Motorola’s Droid X flew off the shelves at Verizon Wireless stores and online on its launch day Thursday, filling a growing demand for high-speed touchscreen smartphones that has been gold for manufacturers and the nation’s top carriers. Despite assurances that the new device would be in ample supply after a predecessor, HTC’s Droid Incredible, ran short at launch in April, Verizon’s web site told shoppers Friday that July 23 is the earliest their orders will ship. Shortages were also reported at Best Buy stores.
Verizon spokesperson Brenda Rainey told us Friday that the shortage affected only some areas of the country and Verizon has regularly scheduled inventory deliveries to ensure there will be adequate supplies.
Asked if the company underestimated demand, Rainey said “this is a retail business, and like most retail businesses we do our best to predict and estimate demand and order appropriately. But there is always an unknown factor that equates to popularity, and in this case the [Droid X] is extremely popular.”
She declined to speculate on whether competitor Apple’s highly publicized troubles with its iPhone 4, which has signal problems tied to its unusual antenna design, may have helped the Droid X, whose design and features are similar.
“People make decisions about what phone they want for all kinds of reasons,” she said. “When people walk in the door at Verizon, they’ve chosen a network. I can’t comment on how things like that influence their decisions. You have to ask the customers.”
The Droid X features one of the largest touchscreens available, 4.3 inches, and, unlike the iPhone, supports Adobe Flash-based graphics. While it doesn’t have a slide-out keyboard like the original Droid, it does have more physical buttons than the iPhone. It also has HDMI output and an eight-megapixel camera, compared to iPhone’s five.
The Droid X went…