Well, This Sucks

[BrianM]

I ordered a SP2 512Gb on 9/27. Estimated ship date, October 25. About a week ago, I get an alert from Amex about a possible fraudulent charge from Microsoft. I immediately call and tell them it's legit, but for reasons that no one at Amex can explain, they had already rejected the charge.

I call Microsoft and they say, "No problem! You'll get an e-mail on Friday about billing. Just follow the link and you're good to go. No change to your place in line." I call back to double-check and get the same story. Friday, as promised, I get the e-mail. I click the link, and after step 2 of 3, I get a website error: number, database error something. About 20 seconds later, I get an e-mail telling me my order was CANCELLED.

I call Microsoft and again, "No problem. We'll take care of it and it won't affect your place in the line." Someone will call me within 24 hours.

24 hours comes and goes, no call. I call Microsoft again. "This a problem with the website. We've had lots of cases like this. We'll take care of it."

An hour later, Microsoft calls and tells me my order is cancelled and they are out of stock. So sorry. I ask to speak to a supervisor. There is no supervisor. However, they will give me a $100 Microsoft store credit. I don't want the $100, I want my $2000 Surface Pro!

I call Microsoft customer support. They are very nice, but my order has been cancelled and the 512Gb are out of stock and they can't even place a new order for me.
So, six Microsoft customer service case numbers later, I have no Pro 2 order.

Later in the day, the 512Gb is again available for order. Estimated delivery date, December 15.

Anyone else had problems like this, or do I just have really bad karma?

 

[oion]

It's just bad luck with the timing for you. My credit card had no problem because I had purchased a Surface RT before and other big computer things in the past years. Anyway, the stock problem was reported for the 512GB model--I'm guessing MS didn't realize how popular the highest price point might be, or there are actual manufacturing issues that it's being pushed out (no one knows). For a while, even the 256 model was out of stock, but people are reporting that there are plenty of those units in (certain) stores now. Given that the 256 was initially also pushed out to December but is now in stock, the dates are probably fluid. I'd keep checking. No idea if the 512 exists in any physical stores, though.

 

[mitchellvii]

The cricket king is paying you back for killing all of his subjects with firecrackers when you were 8.

I was once out in Miami on a date with a very attractive young lady. I paid with my AMEX card and they declined it because I'm not from Miami and for some reason they flagged it as possible fraud. Well to say the least I was quite embarrassed and PISSED. I raised some serious hell with them. Can you imagine having a perfectly good credit card declined in front of a date?

They gave me the whole, "We apologize for any inconvenience we have caused you," line. I wanted blood.

 

[macmee]

The way they stocked this unit and the accessories was very disorganized.

In my entire Province:
* BestBuy never received ANY touch or type cover pro 2s
* Futureshop never received any either
* Staples never even carried the SP2, had no clue it even came out
* There is no Microsoft store in Halifax so no luck there
* Virtually every store was sold out of SP2s (fair enough, I drive an hour out of my way to snag a 256gb model), but every store had FAR too many RT units in stock, and nobody was buying them

This is so foolish. It is impossible, *impossible* to buy a touch cover 2 for me. The only Canadian online vendor is the Microsoft Store online, which was sold out from the beginning. Other than that, no vendor near me even had any of these covers in stock in the first place.

I have to go naked with my SP2, no cover whatsoever, because it's impossible to get touch/type cover 2s in Nova Scotia. Literally, impossible.

And on about the RT mess... I like my SP2, it's great, but what on EARTH were Microsoft thinking? They couldn't move RTs last year and swallowed 900 million dollars because of it. I'm confused as to why they're continuing to push RT devices out like they are. If Microsoft's heart is set on selling a more basic version of the Surface, they either need to switch to an Atom or to open up the RT platform more than it is right now. If Last year Microsoft opened RT up or sold Atom Surfaces, and if they intentionally sold the devices at a 900 million dollar loss, they would be killing it right now, instead of struggling to make up for lost ground.

tldr; love my SP2, hate how the Microsoft business model is so disorganized.

 

[oion]

The way they stocked this unit and the accessories was very disorganized.

tldr; love my SP2, hate how the Microsoft business model is so disorganized.

Oh, it's true. One hilariously awful "left hand doesn't know what right hand is doing" would have to be the dock--not supposed to be out until NEXT year, all the news blurbs mention that as well, and lo, this past week people have been buying them in stores and online.

