You've been telling people to hold off buying a 3D printer from other manufacturers until this one was unveiled. But I don't get the impression this is in the product phase yet. There are some slick pictures and a nice presentation but nothing at all that indicates the thing actually exists in an about to ship state.

What exactly is the state of development of the formlabs product?

Estimated ship date is February. I've seen the devices in action, and dozens of pieces that were produced on the machines. Can't speak to the exact level of completion, but this is not just a pretty picture.

I've been advising people to hold off assuming that a 6 month wait is worth it on a purchase of $2,500ish dollars. Some people might prefer the larger size and bigger installed based of FFF/Makerbot machines, but I'm guessing many are happy they waited to hear about the Form 1 before clicking "Buy".

If it's not in the product phase, it's one hell of a prototype. Just from the video, they've got custom PCBs built, a custom case, and a whole shelf full of older prototypes.

From prototype to product is a (sometimes very) long road, I find it a bit strange that someone would say 'don't buy 'x' where 'x' is available today because there exists a prototype from a company that has not yet shipped in volume.

Maybe my expectations were not realistic but I expected something a lot closer to production. Tons of things that are prototyped never make it to production or end up costing substantially more than envisioned at the prototype stage and I'm pretty wary of pre-ordering things that are not yet in the production pipeline. Pre-ordering is great if you've ramped up to volume production and items are about to be shipped. Pre-order money should go the BOM of the device that will be shipped to you, to shipping, warranty issues and assembly, not to process/product development. See 'wakemate'.