:awe:
Just got the email - Best Buy has my 128GB. Will be going to pick it up in a few moments.
They're back to out of stock on the Microsoft Store webpage. They were available last night, but I was looking at it in bed and figured I'd order in the morning. Out of stock again by 6am. Seems like it's going to be a month before I can get one...
If you don't mind dealing with Best Buy, walk into your nearest store and ask to reserve one. Supposedly, they are only allowing reservations for units they know will be arriving sometime next week - so it seems like there will be week-to-week reservation limits until they can simply begin stocking them without requiring reservations (when supply finally meets demand).
[edit: I was just looking at bestbuy's in-store stock for the NW Ohio region - quite a few list units in stock. Your local store might just be getting in some today as well. It would appear our area stores got enough to satisfy their reservations and more still to put on the shelves. Hopefully they have enough accessories.]
There was a good article that provides a reasonable explanation as to why this is happening (it's not official, but it makes sense).
They supposedly started manufacturing the Pro's mid-January. That's when they started rolling them off the line... in China.
Launch was February 9th. They probably should have delayed the launch date, but they were afraid of that after already having done so a few times.
The article went on to suggest they used a freighter (boat) for the main inventory, but likely did air-freight a fair amount so they could distribute at least some to their stores and retail partners. Which explains why Best Buy had so little on hand at first, because Microsoft was probably just beginning to get hands on the main shipment from China. And then they were probably staging another large inventory to freight by boat, probably having a week's worth of product on it.
Those boats take typically two weeks (give or take a few days), so they were on a time crunch like no other - and I doubt they used air to ship hundreds of thousands of units. Maybe tens of thousands, at considerable expense, just to have some product on the streets in time. Which is mighty nice of them at least, that air freight probably took a fair chunk out of their margins on the 64GB model.
Which was the model they most likely produced the most of at first - for whatever backward strategy they cooked up. It's a good storage size for regular tablets, but not for a modern x86 OS. If they continue to produce the 64GB model at all, it's probably going to get the back burner to the 128GB units - maybe produce 1x 64GB unit for every 5x 128GB units.
I just hope Microsoft gets this battery-keyboard "dock" out sooner rather than later. If they make it anything like the upcoming Thinkpad Helix's keyboard dock (with second battery), that dock's hinge actually adds another inch or two to the physical height/width of the tablet (bottom to top when staring at screen). By doing so, it enables the keyboard to actually stretch out a little bit, get a little more roomy. Thus, the keyboard can be a little less cramped, and it can be given a decently-sized trackpad.
So not only would they have the opportunity to double the battery life of the Surface Pro (cramming another 42Wh battery underneath an inflexible keyboard wouldn't require much space at all), they could also give it an even friendlier keyboard and trackpad.
If they price that right (in reality, it probably doesn't even matter what they price it, within reason), it'll sell like hotcakes. I'd hope it would be no more than, say, $150.... I'd kick, moan and scream the whole way, but I might, just might, even pay $200 if it was well designed, solid, fairly light, and worked magnificently.
For the hinge to support the "screen", I'm curious if there is a minimum weight for the keyboard dock itself to prevent it from just tipping over. I'd hope they could make such a dock that would allow it to remain "propped up" without requiring the kickstand - thus, allowing it to enter new territory: the world of a small true laptop (one that can be used on your lap!).
I'm fine with the trade-offs for now, but what helped sell me on the Pro was the fact that the engineering team specifically made mention of such possibilities thanks to the inclusion of additional contacts on the accessory spine near the keyboard pogo contacts, capable of "additional current."