Now, I think I mentioned this in another thread, but there are 3rd party sellers out there that are willing to ship overseas (there's one on eBay now). The downside, obviously, is that you're much more likely to pay out the nose. There are also proxy services that will buy from U.S. stores and ship overseas to certain countries, obviously with a fee, but those are risky in terms of legitimacy.

 

[ALLCAPS]

Just terrible luck friend. The sp2 is an awesome product but I doubt they could have botched it much more than they have with stock.

 

[The White Falcon]

Intel's Atom chips are crappy on the GPU front. The Tegra 4 leaves Bay Trail in the dust. Considering that the Surface is good for gaming, I'd rather them keep it that way. I had an Atom netbook and it chugged watching 480i YouTube videos on a 1024x600 display in full screen mode. Battery life is another factor. RT has a market yet-and if they decide to put RT on the phones eventually, then you'll have a unified experience and easier app development.

The way they stocked this unit and the accessories was very disorganized.

In my entire Province:
* BestBuy never received ANY touch or type cover pro 2s
* Futureshop never received any either
* Staples never even carried the SP2, had no clue it even came out
* There is no Microsoft store in Halifax so no luck there
* Virtually every store was sold out of SP2s (fair enough, I drive an hour out of my way to snag a 256gb model), but every store had FAR too many RT units in stock, and nobody was buying them

This is so foolish. It is impossible, *impossible* to buy a touch cover 2 for me. The only Canadian online vendor is the Microsoft Store online, which was sold out from the beginning. Other than that, no vendor near me even had any of these covers in stock in the first place.

I have to go naked with my SP2, no cover whatsoever, because it's impossible to get touch/type cover 2s in Nova Scotia. Literally, impossible.

And on about the RT mess... I like my SP2, it's great, but what on EARTH were Microsoft thinking? They couldn't move RTs last year and swallowed 900 million dollars because of it. I'm confused as to why they're continuing to push RT devices out like they are. If Microsoft's heart is set on selling a more basic version of the Surface, they either need to switch to an Atom or to open up the RT platform more than it is right now. If Last year Microsoft opened RT up or sold Atom Surfaces, and if they intentionally sold the devices at a 900 million dollar loss, they would be killing it right now, instead of struggling to make up for lost ground.

tldr; love my SP2, hate how the Microsoft business model is so disorganized.

 

[ALLCAPS]

If MS just let people develop .net apps for rt without having to jailbreak I think there would be a lot more reason to consider one, but my local area is the same way. Pro2 sold out all over, enough RT to build a fort put of. Shame.

 

[oion]

If MS just let people develop .net apps for rt without having to jailbreak I think there would be a lot more reason to consider one, but my local area is the same way. Pro2 sold out all over, enough RT to build a fort put of. Shame.

The XDA jailbreak was killed with 8.1 anyway.

But really, many people don't need more than a web browser and the Office suite (especially since Outlook is in it now). It just a matter of the right people finding the right device for them.

As for the Atom argument, I believe Lisa Gade when she commented that sure, you could get a low-power Atom with full Windows, but then everything would be slow. The Tegra4 with WinRT 8.1 and Office RT, on the other hand, is quite fast.

 

[ALLCAPS]

Why kill it, though? Why even make it a jailbreak? Why not just let RT be it's own OS, instead of being a partial slice of actual grown-up Windows?

Why does Microsoft care if I run software on a tablet I bought? It's not like it's something you can do by accident, and open yourself up to security issues without knowing it. You know what you're doing if you decide to jailbreak. It's not even to protect the Windows store in any way. You can already use the Windows store on any Windows 8 computer, and you can run whatever you want there. I don't see the boon to Microsoft that I can't run Quake 2 on RT if I want to. How does that sell more tablets for them? It makes RT as a whole less attractive, when it's already not selling. The Best Buy in my town has piles and piles of them in topstock, but no Pros at all.

I know I sound like I'm just hating, but I'm just upset. Windows RT, and all the cheap devices that run it, are one setting away from being these amazing low power, low cost, high battery life, highly portable amazing machines that the homebrew community would dogpile on top of. The first Surface RT sold what, like ten units total?, and it has pages of ported programs and games on XDA, and the community of people porting stuff was active. The Surface 2 is beautiful, it's cheap, it's the perfect low cost machine that would dominate it's market, and supplant lame laptops just like the Pro supplants high performance ones. But Microsoft doesn't want that. It wants to push it's Metro-or bust philosophy, and keep their monopoly on dust at the top of the shark cages at Best Buy.

