I know someone that is a beta tester for Verizon, the Merge is in fact delayed! I pretty much trust what he says, he's been smack on with the release of every phone he has shown me in the last 2 years. He's using the merge as his daily device right now, and said its decent as far as he can see. However his unit has been having some serious GPS issues, and the battery has be less then steller. I held it for a few minutes and played around with it, and I'll say it feels super solid, has some heft to it, it has a slide similar to the Moto Droid series phones, (no G2 hinge crap) keyboard feels great, 2.2 is very zippy on it, however one thing that striked me was the screen! Not in an impressive way either, the colors just didn't pop at all while using it at even the highest setting. It may be I'm just used to my Fascinates Super Amoled, or the incredibles Amoled. But in any event, it just struck me as a little dull, the screen that is! Everything else looked great as far as build quality. Much better built then the incredible or even the EVO! I'll snap, and post some pics when I see him over the weekend.