a $50 gift certificate from Christmas, or the reliable return policy, but because Amazon is the huge 900 lbs gorilla who should be getting a huge bulk of timely shipments. You would think that since Amazon has the most positive user reviews on the net of their eee 1000h series (in fact those reviews convinced us to settle on the Asus brand more than all the professional tech reviews), they would get a little love. I called Amazon and they told me they knew nothing about when they will get or ship them out. Yet, I go to their site and find posts like these:

- tukewl4u720 says:

Amazon rep said they're shipping the first batch now.
- Sami Abu-hantash says:

I asked someone at Amazon and they told me Mid March. I am starting to lose hope.
- TJ Power says:

I also asked Amazon, and they replied with April 14th. I'm starting to lose hope as well...

- They will be shipping the 16th. According to the Asus rep on the facebook group - Their US distribution company will be receiving them on the 13th, and they should be in retailers hands by the next week - so the 16th through the 20th would be reasonable... Amazon usually gets stuff early so I'm crossing my fingers for next Monday/Tuesday.

Then we had Techtweeter via Zicklepop giving us a 2-20-09 release date (from retail sources) after Zickel-P got an Amazon iphone App estimate of mid-April.

To me, as a consumer, it looks to me that neither Amazon, nor Asus is talking to each other to nail down release dates. It was that last post that got me to pre-order as it wasn't much of a wait. Even the 2-23-09 approximate date wasn't too bad. It wouldn't matter about the release time if everyone had to wait, but J&R, ZipZoomFly, and some Ebay e-tailers had them and were selling them. J&R is now sold out, but ZipZoomFly continues to sell them at a slightly higher price.

Then there comes a rumor that only the black model is going to released now, and the blue one will be released at a later date unknown. Wait a second! There was no indication that there were going to be a seperate release of the blue unit from the black unit. If I had known that I would have ordered the black one. Now, if I change my order it would put me farther back in the queue. When it comes down to it I really want the blue one. I have Asus people saying they will look into this one.

A lot of the problem is this flurry of rumors. These rumors grab hold because of the absence of clear communication by ASUS. They put out the announcement, they generate a lot of press mention, have a facebook site and pre-release sale. They shouldn't have created buzz that they couldn't respond to. They should have had a time-table of when these units will be ready, shipped, sent out to retailers, and tell that to their customers. If Amazon or any other retailer lags, it would reflect on those retailers, not ASUS. Unfortunately, ASUS hasn't done that.

All I want is the blue shiny 1000HE that I can coo and write how much I love it to the world.

It looks like I may need a miracle.

Stay tuned.