When Will the ThunderBolt Be Available for Purchase

[jkhonea]

All of the Thunderbolt commercials on VZW's Youtube channel are gone... uh oh.
Im starting to get pretty annoyed.

Why I can see perhaps being disappointed, annoyed is another thing. Verizon didn't give a launch date on this phone and start pushing it back. All we had were what we have now, rumors, glimpses and speculation.

So far I haven't seen a single commercial on television for TB, I have however seen the commercial with 4G LTE and a lot of lightning and thunder. I figured the lightning and thunder made sense since Thunderbolt would be the first one.

So maybe kind of a commercial, within the commercial? Guess not.

I have to say I've seen tons of specific TB commercials in Atlanta. Usually several per day up until the night before last, even. Not sure about last night since I didn't watch any television. But I have definitely seen TB specific Verizon commercials.

 

[wctaylor79]

Yeah I held off on BB preorder.. without Verizon giving the date I never felt comfortable with it.. figured worse case once it went live with Verizon I could order online and have next day.. i feel bad for those that are still sitting with gift cards.. thats a good question if BB will honor a refund... not sure since they sold giftcards, but under the circumstance I would assume they would refund... maybe with a manager?

 

[wctaylor79]

Commercials have been spotty here around Jax.. or at least for me.. I watch a lot of DVR, but even when I fast fwd I always stop to watch the TB.. 1 mississippi..

 

[hookbill]

OK maybe I have seen a commercial on television. I wasn't sure if it was youtube or television but I know I've seen one where the guy grabs the thunderbolt and throws it.

 

[leehblanc]

OK maybe I have seen a commercial on television. I wasn't sure if it was youtube or television but I know I've seen one where the guy grabs the thunderbolt and throws it.

On topic: I can't think of any way the commercials being pulled is a GOOD thing. We know that versions exist without the "Coming Soon" tag, as they were up, then pulled. To simply switch them out because the phone is coming Monday, Thursday, etc would take minutes. In addition, I didn't see one of TV all day yesterday. In the days before, they were playing on every channel. I don't watch too much TV, but someone in the house usually does. I don't think this phone being scrapped, even this late in the game is inconceivable, especially since as so many have pointed out, it has never been given a release date. They will ignore the requests for info, and we will eventually just stop asking and the Bionic will come out.

Slightly off topic: The mods get a lot of flak in here, but I brought a problem to their attention and they handled it promptly. Cheers!

 

[miss chris]

Yeah I held off on BB preorder.. without Verizon giving the date I never felt comfortable with it.. figured worse case once it went live with Verizon I could order online and have next day.. i feel bad for those that are still sitting with gift cards.. thats a good question if BB will honor a refund... not sure since they sold giftcards, but under the circumstance I would assume they would refund... maybe with a manager?

I know I was able to get the manager to promise to honor the free buy back program beyond the date it was set to expire. I am lucky enough that $50 bucks hanging out there is no sweat for me, but I still reserve the right to be annoyed no matter how hard everyone around here tries to talk me out of it! But I am not annoyed enough yet to go after my 50 bucks.

 

[StinkyPete]

Although Verizon hasn't announce a release date for the phone, they have been advertising it heavily (albeit as "coming soon"). They also did say 1Q11 (which, in theory, could be 3/31/2011). So... let's say for sake of argument they had planned to release the phone by now, but haven't due to "issues" - it comes down to a business decision to delay it further:

Delay due to:
1. Poor iPhone Sales - we have to wait until they hit a specific number. Likelihood = 10%. I can't buy this - two different customer bases.

2. Features "Promised/Advertised" Not Working - they have to get them working before release. Likelihood = 50%. I think if it was just one feature (e.g., Skype Video) then they would pull the trigger and release it and update it later, but if it is multiple features... then they probably hold off.

3. Battery Life with 4G/LTE - they have to get it to "point X" with normal use (e.g., 6 hours of Angry Birds play ). Likelihood = 75%. I think this would be bad PR for the device - since it is something that is harder to fix with a firmware/software fix than a feature issue is. If it got to the point that they needed to pop a new battery in there.... wow... that would be huge for them.

4. Technology issue with 4G/LTE - there are issues with it working with the new network and since this is the first 4G/LTE phone... they want it to be as close to perfect as possible. Likelihood = 10%. Would think that this would have been discovered before this point.

My guess is that there is an issue with the battery and there is some furious discussing going on as to what to do. It's not like it is a sw bug and there is a line of code you can remove to get it to work right.

MAYBE the whole $249/$299 issue is related to them needing to put in a bigger/better battery and needing to make up the cost of it.

 

[StinkyPete]

Delay due to:
1. Poor iPhone Sales - we have to wait until they hit a specific number. Likelihood = 10%. I can't buy this - two different customer bases.

Just saw this....

"Verizon Wireless CEO Daniel S. Mead noted that the sales were actually very impressive, and that “Verizon Wireless sold more iPhone 4s during its initial launch than any other product in the carrier’s history.” Furthermore, Mead stated that 60 percent of Verizon iPhone sales had been online, which would account for the relatively small Apple Store sales."


Source: Verizon CEO Sets The Record Straight On Initial iPhone Sales :: App Advice

 

[Narsil]

Whichever mod finally banned Stumblefly, THANK YOU! Your patience far exceeds mine. :hail:

I keep reading that Best Buy will have a two-week retail exclusivity with the T'Bolt. Some people seem to interpret this as meaning that the first two weeks the phone is available, it will only be available at Best Buy. Is this the case or is it that Best Buy will be the only retailer other than Verizon Wireless outlets to have the T'Bolt?

 

[jaycemiskel]

My guess is the only retailer. Verizon isn't gonna not sale their own phone.

Sent from my Droid using Tapatalk

 

[mwhartman]

Last night, in Central PA, the TB commercials were replaced with Xoom

 

[Jokerz]

This is the first time I have tried to follow a new phone coming out and I just had a quick question. How long before a phone is released, does Verizon usually give a release date? A week, two weeks? I was just curious. Like I said, I've never really tried to follow a phone's release.

 

[cpjr]

This is the first time I have tried to follow a new phone coming out and I just had a quick question. How long before a phone is released, does Verizon usually give a release date? A week, two weeks? I was just curious. Like I said, I've never really tried to follow a phone's release.

There is no rhyme or reason to it....which is part of the issue here if you read through the thread. And Verizon is HORRIBLE with phone releases.

 

[mslal]

Is it time for a new poll, or can existing poll be edited? 50% of the dates have (sadly) gone by.

 

[Munstir]

BB has given several hard release dates! lol Clearly they have been wrong. But my point is that it is not completely unfounded to be teed of with this situation. I am confused by the notion that BB has been operating completely independently of big red and that big red is blameless because they themselves have not published a date.

Ok, I meant to say VZW hard release date. It hasn't happened. And, I never saw any corporate BB announcement of a hard release date either.

Go see if you can get a refund of your deposit if you're that upset about it.

See I agree that anyone who knew these rumors and had been online first really shouldn't be all that upset by the phone not releasing.

But for people like me ( I broke my droid screen 2 days before pre-orders started, and walked into best buy to look at new phones and they had a sign reading, "Pre-order the Thunderbolt today, Releases 2/14" So I walked over and put the money down ) So for me that was a hard release date, then I get called by them saying it will be delayed and release on the 24th.