My take on why they might sneak the Thunderbolt out with little fanfare...

[Jaymil]

I've had my bestbuy preorder since they opened up and I'm dying here waiting.

But I just had a thought after reading the 800th post about why the phone might get delayed again. Someone brought up the point that "Verizon would already be hyping the hell out of their first 4g LTE phone." Well I actually think that might be just the opposite.

What if... Verizon does release the Thunderbolt on the 24th.. With very little fanfare. No week's worth of prerelease hype, no huge ad campaigns... maybe they want to do a soft launch so to speak to stress test their LTE network?

Maybe they want to let a batch out into the wild to see how things go before going balls out on this just in case there are some problems at launch? You know the reaction would be pitchforks and torches if they went balls out with an ad campaign and then things didn't go smooth for the first couple weeks. Where as if they just released it without saying much all of us tech geeks would pick it up and if all was well they would then start promoting the **** out of it.

Just my $.02

 

[zero neck]

Maybe

 

[Electric Mayhem]

Honestly it's logical but once the tech blogs get word that this thing is on the street its gonna blow up and not in a small way.

 

[Secretagnt]

Honestly it's logical but once the tech blogs get word that this thing is on the street its gonna blow up and not in a small way.

they are not only going to blow up ... some of them might actually have their head pop off rendering them unable to blog about it ... LOL ....

I am just ready for them to release it to kick the STorm out the door and say bye bye to the blackberry forever ...

 

[biff6789]

Heh, I was the one that said they would be hyping this phone like crazy (well, maybe someone else did too...)

But it's already too late, mate. I've seen the brand new Thunderbolt ad like 15 times tonight. And the main androidforums thread is going nuts with everybody seeing the ad running almost nonstop on every network.

Plus they have the entire tech blogosphere and every single one of us camping on all the forums and websites hitting F5 every 10 seconds to see if, just maybe, there is a tiny new piece of info we can use to put this all together. Several Android websites have virtually stopped posting about anything else not related to the TB - with several of them posting half a dozen Thunderbolt posts PER DAY. 75% of the comments on an unrelated Facebook post from Verizon today were asking about the TB instead of the XOOM they just officially announced. And if you follow the hashtags for this phone on twitter, you can't even keep up with them

The best PR and advertising firms in the word couldn't buy that kind of hype if they tried

The hype is there. Just because we don't have a release date doesn't mean there's no hype or fanfare

 

[zero neck]

You gotta figure tho that they dont expect thaaaat many tbolt sales. Lots of people just got the iphone, and lots of people more recently (a year or less ago) got droid x, d2, dincs and fascinates, so they are probably not going to uprade to tbolts in large numbers, bc most people only upgrade when they get their new every 2.
So i think there will be plenty of tbolts to go around, personally. hyped up or not

 

[Beezzy]

I have this thing pre ordered cause idk what date this is coming out on. Once word gets around, this phone will be impossible to get. Almost how the Evo was all last summer. Cause for all I know, this phone will be released randomly and every An(Droid) site will be reporting this and any Best Buy that isn't holding the ones on preorder will be gone. lol

 

[moosc]

why no hype it is simple it is not a Droid! If it was in the Droid family this phone would be pimped out to mars. just another mediocre smart phone on the number one carrier.

 

[zero neck]

Its all about available units. I dont know if it will sell out. I dont expect it to, though
And with all the questionable inclusion of features, it might not be worth picking up on day 1 unless you have to have a phone right away.

 

[Electric Mayhem]

The best PR and advertising firms in the word couldn't buy that kind of hype if they tried

The hype is there. Just because we don't have a release date doesn't mean there's no hype or fanfare

+1 If you go on the simple assumption that you never know when or where lightning will strike then this has been a brilliant ad campaign. Love it or hate it the word is out and the hype is high, I just wish people would have a bit more patience.

 

[bunique4life05]

why no hype it is simple it is not a Droid! If it was in the Droid family this phone would be pimped out to mars. just another mediocre smart phone on the number one carrier.

