[Official] Sprint HTC EVO 4G LTE Pre-release thread - Sprint official launch is Saturday, June 2

[Duffin]

I'm still waiting on the official statement from Sprint but if there is going to be a significant delay, I think they will have a hard time keeping people from cancelling their pre-orders...

This is why the policy of charging full price for pre-orders before the phone has even shipped is ridiculous.

From what I've read, it's not possible to cancel pre-orders. The only thing you can do is to wait for the package to arrive and refuse delivery. It has to do with something in Sprint's ordering system that once the charge is actually made, they can't cancel it.

 

[tsipa]

I found this info in the Sprint forums:

HTC EVO 4G LTE availability
The U.S. availability of the HTC EVO 4G LTE has been delayed. HTC is working to resolve this issue and appreciates your patience as they work to get products into Sprint channels. We can’t provide specific timing for product availability at this time and we appreciate your patience as HTC works to get products on store shelves as soon as possible.

Pre-order status/availability
Delivery of products for pre-order are on hold and Sprint will provide a ship date as soon as possible. Sprint will maintain the promise for the preorder customers that they will be among the first to receive their HTC EVO 4G LTE units.

 

[tsipa]

From what I've read, it's not possible to cancel pre-orders. The only thing you can do is to wait for the package to arrive and refuse delivery. It has to do with something in Sprint's ordering system that once the charge is actually made, they can't cancel it.

I'm pretty sure they can cancel it if you complain enough. Given the situation, I doubt they can defend their position. Either way, it's nothing a charge back can't solve.

 

[Duffin]

Honestly, I don't know if I can wait. I'm trying to wait as long as possible to see if we can at least get a fairly official time-frame. If it's a couple days? I could probably wait. A week? Maybe. Two weeks to a month? I don't think so. I'll need to just maybe try the Galaxy Nexus even though it's vastly inferior...ugh, this is frustrating.

 

[Duffin]

I'm pretty sure they can cancel it if you complain enough. Given the situation, I doubt they can defend their position. Either way, it's nothing a charge back can't solve.

I don't think they can. I mean, it was from a Sprint employee. He was saying that once it reaches a certain step in the process, they no longer have access to do anything. I can't really verify that, of course.

 

[Androidalltheway]

Tell me about it, I am bout to sell my galax nexus with opes I would have already had the evo, just called sprint order support, can not cancel my order, it is out of their control, no launch date was given. I can not believe how bad Sprint botched this. She said they had no prior knowledge of the situation. I am very disappointed and pretty much screwed now.

 

[rkkeller]

:<


Status: Thank you for pre-ordering the EVO LTE. We will do our best to get it to you on or before the national launch. You can continue to check status of your order on Sprint | Check Your Order Status

 

[NeoteriX]

Tell me about it, I am bout to sell my galax nexus with opes I would have already had the evo, just called sprint order support, can not cancel my order, it is out of their control, no launch date was given. I can not believe how bad Sprint botched this. She said they had no prior knowledge of the situation. I am very disappointed and pretty much screwed now.

Calm down, buddy.

We're all disappointed too, but this was outside of anyone's hands, Sprint included.

 

[tsipa]

If I was really inclined to cancel, I would call my credit card company and tell them that I did not receive the product and I was given no information on when this product will be available. I am sure you will have no issue getting your money refunded.

I may very well go this route if the delay turns out to be more than a week or two. This is Sprint's problem, not yours.

 

[exclamation_mark]

What I find interesting is that there has yet to be any information about this propblem given out to people that dont read the blogs or come here. No E-mail, or warning that there is a delay. Had I not checked in here last night (which I do regularly) I still would have no idea that this crap went down or that I wouldn't be receiving my phone by Friday. I cant imagnine that having a flood of calls on Friday is a better idea than sending out an e-mail or even updating the order status to explain to folks what's going on and why their Evo's aren't on their door steps.

 

[tsipa]

Calm down, buddy.

We're all disappointed too, but this was outside of anyone's hands, Sprint included.

I don't agree with that, Sprint is completely responsible for this mess. They should have had stock on hand before announcing the release date. If they didn't start pre-orders and announce a release date last week, no one would be pissed. They really dropped the ball on this one...

 

[Sauske]

I can only imaging if a "real" crisis were to occur!? I understand it's a beast of a phone, but we have absolutely no CONTROL that HTC has to go through a compliance check because of apple! Sprint did not do ANYTHING WRONG in this situation, that cannot be help! Patience is a virtue, well at-least I thought. Let's just hope HTC can resolve this as quickly as possible with the ITC compliance!

 

[omiller315]

I only signed up to post that I been reading this site for days. Very informative. My Sprint bill shows I owe -$211.99. Since they don't have the phone, I wonder if this means they are crediting the account the money we spent on the phone. I then wonder if this means they re-charge when the phones actually ship. Just found it strange when I went online to check the status and saw my credited account.

 

[Tommydaniel]

I can only imaging if a "real" crisis were to occur!? I understand it's a beast of a phone, but we have absolutely no CONTROL that HTC has to go through a compliance check because of apple! Sprint did not do ANYTHING WRONG in this situation, that cannot be help! Patience is a virtue, well at-least I thought. Let's just hope HTC can resolve this as quickly as possible with the ITC compliance!

I think the patent in question is the ridiculous part. Didn't old flip phones do the same thing? Turn phone numbers, emails into links? How the hell did Apple get a patent for this?!

 

[Sauske]

I think the patent in question is the ridiculous part. Didn't old flip phones do the same thing? Turn phone numbers, emails into links? How the hell did Apple get a patent for this?!

