Amazon must be getting close to receiving some 8700 stock. They have just changed their anticipated arrival time of "4 to 5 weeks" over to "In stock soon".

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...ess&n=12758971

I guess soon the eBay going price for the 8700 should drop to $449.99 or less since that is the "buy it without a contract" price from Amazon. Naturally this assumes that some of the fools who overpay on eBay would bother to check to see what they could buy it for online.

Cingular was out of stock and got a shipment in today or yesterday. Well... thats what a cingular rep told me last week and I successfully ordered a 8700c this morning so cingular must have just got the new shipment in and are sending out to retailers. ;)

I ordered from Amazon on November 23 and have been waiting ever since!

I just got notification from Amazon not to expect the 8700c I ordered on November 23 until January 2 (of course with no guaranatee it will actually arrive then, either). VERY frustrating -- and I probably am pretty close to the top of their list. If you plan on ordering from Amazon, it will be a long wait.

I received my 8700c the next day. Not bad cingular. Not bad.

FYI
If you plan on ording from Amazon for the rebate AND want to port a number to Cingular, your out of luck. I read the fine print on the rebate form. Amazon does not have a number porting agreement with Cingular so if you establish a number through Amazon then port a number, it voids the rebate. You could always wait until the rebate is paid, then port, but the rebate could take 2-3 months to process.

I feel lukcy. On 12/10 I called my local Cingular store here in Westfield, IN (suburb of Indy) and picked up one they had in stock. It was their only one they said that they had.

I do not envy those that are on here waiting and waiting and waiting.

This is not entirely true. You just have to wait to port until you get the phone. They can't do it up front, but it won't void the rebate if you port your old number (I'm speaking from experience).

Are you sure your experience was with Cingular? This is from Amazon's site as of today:

"Cingular and Amazon.com have not yet established a method for customers to transfer their current number to a new Cingular account. Unfortunately, in order to port your previous number, Cingular will cancel the account that Amazon.com activated and will activate a new account with the ported number. This process makes you ineligible for the Amazon.com rebates. We hope to offer a porting option in the coming months, so please check back."

Yes. I admit, it was a gamble, but it worked. In fact, Cingular doesn't cancel the account you make with amazon, but only change the number. At least this is how it was at the beginning of the year when I started my cingular account (ported a number from Verizon and made $50 on a Nokia 6230). Maybe things have changed since then but the language was the same.