Alongside its new Surface Pro tablet, which it announced in May, Microsoft also revealed a new version of its Surface Pen, showing it off in four colors. In June, it opened pre-orders for the $99.99 Pen - but only in a single color: Platinum. Then, in mid-July, the company said that the other three colors would become available later this summer.
Three weeks ago - two months after they were announced - Microsoft began accepting pre-orders for the Black, Cobalt Blue and Burgundy options, and said that they would be released on August 21.
That day has finally arrived - but now, every single Surface Pen is showing as "out of stock" on the Microsoft Store in the United States, and there"s no indication of when they"ll actually be available.
The stock situation isn"t the same everywhere though. In the United Kingdom, for example, the original Platinum Pen is in stock right now. The other three colors are still available to pre-order too, with no change to the August 24 release date that Microsoft previously announced for the UK.
Developed with Microsoft"s N-trig technology, the new Surface Pen includes tilt detection, 4,096 levels of pressure sensitivity, and just 21ms of latency. Microsoft proudly called it "the fastest digital pen on the planet" at its announcement in May - but less than two weeks later, Apple revealed its new Pencil for the iPad Pro with just 20ms of latency.