China will get their retail Surface units early, thanks to time zones

Time zones, these things are magical. Yes they can be quite confusing, and even stealing a day from your calendar or adding one to it without you knowing. But occasionally the difference in time could result in something sweet. In this case today, Suning, Microsoft's official sales partner for Surface RT in China, will commence the retail ahead of everyone else.

Suning just announced on its Sina weibo account that the retail of Surface RT will start at 0:00 October 26, Beijing time. The entire country of China lives in one single time zone: GMT +8. So that translates into high noon of October 25th for those living in New York. Sorry the math is a bit beyond me. The rest of you guys could calculate where it falls in your time...

Suning changed the avatar of its official Sina weibo account to Surface advert.

The coming of Surface will start at Suning's "mega store" located in western part of Beijing. To further stimulate first day sales, Suning is giving out 450 Wedge mouses to those in the very front of the queue. And out of all midnight buyers, there will be 5 lucky guys randomly chosen to get their Surface tablets for free. Normally we Chinese don't like to stand in queues waiting though, and recently Beijing nights have become quite cold. Personally I'm not expecting a super long line in front of Suning's mega store...

I will be there for the event, and try to bring back pictures, hands-on video, or whatever I can get hold of on the site. Hoping to present you folks with something interesting. As a Chinese I'm feeling this early launch pretty special. Usually we are on the "oh for a second thought let's add these guys into our map" list of gadget makers. This is about the first time ever, an internationally anticipated product gets to Chinese consumers through legal channels before anyone else. Thank you Microsoft.

And... let's hail who's basically confirmed to be the first consumer on this planet to get his Surface RT. This dude is already camping in front of the Suning store, 30+ hours before the retail start. Tough guy...

Achievement unlocked: early bird

Source: Suning, WPDang