I think old flip phone did do that! Unless apple paid a hefty fee to get the licence for it because their putting a damper one everyone who's waiting for the phone! I wonder if the mass public know's!?

 

[tsipa]

I think the patent in question is the ridiculous part. Didn't old flip phones do the same thing? Turn phone numbers, emails into links? How the hell did Apple get a patent for this?!

Yes, the patent system in this country is complete BS... As EarlyMon pointed out earlier, they recently issued a patent for making toast.

 

[NeoteriX]

I don't agree with that, Sprint is completely responsible for this mess. They should have had stock on hand before announcing the release date. If they didn't start pre-orders and announce a release date last week, no one would be pissed. They really dropped the ball on this one...

Disagree.

Look there are advantages and disadvantages to these manufacturing and inventorying decisions, and it's not as simple as "oh let's stock up a bunch? yes? no?"

Doing "just-in-time" manufacturing entails risks, just like the one we are witnessing now -- it could have been ITC/customs, an earthquake, a tornado, there are unforeseen risks.

On the other hand, JIT allows for better products as phones that are being built have build and software revisions incorporated as soon as they are identified. And we know for a fact that LTE antenna issues were being identified in the LTEvo as recently as two weeks ago. Furthermore, there are costs to warehousing and storage -- not of just the phones, but of parts. The delivery of the phones to us is one small part of a carefully managed chain of inventory. Stockpiling phones is expensive for Sprint and expensive for everyone else.

Ultimately, there is no "obvious" decision when it comes to these things, and they all have tradeoffs. It's not as simple or straightforward as you make it out to be.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_in_time_(business)

 

[2krazee2]

As I said in my post yesterday, even though Account Services assured me I would have my phone today, we shall see. I just got off the phone again, this morning with Account Services, the department that is supposed to have the most knowledgeable people to stop people from leaving, and I was shocked at what I was told. I was just told by one of the least knowledgeable people that I have ever spoken to that the phone is not scheduled to be released until the 18th and that I should have it within 2 -3 business days after that. It is a first come, first served type of phone and that is how we take orders. Pre-orders are no different than regular orders when it comes to launch date. And then, to top it off, a "Manager" got on the phone and said that not just anybody can walk into the store on the 18th and buy the phone, the stores have pre-orders that they have to honor first. Well, happy Wednesday and, as I said yesterday, we shall see.

 

[Raftysworld]

This is UNBELIEVABLE. I am so mad right now. They better be putting in better components into the phone to make up for this lost time. 2.0ghz Quad core processor, 2GB RAM at a minimum.

 

[2krazee2]

As I said in my post yesterday, even though Account Services assured me I would have my phone today, we shall see. I just got off the phone again, this morning with Account Services, the department that is supposed to have the most knowledgeable people to stop people from leaving, and I was shocked at what I was told. I was just told by one of the least knowledgeable people that I have ever spoken to that the phone is not scheduled to be released until the 18th and that I should have it within 2 -3 business days after that. It is a first come, first served type of phone and that is how we take orders. Pre-orders are no different than regular orders when it comes to launch date. And then, to top it off, a "Manager" got on the phone and said that not just anybody can walk into the store on the 18th and buy the phone, the stores have pre-orders that they have to honor first. Well, happy Wednesday and, as I said yesterday, we shall see.

UPDATE - The manager came back on the phone and stated "The Launch Has Been Delayed Due to US Customs". I asked how that affects the units that are in their warehouses, confirmed by your department yesterday and her response was "That is all we have been told". The Saga continues...

 

[Orion]

I think the patent in question is the ridiculous part. Didn't old flip phones do the same thing? Turn phone numbers, emails into links? How the hell did Apple get a patent for this?!

Because the system is very flawed and the rest of the world bows down to crapple.

 

[NeoteriX]

This is UNBELIEVABLE. I am so mad right now. They better be putting in better components into the phone to make up for this lost time. 2.0ghz Quad core processor, 2GB RAM at a minimum.

(...waits for someone to take the troll bait )

 

[Duffin]

(...waits for someone to take the troll bait )

Too late, you already did by replying!

 

[tsipa]

Disagree.

Look there are advantages and disadvantages to these manufacturing and inventorying decisions, and it's not as simple as "oh let's stock up a bunch? yes? no?"

Doing "just-in-time" manufacturing entails risks, just like the one we are witnessing now -- it could have been ITC/customs, an earthquake, a tornado, there are unforeseen risks.

On the other hand, JIT allows for better products as phones that are being built have build and software revisions incorporated as soon as they are identified. And we know for a fact that LTE antenna issues were being identified in the LTEvo as recently as two weeks ago. Furthermore, there are costs to warehousing and storage -- not of just the phones, but of parts. The delivery of the phones to us is one small part of a carefully managed chain of inventory. Stockpiling phones is expensive for Sprint and expensive for everyone else.

Ultimately, there is no "obvious" decision when it comes to these things, and they all have tradeoffs. It's not as simple or straightforward as you make it out to be.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_in_time_(business)

I didn't mean that the JIT production strategy was simple or straightforward. It is a complicated process and involves many risks. Sprint was well aware of these risks so assigning blame for the delay is simple. Sprint chose to do it this way so they must deal with the consequences of their decisions.

 

[suprmallet]

The phones are already made. They're not changing them now.

As for the patent issue, what mucks things up is the touchscreen. It doesn't make sense, but for whatever reason, there is a separate patent for doing all the stuff a smart phone does specifically on a touchscreen. So it doesn't matter if old flip phones did it, because that's considered a different delivery system.

Basically, our patent office is screwed up.