So, my wife wants a Surface 2 for Christmas. Don’t ask me why; she wants what she wants. She doesn’t ask for much, so I wanted to make her happy. Besides, I figured it would be easy – how many other people are out there jonesing for a Surface 2? A couple of keystrokes and I’m done.
Nope. It’s not going to be easy. Microsoft has RUN OUT of the Surface 2. It’s their freaking flagship product, and they don’t have enough of them. How do you run out of something nobody really wants? Is there really a groundswell of demand for this dour gray Micro-slab? Or did the company anticipate it being as hated as the Surface 1 and lowball its production targets?
The reviews have been much better for the 2nd generation Surface and Surface Pro. Pretty much all of the big PC and tablet manufacturers (besides Apple of course) are making Windows 8 tablets, often for less than the Surface 2, many with full windows 8. If you can’t scrounge up a Surface 2 there are plenty others to choose from. Unless it absolutely has to be a Surface 2.
The inventories everywhere are fluctuating rather wildly. Sometimes the online Microsoft store will have say, the 256 GB model up for a mere 6 hours from 11pm-5am before selling out again. If you’re looking for a particular model of the Surface, I’d watch the Microsoft website, TigerDirect, Newegg, Best Buy…and I think even Staples.
I visited my local Microsoft store twice before they had the model I wanted, but persistence pays off.
I believe it’s a combination of lowballing it and having a demand increase over last year. Do you remember when Sony ran out of Playstation 3’s, Nintendo out of Wiis, Apple out of iPhones? Companies run out of their flagship products all the time. It’s not a big surprise. You could also cite every hot new toy - Furbies, Beanie Babies, Tickle Me Elmos…you have to plan ahead.
Maybe you should’ve done a bit more research before waiting for the week before Christmas to buy - the Surface 2 has had certain models selling out even before release day in October (preorders soaked up all their inventory). Microsoft has been fighting ever since to get the barges from China to go fast enough since then. They even ran out of the plug-in keyboards.
Success! I had to drive to a Best Buy on the other side of the county chasing a phantom and visit the Microsoft store twice in one day, but I got lucky!
And yes, I suppose you can bust my chops, but she only recently decided that this was something she wanted, and I suspect she has no idea about the shortage. For whatever reason, this seems to have gotten nothing like the publicity of the similar problems with the iPad or Elmo. Which kind of makes me wonder if the demand really isn’t that big, and that the supply is just even lower.
And in further defense of my complaining, I will note that when I found the Surface 2 to be out of stock at Microsoft.com, I started looking at the other Windows tablets advertised on Microsoft’s online store. Five of the seven 10-inch tablets were out of stock. Same was true of half of the laptops. If the whole store’s half empty, I think it’s fair to suggest that in part the company, and not just the customer, has planned poorly.
FWIW, I read this article in Slate about how desolate the Microsoft store in NoVa was on a Sunday at noon, and decided to pop in yesterday now that I’m in the area, expecting the worst. I wouldn’t say the place was as packed as the Apple store, but there were at least 50 people there, on a Tuesday evening, about 7pm. They had a Makerbot Replicator set up, and there’s a gaming area in the back where some guys were playing Madden 25. Lots of shoppers checking out the various tablets and ultrabooks, which are surprisingly affordable.
I have a Surface 1 that I appreciate from a technical perspective, but barely use because it’s still a tablet. Seeing all of the “full” Windows 8.1 tablets made me jealous. I’m surprised they’re out of stock on RT products, which are somewhat useless, but I think Microsoft is going to be redeemed on the their Windows 8 strategy.
I enjoy the stores quit a bit. The people working at the stores are friendly and reasonably knowledgeable, and they have the purchase process down to a fast, efficient clip.
Well, it’s easy to offer a good price on something they don’t have available to sell.
