First Windows Phone 7 handsets sell out
Orange offering £20 for customer patience
The first Windows 7 handsets are flying out of shops faster than they can be supplied.
Orange has started pre-booking for handsets, and is offering customers £20 HMV vouchers to help them cope with the wait while new stocks come in. Meanwhile, HTC and Samsung handsets are selling out as they fast as they can be shipped to the stores.
Quite where the problem lies isn't clear: a shortage of the AMOLED screens so beloved by Samsung has been fingered as causing problems with the Omnia 7, while HTC seems to be having some software problems with its pair of Windows Phone 7 handsets. But what is clear is that this isn't an artificial shortage created to give the impression of popularity, attractive as that explanation might be.
Operators are frustrated by the delays, knowing that consumers eager to get their hands on a new toy can be easily distracted by equally shiny competitors, though much of the press seems surprisingly unaware of Microsoft's new consumer focus.
Typical of this is News Factor, which quotes an analyst at Pund-IT explaining: "For business-centric devices like Phone 7 phones, a delay of a week or three seems a minor blip... it's unlikely that many executives go weeping to bed if they don't get their new smartphones in a timely manner."
Unfortunately Windows Phone 7 isn't aimed at executives, but at those who might otherwise pick up an iPhone. One might imagine that network operators wouldn't care either way, but competing platforms is always to their advantage, and Microsoft has promised that operator billing for applications is a possibility - more than Apple has ever offered.
It does appear that Windows Phone 7 is more popular than retailers or the networks anticipated, which will be welcome news in Redmond even if the manufacturers are struggling to meet that demand. ®
Windows Phone 7 Reviews
Samsung Omnia 7
HTC HD 7
Hands on with Windows Phone 7
Windows Phone 7: handsets, operators compared
COMMENTS
Surely
You are getting rather over excited by something you haven't actually used yet....
(It may be good, it may not, I'll reserve judgment until I have seen one in action)
El Reg has been taken over.
Wow, the MS shills are out in force today.
The comments section reads like no other Reg comments section I've seen before. Very bizarre.
The WinPho7 looks nice enough, but not exactly the breakthrough device the slavering hordes (well, Jim and a couple of others) on here would suggest.
Eh?
"Consumers don't care about the missing bits - the copy 'n' paste... etc."
Funny, it was pretty damn important when the original iPhone shipped without it - four years ago - according to the anti-Apple-tards at least.
Oldest trick in the book!
"The first Windows 7 handsets are flying out of shops faster than they can be supplied."
Underestimated demand?
Margins are so tight these days, they try not to make too many of a product just in case the worst happens and you get a warehouse full of crap you can't shift. The big advantage is that you can claim that stock has all sold out in seconds flat!
All the name brands do it, Sony, Apple, Tosh, Hitatchi, you name it.
Keep Pantyhose On Everyone
Dunno, I'm willing to take the comments at face value as being from folk who have bought their phones and are pleased with them, especially since 99.999% of them are from one person (sorry Jim only kidding).
Very much doubt it's down to MS shills though. Blinkered enthusiasts I would perhaps accept, but only if I'd tried WP7 for myself and knew it to be a rancid pile of festering cack, which I haven't, and the reviews don't seem to suggest that either.
Seems fairly simple - a good proportion of folk actually like WP7.
