***Official Galaxy Nexus Pre-Release speculation thread**

[APKhaos]

Well, I finally weakened and visited my local corporate VZW store to have a real problem phone looked at by tech support.

Talking to one of the CSRs, I mentioned the Nexus, and ask her if I was to sit very quietly away from the store crowd and hide the phone from general view would she be able to let me have one for a few minutes. To my great surprise, she says 'yes' and goes to the back to get it. The store manager comes over to me a few minutes later, and introduces himself. I explain that I completely understand the 'issues' surrounding the release, and the need to keep the phone under wraps before it is released for sale. Ne seemed relieved, and asked me to wait a few minutes. Then it arrived. Its everything that the others have said. Buttery smooth and fast. Gorgeous screen. Dramatically better keyboard. Can't wait.

The CSR told me that someone had let a demo get loose on the sales floor a few days back, and a crowd had gathered wanting to handle it AND BUY IT ......NOW! Shocker, eh?
I didn't press the manger on a release date, but said I would see him late next week. He nodded as we shook hands.

 

[nyg010]

Galaxy Nexus a deforma?n

 

[nbajam]

Perhaps I'm missing something.

How about a link that _substantiates_ the idea that the Nexus has an LTE issue that is being fixed by an update?

How about an answer to the point that if they held back the phone because they didn't want LTE network complaints, then why did they launch the xyBoard LTE tablet without that concern?

How about a link that _substantiates_ the idea that the delay is due to Wallet/ISIS? And no, speculation by a "source" doesn't count. Because their have been plenty of other "sources" that said that isn't true.

If the problem was something as serious as unresolved legal issues over Wallet and ISIS, they would not have made hundreds of thousands of these devices, they would not have shipped them to stores all over the country, and they wouldn't be targeting a release date less then a week away.

 

[BabyBlues]

Nope, no little ones. But maybe I'll watch it when I come home hammered one night .

I can almost guarantee it would be better hammered!

I'm supposed to be wrapping Christmas presents, but keep getting pulled back here. I am freakin' obsessed!

Yeah. I'm supposed to be getting ready for a family Cheistmas party....I'm cathing up here instead

I should be packing, my plane leaves in about an hour! F5-fold-F5-fold-F5-stuff carelessly in bag-F5-fold-F5-fold...

Sheesh, we thought we were bad......safe flight!

So Miss Piggy wants me to refer to her as Cheetara from now on.

Cheetara has no idea if Isis/Wallet is to blame.

Yet again, I love her

*makes wish* Like a good neighbor, statefarm is there... with a beautiful ready to be activated Galaxy Nexus *opens eyes to see nothing*

Damn

The commercials lie!!

 

[artnsx]

I live in paramus, hbu?

I'm in linden so I was going to check the one in woodbridge

 

[1Time]

I am back from my 4hour journey cruising through RadioShacks by bus rides around my area, even the local retail Verizon stores. Sad to say I came back with me eating chocolates on the bus washing them down with drinkable water in my water gun with a rose with no petals as I plucked them repeatedly saying Nexus, No Nexus, Nexus, No Nexus, Nexus, No Nexus... I put $300 of cash back into my account where it shall stay. The phones are indeed in stock yet a salesperson usually gets hammered by the manager in learning to not sell the Nexus yet because of what they said 'contract issues in allowing them to sell it on the assigned date' which was similar to HanSolo's experience with his RadioShack guy, the 15th. I handled the dummy unit of the Nexus and I must say it really is a see for yourself experience as I was a bit worried about the handle of the Nexus being a bit bulky and awkward like the Razr and Droid X but it was certainly something that has that 'snug fit', however, the uneven curves of the Nexus seemed a little off for me but that's because I'm used to that thin flat touch of the first Galaxy, Samsung Fascinate for Verizon. It was a wild trip with a lot of pleading and questioning but no prevail. Hopefully others have better luck than I do! It all comes down to whether the sales associate was notified by the manager as well as whether it's in the system or not. One location I would have gotten it if it weren't for the district manager and another if the phone was in the system the associate would have sold it with ease. Till the actual announcement from the big Verizon comes, I guess it is time to go back to the F5 TV Assignments Work and Semi All Nighters hoping for that Press Release!!!!

