We love covering the antics of gadget-crazed buyers on launch day as much as anyone, whether it be
die-hard gamers waiting for a PS3 or
international fanatics clamoring for Apple's latest. Sometimes, though, these big launch sellouts feel a bit... contrived. Such is the case with Nokia's
5800 XpressMusic, dropped first in Russia on Wednesday ahead of its
worldwide release yesterday. An internal memo (conveniently posted onto the
Mobile-Review forums by a Nokia employee) talks up the usual release day shenanigans: buyers camping for days, bribery attempts for spots in line, inventory disappearing in minutes, and an inevitable prediction that this thing will be bigger than the iPhone. However, while the memo liberally quotes from the LiveJournal musings of
Mobile-Review editor Eldar Murtazin, it skips over one choice bit of information he provided: a measly 120 phones were available at this "flagship" location in Moscow.
[Thanks, pops]