Based upon an informal survey of about a dozen stores scattered about Sacramento, San Jose, and San Francisco in Northern California, the G1 doesn't have the buzz of the iPhone. That said, however, stores reported some small lines and generally brisk sales, and salespeople were hopeful that foot traffic would pick up later today.

For some reason, however, T-Mobile seriously shorted Silicon Valley, at least where supplies of the G1 were concerned.

The G1 is the first phone to use the "Android" operating system developed by Google, which is paired with familiar G1 applications like Gmail, as well as the now-familiar apps store where users can download free and for-pay applications written by third-party developers.

It might be fair to say that, while the G1 has attracted a bit less hype than the iPhone and the iPhone 3G, most of that attention has been focused on the Android operating system, and not the G1 itself. If that's true, than others feel the same way: the longest line any T-Mobile storefront reported to me was about ten, with several reporting no lines at all.

Meanwhile, the available stock on hand of G1 phones varied dramatically.

Two stores polled by Gearlog in San Jose, for example, reported twenty or so; a third store, we were told, received a supply of fifty. And, since T-Mobile opened its retail stores at 8 AM to meet the expected demand, the available phones had sold briskly by 8:30 or so. At the El Camino store in Cupertino, for example, the helpful salesman said that all the brown models were out of stock, and he only had five or six of the black models in stock.

An hour's drive north in San Francisco, and the message was quite different. At the Market & 3rd store in San Francisco, store representatives reported "over 100" phones in stock at the time that I called. And the store on Battery St., in the heart of the Financial District, never receives much foot traffic, a representative said, and that wasn't expected to change today.

In Sacramento, by contrast, Gearlog polled three stores. Only one would divulge the number of phones, but that store said it had 128 phones in stock as of about 8:30 AM, "more than enough for the day," according to a salesman.

Granted, some of the stores saw their stocks deplete because of preorders, which sold out. However, the limited supplies might also be a bid to generate a press release later today that claims that the G1 has already sold out at some stores. The message: buy now or lose out!

And what color is the most popular? That's hard to say. At the two T-Mobile stores that are closest to Apple's Cupertino campus, one had already sold out of the black model when I called; the other had no browns.

All in all, however, I think we can say that anyone trying to sell their pre-ordered G1 on eBay or on Craigslist for an obscene profit is going to take a bath.