It’s completely unclear exactly how many units of the ZenPad S 8.0 Z580CA that Newegg.com had access to, but one thing is clear. They are sold out. There is no backorder button, there is no pre order button. They are just sold out right now.
If you look at other retailers, the big ones like Amazon.com, you have seen a fluctuation in availability. During the day yesterday, Amazon.com showed Z580CA as available to buy now, but has since put up a temporary not available notice.
It’s not entirely clear if this is a case of only a few units making to the US market or if this is a case of strong sales/demand. The $199 Z580C appeared to be popular enough over the past month at Best Buy when it was an exclusive that they increased the price by $30. Best Buy has since lowered back the price and now make it sound like you’re saving $30 when they are selling it back where it started at $199.
It’s just interesting to see how this Z580CA launch in the US market has gone so far. Tablet sales in general are quite soft, but perhaps the specs and price hit a sweet spot with consumers and those that know about this tablet now, are buying it up.
What we certainly hope for is more units for the US market, and pronto. Further, we hope to see the Clutch case and the TriCover case come to the market as people are ordering and receiving their Z580CA tablet. You can try Adorama for the TriCover case at the time or writing, but it’s unclear to us whether they are backordering or if they have them in stock, shipping now.
Because we’ve been tracking the ZenPad tablets from the start, we are very interested in seeing how this hero Z580CA release turns out. The US market is a massive market and Asus needs to make some ground up on the competition like Samsung. The question for us has been whether the Z580CA is the tablet to do the trick.