 

[BLD]

4G network went down after the release date was moved. And I know for a fact it was not a scheduled take-down of the network. This is absolutely a legal issue and verizon does not want a class-action lawsuit by making this phone available to the public before they are sure they are in the clear

Exactly what I've been saying. Legal issues are the only real leverage against Verizon when it comes to their not allowing apps like Google Wallet on phones on their network.

 

[fiatandroid]

i'll bite... nothing in the leaked memo strikes me as an example of a straightforward case of lying (much less, unethical lying). They're asking their employees to give a stock response saying they have no information to share. They are not asking them to say something like: "we don't have any inventory in stock" when in fact they do, which would be a lie. Perhaps we can read some ambiguity in the phrase "no information to share." If you interpret that to mean simply "we have no information" then sure, we might reasonably construe that as a lie, since they do have information. But it seems to me that what is meant here is: "we have no information we can share with you at the time." And corporate or not, government or not, this is normal everyday practice and not necessarily unethical or devious.

think of it this way: one of my students might come up to me and ask me what his or her grade was on the final exam. and i might reasonably say "I can't share that information with you right now," because, for example, I want all the students to get their grades at the same time. He or she might then follow up and ask, "well can you at least let me know whether you've graded mine yet even if you can't tell me the grade?" And I might again follow up that, "I can't say," simply because I just think it would be more a of a headache to have the student trying to read my facial expressions to get hint, or risk him or her telling other students, which might lead to me being flooded with similar questions, etc.

Of course sometimes, witholding information can be unethical, but that will depend on the details of the specific case. The simple point is basically that witholding information is not necessarily evidence of corruption or an example of unethical practices.

And I'm sure there was a healthy dose of hyperbole in the claim that this is what's wrong with america today, but surely best buy asking its employees not to divulge information to the customer until they hear something more concrete from verizon is not even close to the heart of what's wrong with america.

indeed, if you want to see best buy's practices as an example of what's wrong with america, you might do better to look at the various anti-competitive practices they've been accused of over the years. we might think that companies with a lot of capital selling goods way under market price (because they can afford to run a loss for an extended period of time) thereby making it impossible for small businesses to have any chance is a better candidate for criticism.

There's also a debate in economics whether "price-matching" guarantees are anti-competitive. When best buy guarantees that it will match any rival's lower price, it makes it so that they don't actually need to worry about losing customers because a competitor offers lower prices, while still allowing them on the whole to charge higher prices to their loyal customers. The implication of these kinds of policies for small business competitors is clear.

No matter where we stand on these kinds of issues, it seems that the really important ethical questions are at this level -- not at the level of employees witholding inventory information.

Of course, there's another matter entirely as to whether this is good business practice (not in an ethical sense, but in a prudential sense). So we might think, well, maybe they aren't actually lying or being unethical, but things like this might be bad business practice since it can potentially alienate or frustrate consumers. But i think there's good reason to suspect that a) only a very small subset of their customer base will actually experience an employee saying they have no information to share in this manner. and b) within that small subset, an even smaller subset will be so upset by this as to take their business elsewhere (just think of how many of us are still waiting on the nexus, despite how frustrated the farcical nature of the whole pre-"release" process has made us).

sorry for the essay, but i thought i'd add my two cents, because sometimes there's a tendency in this thread to express our quite reasonable frustration into ethical or principled charges against these companies. and i just wanted to caution against that, because it can be a bit myopic. companies like verizon and best buy do all kinds of things that we might reasonably interpret as ethically dubious and have tremendous implications on the livelihoods of a great number of people. the real ethical issues are there, not in the fact that they dont give us, the particularly energetic consumers, our toys how and when we want them.

