Motion LE1700 with Vista delayed until July 31

I think that OEMs are having problems with battery life under Vista, a meme that keeps raising its ugly head over and over.  The lastest OEM falling victim to this (that’s just speculation on my part) is Motion Computing, who recently announced that their newest slate Tablet PC, the LE1700, will be delayed until July 31, at least the Vista version at any rate.  Motion doesn’t say that battery life is the problem but did make this statement about the delay:

Motion has postponed the shipment of Vista on the LE1700 toJuly 31, 2007 to allow time for further testing. Recent industry-widetesting of Vista has revealed critical errors that Motion has alsoobserved while running Vista on the Motion LE1700. Although thispostponement is very disappointing, Motion has made this decision toensure a stable Vista environment for our current and future LE1700customer base.

Rob Bushway of GottaBeMobile has the same thoughts I do about battery life and this announcement, at least we both hope they are addressing this issue.  Rob has played with a pre-production LE1700 unit and his battery life was just an hour and 40 minutes.  Of course, pre-production units often get worse battery life than final shipping units but even so that run time is pretty pathetic.  Here’s hoping Motion gets this right (they usually do) and can get this unit out in the public soon.  I think the LE1700 is the sweetest slate ever and can’t wait to play with one.

As for battery life under Vista, anybody remember this CNET article from last year?  It was referring to Vista Beta 2 but read it through and see if it doesn’t sound like what’s going on right now.