Well here’s something interesting to start the new week. An Amazon user review for the RINGKE SLIM Nexus 5 Case had something very interesting to say. Other than saying that the case “works well” with the Nexus 5, S. Power also stated, “I have 6 more days of embargo before I can say anything about the next Nexus phone.” In case you’re not familiar with an embargo, it’s an agreement between a media outlet and the source in which the media outlet is granted access to a product or information, but cannot divulge anything until a specified date. In this case, the product would be the Nexus 5, the source would be Google (or LG), and the specified date would be October 25, since the review was posted on October 19.
Now embargos are far from unusual in the media business. Samsung has done them from time to time. What they will do is hand out a bunch of review units to a bunch of reviewers and everyone agrees they can’t talk about it or post a review until a specified date and time. That is why sometimes you see reviews from various sites for a particular device being posted at the same time almost to the minute. HTC recently did this with the One Max. They passed out review units before the One Max event, but all outlets agreed not to post their reviews until the event took place.
Now with all that said, the big question is if this “reviewer” is legitimate. First off, she is a top 100 reviewer, so it’s not like this person just created an account to post this review. However, she state that the case “works well”, but the product page specifically says it won’t be available until October 31. So, yes, she could have a Nexus 5, but would Ringke send out a review unit early too?
At this point, I would be far from shocked if Google forgoes a Nexus event, and has instead, sent out review units to select blogs with an embargo agreement. The fact that Google sent out invitations last week for an event in NYC that won’t be a hardware event is quite puzzling. This event just so happens to be on the evening of the 24th. Many embargo’s are lifted at midnight, so it’s very likely the embargo will be lifted later that night at midnight, which would be October 25.
Assuming all of this is true, it would still be strange for a person to tell everyone they have the device when they aren’t supposed to, especially under and account that uses a real name and has a link to a legitimate blog. It’s not like she was trying to be private about it. It’s possible that she really doesn’t have the device, but she knows someone who does, and is therefore aware of the embargo. I really don’t know, but something fishy is going on with this product announcement. All things point to an event next week, but no invitations have been sent out other then for an event that will not have any hardware announcements. All I can say is, don’t be shocked if you see a bunch of Nexus 5 reviews at midnight (or sometime) on October 25. I won’t bet my life on it, but I won’t be surprised.
source: Amazon
via: Phandroid
Come comment on this article: Nexus 5 could have an embargo that lifts on October 25
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