Droid Pro and Droid 2 they barely made a real peep until it was actually released. Furthermore their commercials were very lack luster compared to other android smartphones.

 

[Forgetful]

The only fault with your thinking is they have been bombarding the internet and tv with commercials. So they're not trying to sneak it in the backdoor.

 

[Droid800]

The only fault with your thinking is they have been bombarding the internet and tv with commercials. So they're not trying to sneak it in the backdoor.

Well, compared to any of their other recent smartphones, what they've done so far is peanuts. If they wanted to hype this phone, they would have already announced a date, opened up preorders, and be bombarding TV with multiple ads. That, and the ads would be a little bit more clever, a la, the OG Droid. (which had one of the best ad campaigns I've ever seen for a phone)

 

[biff6789]

+1 If you go on the simple assumption that you never know when or where lightning will strike then this has been a brilliant ad campaign. Love it or hate it the word is out and the hype is high, I just wish people would have a bit more patience.

It's ironic, really: It's because of devices like the Thunderbolt that we as a generation no longer have any patience

We're so used to having everything at our fingertips at an instant - information, entertainment, mail, friendships... it's all right there whenever we want. Our grandparents used to have to wait a week for a response to a message through the mail. As for us, if someone doesn't respond to our latest Facebook post within 5 minutes we begin to question "Where the hell IS everybody??" And you can't look me in the face and tell me that the last time you were expecting a package to arrive didn't feel like an eternity, nomsayin'?

Our devices that enabled to no longer have to be patient have now virtually stripped us of the ability to be patient anymore at all!

Yet we wait...

 

[TBolt2011]

+1 If you go on the simple assumption that you never know when or where lightning will strike then this has been a brilliant ad campaign. Love it or hate it the word is out and the hype is high, I just wish people would have a bit more patience.

Hard to be patient when you already sold the phone you owned and are borrowing a friend's because you were promised the 11th, which was wrong. And then told the 14th and preordered, which was wrong, and then was "confirmed" the 24th, which has been more criticized than anything.

Not saying I'm not hopeful, but come this Thursday I NEED a phone, or at least to know (not think, KNOW) I won't be without one for more than about a week. Otherwise I'm looking elsewhere. Be it VZW, ATT, whatever. I'm getting something else.

 

[Droid800]

Hard to be patient when you already sold the phone you owned and are borrowing a friend's because you were promised the 11th, which was wrong. And then told the 14th and preordered, which was wrong, and then was "confirmed" the 24th, which has been more criticized than anything.

Question: When did Verizon announce the phone would be on sale on the 11th, the 14th, or the 24th?

 

[CD1X]

soft launch??? This phone is now..in every major magazine....all over television...hell I saw the new commercial watching WWE Monday Night Raw tonight....lol All over the internet....there is no such thing as a soft launch here!!! The Launch is Imminent. Its just up to Verizon to pick a date and let it fly!!!!

 

[Comineeyeaha]

If none of those commercials or magazine ads say a date, then releasing it on the 24th without telling the general public would sorta qualify as a soft launch.

I'll be at Verizon Thursday morning ready to pick one up even if they don't say anything about it. I'm inclined to trust the date at this point.

 

[Sokar]

Hard to be patient when you already sold the phone you owned and are borrowing a friend's because you were promised the 11th, which was wrong. And then told the 14th and preordered, which was wrong, and then was "confirmed" the 24th, which has been more criticized than anything.

Not saying I'm not hopeful, but come this Thursday I NEED a phone, or at least to know (not think, KNOW) I won't be without one for more than about a week. Otherwise I'm looking elsewhere. Be it VZW, ATT, whatever. I'm getting something else.

That's your fault.

 

[rookie83]

if they do a soft launch they wont have to pay all the extra empoyees to stand around and welcome 2 customers, like the apple store on the verizon iphone release date LOL