Asus eee Transformer Sold Out, But Who Bought Them?

The Motorola Xoom isn't xoom-ing off the shelves, but the Asus eee Pad Transformer tablet apparently sold out at Bestbuy.com on its first day of launch.

At $399, the lowest-priced of the Android tablets combines a dual-core Nvidia Tegra 2 processor, Android 3.0 ("Honeycomb") operating system, 10.1-inch display, dual-facing cameras, and 16GB of storage. It uses the Corning Gorilla Glass technology to protect it from scrapes and drops, and supports up to 10-finger multitouch support against its 1,280-by-800 resolution. As its name implies, it transforms from a laptop to tablet.

Launched in U.S. stores on Tuesday, the tablet appears to be sold out at BestBuy.com, though it is unclear whether or not Asus simply didn't stock a reasonable amount. A Best Buy salesman said Asus didn't have enough tablets to stock its brick and mortar stores, and that Best Buy's online retail stores had already sold out. "But UPS may be on the way right now," the salesman said.

Last week Asus released a statement apologizing to UK customers for selling out of Transformer tablets so quickly. "Initial demand for the Eee Pad Transformer has been far beyond our expectations," the company said. "Following the on-sale date (6th April 2011) the first batches delivered to the UK have entirely sold out. Please accept our sincere apologies for the difficulties regarding stock availability with our retail partners."

Perhaps the Transformer is the iPad 2 competitor everyone's been waiting for; CES favorites like the Motorola Xoom and BlackBerry PlayBook have not found much favor yet with consumers. See how the hottest tablets compare in "iPad 2 vs. Xoom vs. PlayBook: How the Hottest Tablets Rate."

Also check out the Transformer slideshow below and our "Hands-on with the Asus eee Pad Transformer from CES 2011.