You may have a hard time getting the Surface Book you want on launch day. All configurations of the Surface Book, from the baseline $1,499 model to the top-of-the-line $2,699 version, are now unavailable for preorder on the Microsoft online store.
Microsoft’s first laptop is still available in some configurations on Amazon, but there’s no guarantee that you’ll get it on the Oct. 26 launch day through the retail giant’s site. And if you want the Intel Core i7, 16GB RAM model, you’re completely out of luck: it’s only available from Microsoft, and they’ve been sold out since less than a week after preorders started on Oct. 7.
While we don’t know how many Surface Books Microsoft manufactured, demand is clearly strong. However, the laptop was a complete surprise, with no leaks of the hardware before the launch earlier this month, so the manufacturing process was either very secure or too small in volume to produce any leaked hardware.
For Microsoft, the Surface Book serves as a great showcase for the ideal Windows 10 hardware environment, much like Chromebook Pixel is Google’s ideal Chrome OS machine. However, Microsoft isn’t just using the hardware to show off; like the Surface and Surface Pro tablets before it, Microsoft appears to have high ambitions for the machine and people seem to be just as interested as they were in some of the Surface machines.
If you missed out on the preorder but still want a Surface Book ASAP, you can choose your configuration and sign up for an email alert when it’s available on the Microsoft store page.