Do any production RPi's actually exist?

No it wasn't, it was one of the first batch that I built for the foundation....and yes they do.

Do the production units boot successfully?  If so, why demo a beta board booting.  We've seen that before.

There are 10000 production units in existence, also known as the "first batch". They are currently en route from China to the UK, which probably explains why the beta board was used. Do they boot successfully? First of all, the only change between the beta and production boards is in one soldering point (The beta boards had one ball left unsoldered or "hanging free, if you prefer", which was hand soldered to make them work), and I am sure that although the change was trivial, the final design must have been tested before committing to the 10000-piece production run. It is also my understanding that the production boards were tested in China before being shipped to the UK so yes, you can be pretty confident that they are able to boot. Why no video? My assumption is that nobody felt they needed to display a proof of something so obvious.

Inspector Gregory: "Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?"

Holmes: "To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time."

"The dog did nothing in the night-time."

"That was the curious incident," remarked Sherlock Holmes.

-- From "The adventure of Silver Blaze" by Arther Conan Doyle

If as you say there are 10000 production boards in existence between China and the UK,

don't you find it a bit curious that there are no photos, no videos, no reports of successful

boots, no reports of the first board coming off the production line, no reports of the 10000th

board coming off the production line, no reports of any boards actually leaving China, etc.?

Check out the XBMC thread - looks like it is working to me!

Chris, what is it you think you are seeing in the XBMC video? 

It looks like an alpha board to me, not the production board, and not

even one of the beta boards.  The big clue is the Broadcom logo on

the board.

Yeh, why has no one put one on ebay then?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/Computing-/58058/i.html?_nkw=raspberry+pi&_catref=1&_trksid=p3286.c0.m1538

But of course they don't actually have their Pi. They are selling the promise of a Pi, which is not the same thing. If people had received a Pi we would know about it.

guys, have you ever ordered anything from china? - things NEVER get shipped fast from china, get over it! i always feel like 10 chinese guys are carrying my packages by feet because usually they arrive really slow - 3-5 weeks.

so CALM DOWN, noone paid for premium postage, devices will eventually arrive and everyone will be happy

no, i am not related to foundation, mine is arriving from farnell in mid-may only.. but I am patient, I can wait.

i'd like it to arrive sooner than later tho

Janis, people are eager for the first sightings of the production RPi's, which we were told to expect around the end of January.

We were told that the product would not be launched until stocks were built up, so I think it is perfectly fine to question whether any particular launch-event demonstration, or unboxing video, or eBay listing, or claims of stock selling out,  etc., refers to actual production RPi in hand.