Motorola selling Droids faster than it can make them, has up to four videophones in pipeline
By Vlad Savov 
posted June 10th 2010 4:34AM
posted June 10th 2010 4:34AM
posted June 10th 2010 4:34AM
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Win!
@cdf74dc9
If you can't build more...You blew it.
@BeeDavis
If you can't wait, you blew it!
@cdf74dc9
DROID DOES!
@cdf74dc9
You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they'll want something new.
pick your poison
hate the guy but he's right.
@cdf74dc9
Anyone know what happened to the evo or iphone 4 post? Seems to have disappeared, probably from fanboy related flaming and such from both sides, sucks though cause i was interested in that article and never got to finish it...
@BeeDavis Anytime a company can put in a cheap feature that they don't believe in, I still commend them because so often these things don't take off for the wrong reasons. They eventually start to add up, but we have superphones and super choices.
@Fragmented If it comments like a troll, acts like a troll, and lives in his mom's basement past the age of 30 smelling worse than an Shrek...it's an Engadget troll.
But your icon is pretty priceless and perfect for a 38yom in his mom's basement.
@cdf74dc9
you might want to talk to a doctor about that, girls laugh at that.
@BeeDavis Seems to contradict the fact that almost every Verizon store in DC has these in stock. Maybe it's just poor inventory management.
@BeeDavis
So true.
The same goes for HTC, and looks like it will be applicable to Samsung as well.
Nokia? Time will tell.
They have chosen older, cheaper and volume-deliverable hardware.
Let's see how their strategy works in Q3-Q4.
To me it lookks like a gamble.
In the worst case, they can build, but can't sell.
@Einlander
ah hahaha. Yeah his gf needs more hard Dickens cider.
@cdf74dc9
Video call...FAIL
@cdf74dc9
It's only the Droids that Seem to have a shortage. Is there a hint here somewhere that someone doesn't want any droids in the free world.
@cdf74dc9 front facing cameras are so 2 days ago; side facing cameras are where it's at!
@Fragmented
hey jack ass... someone still has to pay for those "free" droids. and you act like that deal has been around for the whole 9 months. fool
@huzzlehoff
With an avatar like that, I can see why you would call video calls "fail"...
@BeeDavis If you're you, you blew it.
@juanvaldez Hilarious. Putting in features that they don't believe in or totally understand just because Apple did first. Classic.
@TickLe MY eLMo Engadget took it off because if something is better than the iPhone, it doesn't belong on Engadget lol
@cdf74dc9: I can't believe the DROID is chosen over the Nexus One, Evo, and the Incredible. Seriously? I know the DROID has a hardware keyboard, but even the iPhone's keyboard feels more like a hardware keyboard then that terrible DROID keyboard.
@TickLe MY eLMo They had a poll on that article too... I bet you anything Evo beat the iPhone in that poll and that's why they took it down. Same thing happened to another iPhone devoted website. Shame on you Engadget... course that's speculation.
@cdf74dc9
The EVO is gonna kick off when we get 4G on my coast
http://www.epinions.com/content_513931382404
@blenderman345 The hardware keyboard may suck compared to a good software keyboard, and the other phones may have good software keyboards...
But still, I hate losing half my screen when I use the keyboard in landscape mode (and I don't like using the keyboard in portrait mode). It's annoying, and even more so if you want to scroll the screen back to see the context you're responding to for emails or forum posts (like Engadget!)
@cdf74dc9
If Motorola has that many video handsets in the pipeline then it means video calling will be a huge failure. Anything Motorola does indicates that the industry is going in some other direction. I doubt if even the mighty iPhone can make video calling a success in the U.S.
@blenderman345
The Droid is better than the iPhone in every way. The Nexus One has limited availability. The Incredible came out not too long ago and it too is suffering from shortages. The Evo is limited to Sprint. Verizon has a huge number of customers.
Understand now?
@cdf74dc9
When 3G launched in the UK in 2003 it had video call capability, I remember using it a couple of times on my Nokia N70, needless to say it didn't take off in within a couple of years new phones stopped coming with forward facing cameras.