I'm a .net programmer, too! I speak C# like I speak English. The RT would be a amazing, and I would do my part to make it amazing. But MS doesn't want it. They want me to make fullscreen apps with giant buttons and horizontal scrollbars.

Grrrrr so mad. Sorry rant over.

 

[The White Falcon]

Apple does the same thing.

And the Surface 2 will always have greater stock as they expect higher demand for a lower-priced device.

Apple is constantly quashing jailbreaks on the iPad and no one complains too loudly, nor do they stop selling them.

 

[oion]

Why kill it, though? Why even make it a jailbreak? Why not just let RT be it's own OS, instead of being a partial slice of actual grown-up Windows?

Why does Microsoft care if I run software on a tablet I bought? It's not like it's something you can do by accident, and open yourself up to security issues without knowing it. You know what you're doing if you decide to jailbreak. It's not even to protect the Windows store in any way. You can already use the Windows store on any Windows 8 computer, and you can run whatever you want there. I don't see the boon to Microsoft that I can't run Quake 2 on RT if I want to. How does that sell more tablets for them? It makes RT as a whole less attractive, when it's already not selling. The Best Buy in my town has piles and piles of them in topstock, but no Pros at all.

I know I sound like I'm just hating, but I'm just upset. Windows RT, and all the cheap devices that run it, are one setting away from being these amazing low power, low cost, high battery life, highly portable amazing machines that the homebrew community would dogpile on top of. The first Surface RT sold what, like ten units total?, and it has pages of ported programs and games on XDA, and the community of people porting stuff was active. The Surface 2 is beautiful, it's cheap, it's the perfect low cost machine that would dominate it's market, and supplant lame laptops just like the Pro supplants high performance ones. But Microsoft doesn't want that. It wants to push it's Metro-or bust philosophy, and keep their monopoly on dust at the top of the shark cages at Best Buy.

I'm a .net programmer, too! I speak C# like I speak English. The RT would be a amazing, and I would do my part to make it amazing. But MS doesn't want it. They want me to make fullscreen apps with giant buttons and horizontal scrollbars.

Grrrrr so mad. Sorry rant over.

You're missing the big picture. Windows RT is aimed, from my POV, at two categories of people: Low-tech users accustomed to walled-garden ecosystems like iOS/Android that are low maintenance and typically more secure than full OSes... and high-tech users with multiple devices who also want a low-maintenance solution that can pull its own weight in functionality. In these two categories of users, both value ultramobility and longevity more than raw power and the ability to run desktop applications--so long as the software available to the Windows RT devices meet their needs (read: MS Office).

In terms of low-maintenance, the walled-garden OSes are secure precisely because nothing can be downloaded and executed on them that aren't signed (speaking to the idea of fully "opening" the WinRT OS). The jailbreak exploits were closed due to security; that makes me sad because I love my PuTTY, but I don't particularly fault them either. There isn't a good way to entice all those iOS/Android users who want to do more but don't want to deal with a high-maintenance Windows system. And I'm in the second category; I have a Win7 gaming desktop, and I do not want to bother with any sort of sync blah blah full setup on another laptop. Been there, done that, just want to grab something and go.

Moreover, Microsoft wanted a hardware platform that's low-power to compete with the tablet expectations of long-life (Pro gets constantly reamed on this). The choice is ARM. ARM requires a recompilation of a Windows flavor; that means naturally no x86 software will run. The jailbreak, by the way, absolutely does not simply allow regular x86 software to run--many, many people fail to understand that. You can't just install Firefox with it.

Now, I may not agree with Microsoft's vision of the future (I will cling to classic MDI with my dying breath), but it's true that everything is slowly moving towards touchscreen these days, and touch-friendly UI is pretty necessary. Sure looks like they're shoehorning the development through the Metro store; hopefully they'll offer more reward programs and more APIs and such to entice developers. Who knows, I already have what I need.

If you don't like Windows RT--ultimately it has nothing to do with you. You're wasting your breath. Get a full Windows machine and be done with it. If it turns out the masses still don't get WinRT, the way you don't, and still ignore it, that's MS' problem. I got my device, and that's all that matters to me.

P.S.: You may want to review jnjroach's comments about the "flagship" thing in that other thread. I'll believe him since he talked to the actual engineers.