This is what's wrong with America today! The Corporate stance of LYING to their customer base is accepted as normal policy. Then the young kids working for these corporations "learn" that lying is an acceptable practice and continue the cycle. Why would BB want to lie, what would be wrong with saying "yes, we have them in stock but Verizon has asked us not to sell them until they give us the go ahead"? If Verizon doesn't like the response then eff'em...they just lost 1500 retail outlets! I'm sure BB doesn't make much off of these sales anyway, and it would hurt Verizon much more than BB! This way the 3rd party retailers have a little clout and can help keep Verizon in check. Please don't take this as corporation bashing, I totally believe in our enterprise system, but there are bad companies and bad leadership out there making bad decisions...we need honesty and ethics back in the boardroom!

 

[sperho]

How about an answer to the point that if they held back the phone because they didn't want LTE network complaints, then why did they launch the xyBoard LTE tablet without that concern?

edit: I should preface my post below with the acknowledgement that I work for a Fortune 500 company that is amongst other things, a supplier of materials and processes to the semiconductor industry, including mobile handset divisions of companies that we all know and love and some love to hate on. I'm not a EE, but I did sleep at a Holiday Inn last night (kidding) and I hobnob with a lot of MEs and EEs in the semi industries (not kidding). I'm an analytical chemist, FWIW.

I don't claim to know the answer to this specific question, but I do know this: not all LTE radios are created equal, nor are their power amplifiers and RF filters. It is perfectly conceivable that the combination of the above-mentioned chips (and likely additional chips) could have had a glitch when assembled in the way that they were in this particular phone, whereas some Moto chipsets might be a proven quantity (I don't know if the Bionic's chipset is the same as the Xyboard's). Like I said, I don't now the real answer, but I stand by my statement that some chipsets can behave differently from another, even though they are supposedly built to a specification.

Furthermore, the firmware that controls the communication between the chipsets and towers absolutely will be different for different makers and their corresponding chip-level design choices. I am hoping that if it is truly an LTE-related issue, that it can be resolved at this level.

Finally, not responding to you Early, but to others that claim "there are already Verizon GSNs out there and they don't have any problems, so it can't be an LTE issue.": wrong. It can very well be a regional thing. If anyone thinks that all LTE towers are absolutely identical, down to the switching center in every region, I would wager a very, very large sum of money that they are dead wrong. If Verizon wants to not have another Thunderbolt or Bionic (or whichever other phones were having problems, I know the Bionic was one of them) customer support/reputation problem on their hands, they are going to want to make sure that it is playing as nicely as they can get it to with their LTE systems in as many regions as they deem acceptable to them. This is consistent with the email that was read to me while at a Verizon store last Friday, which went along the lines of "This phone does not yet meet Verizon's high standards for quality.". This was the reason given to me for the delay of launch.

Now, Verizon may be blowing as much smoke (and/or have political motivations that are beyond our knowledge) as the general feverish population in an internet forum such as this, but that may or may not be borne out in the weeks and months to come.

All that said, I wish Verizon would just issue a press release with some information resembling an explanation. It would calm a lot of nerves and satisfy many customers until the device is actually released. Clearly, they do not completely understand the customer profile of the person that wants to buy this phone.

All that said, WHEN AM I GONNA GET MY NEXUS???!!!

Sigh.

 

[jdduncan11]

How about a link that _substantiates_ the idea that the delay is due to Wallet/ISIS? And no, speculation by a "source" doesn't count. Because their have been plenty of other "sources" that said that isn't true.

If the problem was something as serious as unresolved legal issues over Wallet and ISIS, they would not have made hundreds of thousands of these devices, they would not have shipped them to stores all over the country, and they wouldn't be targeting a release date less then a week away.

"How about" we just drop it and move on.