This isn't a new feature people !
Video calling is not a trend. It's a fad. 5 years time the US will look back and laugh about it, just like the rest of the world are now.
@dboobis
totally true - video calling's been around here for ages, and NO ONE CARES
@dboobis .. I remember quite a few years ago we had 3G video calling but it was postage stamped sized and was very choppy. So I think there is the potential it could be more popular.
But I just can't see people blowing all their monthly download quota for a few stupid video chats. It's the carriers that is holding everyone back.
@taligent With Sprint, you don't need to worry about such quota :)
@manifest3r .. True. But that is one small carrier among the hundreds around the world. Video chat will never take off until all carriers can handle it.
@dboobis
Really? I can think of heaps of uses for it that won't go away, like troubleshooting my parents network or something.
Would be better if all the voip providers could support it, with some common client / standard, so you can easily conference between phone and pc.
@taligent
Problem is, and always has been, that it's a MOBILE phone. You try walking down a busy road during a video call.
@psc2
Three letters: VNC. Why would you bother trying to awkwardly position a low-res video camera so you can squint and try to work out what the hell is going on, when you can just connect to your parent's PC remotely to fix the network problem? Something you can do even on an iPhone? For anything more complex than waving at someone, video calling (at least with currently available front-facing cameras) is almost entirely useless.
@psc2
How on Earth can video calling help in troubleshooting a network problem? You're not suggesting your mother pointing the camera at the router while you try to figure it out on a 3 inch screen are you?
@Tes Not just that but it's only going to be vga resolution so don't expect to see much detail on that router...
@Tes
Lol their house is wired with a patch panel in the garage... I over engineered it a bit when I lived there, and I was thinking more about if I was using my pc to video conference... and probably thought the res would be unrealistically high
@dboobis MOst people dont know how ugly they look, they will soon find out with video calling.
@Tes yeah just stop playing wow for a minute, put your plastic girlfriend back on her stand and come up from the basement and fix your mother's computer you troll.
@dboobis
By how much video chatting is used over skype, i expect video calling, once it is a feature widely available, to take off. I love video chats, and it is nice to have it as a feature on a phone, i mean honestly, what if you are on a long business trip and your wife/child/girlfriend is on the computer, you guys could easily just start up skype or qik or whatever you are using, and be able to video chat :).
@manifest3r Yeah and with ATA&T you don't have to worry about it either, because you use WiFi which is vastly Superior and will drop out less often and is faster. Sorry that's the best impression of fragmented that I can drum up.
@lookseehear Who says it will only be VGA? The rear-camera on iPhone 4 is not VGA but HD, and FaceTime could potentially send in that resolution...
Damn some people are negative these days. Video calling is nothing new, and yes it has been available to many of us non-Americans. But the quality of that was horrendous and at the size of your thumbnail. Of course it isn't as fun to use when it looks that shitty. Now I'm not saying FaceTime, Skype or anything else is going to change this, but I believe the foundation for video calling to be succesful is here now, or is on its way to be leveraged in a quality that is acceptable, and with time beter and better. FaceTime, Skype etc. don't rely on the standards opposed by the carriers, but the bandwidth of the network you are on...and that makes a big difference!
KR, Mars
@dboobis
I think that video calling is one of those features that needs to be socially driven. If there was a Twitter-like service attached to it it may become more useful.
@TickLe MY eLMo
If you're away on a business trip, chances are you will either have or have access to a webcam-equipped PC. I don't know about you, but I'd much rather see any future wife or child on a screen bigger than 3.5" - 5". I just don't see the need for video calling on a small screen, mobile device, and no-one I've talked to about it does either unfortunately.
@DariaMorgendorffer
Yea its been around for ages but it was shit. Video chat is not a fad, if carriers allow unlimited data (sprint) its going to take off just as long the software is good.
I am Captain Planet and the EVO is my favorite smartphone
@CaptainPlanet I am Nickedynick, and I agree.
@ssgadget I am FAP FAP FAP and I FAP FAP FAP.
I prefer to have the video call thingy rather than not, but it´s useless in an everyday basis.