Plastic Logic Que Delayed…Who’s Next?

Posted on 14 March 2010 by


Remember the Plastic Logic Que? It was quite the hit at CES, with a thin form factor, plastic touchscreen, and full suite of productivity options to go along with its ebook reading capabilities. It was pricey, at $649 for a WiFi-only version and $799 for a 3G+WiFi option. Still, it was unusual enough that it generated a great deal of buzz.

Anyone who pre-ordered a Plastic Logic Que Reader received this email on Friday:

Dear _____,

Thank you for being one of the first customers to order a QUE proReader from Plastic Logic. We appreciate your business.

Today, I wanted to personally inform you that we are postponing the first QUE proReader shipments until this Summer in order to fine-tune the features and enhance the overall product experience.

Within the next month we will send you an email with more details about your order. If you also ordered accessories for your QUE proReader, we plan to ship them at the same time as your QUE proReader.

I can imagine that you want to get your QUE proReader as soon as possible. We are sorry for the delay. For your inconvenience, the shipping charges will be on us.

Please note that we will not charge your credit card until your order is ready to ship.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to email us at QUEhelp@PlasticLogic.com

Once again, thank you for being one of our first QUE proReader customers.

Best regards,

Richard Archuleta
CEO
Plastic Logic

As I am sure you can imagine, people are less than thrilled. But it’s not just Plastic Logic; the Alex Reader was also quietly delayed, and there hasn’t been a peep from Skiff since CES. Attrition is swift in the tech world, but this is ridiculous! Some of this is that these devices were competing against the Kindle, and now with the iPad weighing in, they have another bigger, deeper pocketed competitor. It makes sense that there would be some behind the scenes tweaks to adjust accordingly.

Still, if we use some of the big CES announcements as a yardstick, so far only the Entourage Edge has actually shipped on time! Everything else is either still in prototype form (Adam Tablet), delayed (Alex and Que) or just plain missing in action (Skiff). Plastic Logic was especially harmed by the disparity in their 3G and wifi options. Whether or not the Que can conclusively offer a better experience in some areas over the iPad, they are facing an uphill battle to convince consumers on the pricing front. Maybe what they are tweaking is the pricing structure?

Dan said this the other day when the news first hit about the Que reader, and it really sums up the current tablet/ebook market:

We are going to see more vaporware this year than we have seen in a long long long long time…

I would bet on it.

This post was written by:

- who has written 925 posts on Gear Diary.

Carly has been a gadget fiend for a long time, going back to her first PDA (a Palm M100). She quickly went from researching what PDA to buy to following tech news closely and keeping up with the latest and greatest stuff. She loves writing about ebooks because they combine her two favorite activities; reading anything and everything, and talking about fun new tech toys. What could be better?

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  • http://www.geardiary.com Douglas Moran

    I just love how companies characterize stuff like this. I’ve been at a lot of different companies in the tech industry, and whenever a shipping date moves out, we always say, “There’s going to be a slip.” A “slip”, like you just hit an unexpected patch of ice, or oil, or something, and you slid a little bit but you’re still on your feet and heading for the finish line.

    But I guess you can’t say that to customers, so you have to talk around it. This one is particularly good: “fine-tune the features and enhance the overall product experience.” I don’t think they’re tweaking stuff to make it more competitive with the iPad, nook, and Kindle; I think they had a slip. The chip company can’t have the line ramped up to manufacture chips in bulk; there’s still a critical error in the software that they haven’t been able to chase down; a last minute glitch showed up somewhere in the hardware–the components generate more heat than they thought, or something. They’ve had a slip, is all. Oops.

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  • crquetzals

    I am incredibly sad about this. Of all the ereaders it seemed like the Que was the one that I was going to get. I loved the size and the native pdf and the touchscreen. I eagerly waited the reports from CES. I even followed them on Facebook. When they released specs at CES I was disappointed to say the least. No microSD slot and a price scheme that seemed astronomical compared to the the others out there. I considered it even with these short comings. On the facebook discussion I left suggestions that were well received by people on how to make it a must have for college students and professors. There was no word from Plastic Logic. Now a delay in release. This is a bad omen. They have been working on this for 10 years and when they were about to cross the finish line, this delay.
    CES Vaporware 2010? We will have to wait and see.