Though it's something that's all too familiar to the early iPhone adopters, Sprint's point-of-sale systems experienced several setbacks today as customers flocked to retail stores to purchase the HTC EVO 4G.

Nothing better than experiencing it first-hand, right?  I walked into Best Buy at 2:00 PM EST for my EVO appointment, and walked out at 4:45 PM due to the system issues.  From 2 to 3, the systems were essentially useless, and at about 2:45, we were told that Sprint's systems were entirely down.  I can see RMS (Sprint's primary retail system) going down, given that it suffers when too many activations go through at once, but based on the tips I received during that time frame, everything was down - from RMS, to SNAP (indirect), to BEAST (Best Buy).  Fortunately for me, things came back online at about 4:20 PM, and I was out by 4:45 PM.  As the evening progresses, I'm beginning to see tweets about Sprint sending customers home, and according to Engadget, some retail stores are having to write receipts by hand.  Given that RMS is a one-stop shop (it activates, processes, and acts as a POS), it makes sense.

Here's a few comments from the PhoneDog community regarding their EVO 4G experiences:

@thenexus1 "Over an hour on the phone with Sprint trying to port in my T Mobile number"

@tanjiro "I just spoke to the manager at our local Radio Shack and he told me the entire Indianapolis district is sold out of the Evo."

@Lito187 "Evo is so nice. Here in Houston 4g is super fast."

@tlmeekins "I arrived at RS at 9:15 am and there was 1 rep in the store activating an EVO. Took 40 more minutes for him. An hour for me."

@CathyCeiger "Husband has EVO up and running, called me from store, clearest connection ever, bought iPhone headset, haha!"

@AriLRobbins "I was the first one in line... not that there was much of a line..."

So while it's great news for Sprint that a device is selling so well that it's crashing their systems, these activation issues (particularly the ones that are forcing customers to leave) could put a bad taste in the mouths of first-time Sprint users.  Your thoughts?