Hasta La Gadget!

We may have to wait until summer to purchase a webOS slate, but it won’t be summer’s end — PreCentral reports that the company has confirmed a June release date for the HP TouchPad. At the enterprise-oriented HP Summit in San Francisco, CEO Leo Apotheker finally offered the month of release, and also reportedly said that the company’s full-force webOS on PC initiative will begin in a humble way — the beta will run in a web browser, and we’ll see it by the end of the year.

HP TouchPad coming June, webOS for PC beta by year’s end originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 14 Mar 2011 17:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Available in white or black, Apple's new iPad 2 is 33 percent thinner than its predecessor. Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com

You’d have to be extremely lucky to find an iPad 2 at your local Apple store, because the tablet seems to be sold out everywhere.

The iPad 2, which went on sale 5 p.m. Friday, was completely sold out by the end of the weekend, according to financial analyst Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray.

Even the ninth person standing in line for an iPad 2 at an Apple store in Los Angeles couldn’t get the model he wanted (a white, 64-GB iPad 2 with 3G), reports 9 to 5 Mac.

Piper Jaffray’s Munster estimates that between 400,000 and 500,000 units of the iPad 2 sold over the weekend, compared to 300,000 iPad 1s sold in its launch weekend last year.

That’s a lot of iPads, but the iPhone is still Apple’s hottest selling product. The iPhone 4 sold 1.7 million units in opening weekend.

So that means if you weren’t one of the eager line waiters, you’ll have to wait a while if you want an iPad 2. On Friday, Apple’s website quoted an estimated delivery time of two to three weeks for an iPad 2 ordered online, and as of this morning, that ETA has been updated to three to four weeks.

While you’re waiting, make sure to check out Wired.com’s review of the iPad 2, which went live Monday afternoon.

See Also:

• Want an iPad 2? Be Prepared to Wait
• Roundup: iPad 2 Reviews in 140 Characters or Fewer

Sprint and Kyocera have announced the release date for the Kyocera Echo, the first 3D phone. Staring this April 17th, you can buy the Echo for $200 with a 2 year contract from Sprint.

Thus far, Kyocera has not released any info about other carrier options. However, the company didn’t state that the phone will be exclusive to the Sprint network. Only time will tell if it will be offered on additional networks. You can pre-order the phone starting on March 26th.

Via Engadget

The HP TouchPad, one of this year's crop of new tablets. Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

With the iPad 2 finally available, do other tablets stand a chance?

Last week, Forrester analyst Sarah Rotman Epps made the assertion that although this year’s non-Apple tablet offerings are “solid products,” they have “fatally flawed product strategies.”

The post called out iPad 2 contenders like the BlackBerry PlayBook and HP TouchPad, as well as Android Honeycomb tablets by manufacturers such as Toshiba and Motorola. Such tablets, Epps claims, won’t be able to compete with the low price point and in-store experience that Apple can provide, leading to Forrester’s prediction that Apple will score upwards of 80 percent of the U.S. tablet market in 2011.

Will that actually happen?

Motorola CFO Francis Shammo said that “the XOOM pad is selling extremely well” at the Deutsche Bank Media and Telecom Conference on Tuesday. Samsung’s original 7-inch Galaxy Tab had good reception, selling over a million units. But the iPad reached three times that number in only 80 days, and early reports suggest the iPad 2 may have sold over 500,000 in its first weekend.

So if tech giants like Samsung and Motorola can’t compete with Apple’s tablet, is there anybody that can? Epps points to Amazon as a possible underdog.

According to Forrester’s data, consumers would rather purchase a tablet from a retailer like Amazon than a carrier like Motorola (24 percent versus 18 percent). Amazon has the incentive — and ability — to develop a product that would rival the iPad. Apple’s updated subscription policy has garnered the ire of publishers and app makers alike (Amazon and its Kindle app not excluded). And Amazon’s hardware chops have already been proven with the success of its Kindle e-reader.

Microsoft, Vizio and Sony also have the resources to become major players in the tablet arena.

In the meantime, tablets that target niche markets like business folks, gamers and kids could be manufacturers’ best way to slowly chip away at Apple’s dominance. Steve Jobs already branded the iPad 2 as a device for creation.

It’s up to the tablet makers and marketers to show that their solid products can shine. Their product strategies may be flawed, but they’re not fatal … yet.

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Why iPad 2 Won’t Have Much Competition [Forrester via Forbes]

AT&T acknowledges that its 4G devices are not fully capable yet, so why do they advertise them as such?

Originally posted at Dialed In