 

[nyg010]

For anyone who is interested in a really good camera comparison- skip to 9:00
Samsung Galaxy Nexus vs Apple iPhone 4S - YouTube

 

[chanop]

I agree with Earlymon on the idea that if Gnex was postponed due to LTE then the Xyboard would also be delayed. I'm not completely sold on the GW/Isis being the hold up either though.

 

[jdduncan11]

+1

I'm glad that there are still people who think reasonably and sensibly about all of this. All of the signs point to some sort of last minute software/network issue as the cause of the pulled launch yesterday. The launch gets canned for a week and everybody goes nuts with hating on Verizon because everyone assumes that THEY are blocking Google Wallet. They are not.

If anyone is blocking GW, it is Google. You cannot find that application outside of the Sprint network. Some deal was reached with Sprint way back in the beginning of the year because Google is not offering it on any one of their Nexus phones besides the Nexus S 4G. The United States model GSM unlocked Nexus S that you can buy from Best Buy can't even use it.

I guess people just immediately equated NFC with Google Wallet. They are not the same thing and Verizon isn't holding back any functionality. It does make good fodder for the blogs though.

I think we all have opinions on what may or may not be the reason for the phone not having been released already. I apologize that some of our thoughts don't seem "reasonable and sensible" to you.


Moving on

 

[ttaylor0024]

Went by the Verizon kiosk in the mall today, asked the guy if he had the Nexus yet....

VZW: "Nope"
Me: "When is it coming out?"
VZW: looks around and says, "5 days"
Me: "So the 15th?"
VZW: "Yeah, the 15th"

Cant wait!

 

[yowas]

You guys gonna be mad if even after the delay there's still no Google Wallet and we never find out what the hold up was about? I think I will be.

 

[BabyBlues]

OFF TOPIC

Is it sad that my outfit for tonight consists of a sweater with a pocket for easy phone carrying?

 

[nvitone23]

Hey everyone!

I've been out all day. Could someone please catch me up on anything of even minor importance (pics from retail store, stories from sources, etc.)?

Thanks!

 

[1Time]

I wanted to mention it was a bit awkward having the 3 button interface as I tried out HoneyComb on a Xyboard and not having that settings button or option button was really an impact. I wish there was a way to customize a button to add onto the 3 on the Nexus for settings. If not I guess I can always do a settings icon on a second homescreen as I like to keep my main homescreen pretty clean.

 

[JustNexus]

Bestbuy mobile Guy told me tomorrow. I asked if he had in stock he said a few but wouldn't hold me one. I asked to speak to someone who was working tomorrow and then a manager came in and said that was old info and they don't have a date and to call him back and he will know more tonight. That was a tease.

 

[burntorangefan]

I held it, I held it, I held it...today at radio shack. Couldn't buy it and the manager wasn't even gonna unbox it for me til I promised to root his Droid charge! I won't go on, there are more than enough accounts, but suffice to say this is gonna be a LONG week...

 

[nyg010]

Bazingaaa!

I held it, I held it, I held it...today at radio shack. Couldn't buy it and the manager wasn't even gonna unbox it for me til I promised to root his Droid charge! I won't go on, there are more than enough accounts, but suffice to say this is gonna be a LONG week...

 

[artnsx]

Bestbuy mobile Guy told me tomorrow. I asked if he had in stock he said a few but wouldn't hold me one. I asked to speak to someone who was working tomorrow and then a manager came in and said that was old info and they don't have a date and to call him back and he will know more tonight. That was a tease.

Where was said best buy?

 

[sperho]

Hey everyone!

I've been out all day. Could someone please catch me up on anything of even minor importance (pics from retail store, stories from sources, etc.)?

Thanks!

Here you go: start here and read about every 20th post.

 

[nvitone23]

Here you go: start here and read about every 20th post.

...so does that mean nothing?

 

[artnsx]

I'd love to put some faith in best buy, but this is the same place that printed up a buyer's guide with the gnex being called the "nexus prime."