1GHz units, Classic units, repairs and TV-Out Cables (2012-08-24)

[DrBaronVonEvilSatan]

i have somewhat mixed feelings.


i actually originally reserved back in 08 or 09 but never sent in money.


some time later i wandered back to the site and saw that they'd never shipped and production was about to roll and made a $370 payment in 2010 iirc.


in late 2011 i re-established contact with ED and found i'd missed my turn, but 1Ghz units were right available "right away" if i basically paid double the original price.


Of course at this point the 256 wouldn't be worth the original price to me because it's no longer competetive as a handheld. The 1Ghz is competetive, but i still have more than the original price to pay to get one and that makes me just not want to think about the money i've already paid.


Part of me is saying "go ahead and cancel, there's other things you need the money for" but most of me is saying "this could be your only chance before they go under."


Seriously, that's why i opted for the hand-built uber-expensive test model: best chance of actually recieving one.


i still have no idea what number i originally was or how deep in the test-run list i am.


i just keep checking my email everyday.

 

[Wally]

The 1GHZ was not available right away back then.. that was the 512MB model..


I highly doubt that the OpenPandora Team will go under, there's several reason explained by EvilDragon before. Mostly the issue was due to certain suppliers not doing their job correctly.

 

[JackTheKnife]

Personally I think Craig only ships those to premiums and new sales and is stonewalling the original pre orders into upgrading or refunding but seeing as he is completely quiet about it and as far as I know not a single post has been made by an original pre orderer in Craigs queue for months that they in fact have received their non upgraded unit makes this pure speculation.

it's definitely what I fear and think is going on...

i'm agree this attitude is not cool but it is dangerous for the company if there are a lot of refund, isn't it?

With refunds there is an interesting part - I have paid for my batch1 preorder in £ but they want to refund me in $ which is not equal to originally paid value :blink:


Sent from my Notion Ink ADAM using Tapatalk 2

 

[elwing]

Personally I think Craig only ships those to premiums and new sales and is stonewalling the original pre orders into upgrading or refunding but seeing as he is completely quiet about it and as far as I know not a single post has been made by an original pre orderer in Craigs queue for months that they in fact have received their non upgraded unit makes this pure speculation.

it's definitely what I fear and think is going on...

i'm agree this attitude is not cool but it is dangerous for the company if there are a lot of refund, isn't it?

They lose money with refund, but it would seem they lose less money than if they send an original preorder...

 

[kaiserpc]

If the 1ghz were heavily discounted to old pre-orderers I might consider it - but at the current price there is no way I can afford one now. If they are losing money on pre-orders - wouldn't it make more sense to offer batch 1 orderers a better deal - to try and get them to upgrade. Remember if you are a original batch 1 orderer then the profit that is used to subsidise your order won't be required as you've paid extra for a 1ghz order - so you would think us batch 1 orderers could get a better deal. If I was told I could upgrade for say £100 I might then consider it - but I'm sure the figure you need to pay is more than I paid in the first place £200+?


Major Kudos to Ed though - I read how he sends Craig batch 1 orders basically for free on the other thread! I would probably have bought one of Craigs control pad things for my tablet by now - but I refuse to spend any more money until I get my original pandora. Here's hoping Ed can get through all this and eventually clear all the old orders before embarking on Pandora 2 (via kickstarter?)

 

[JackTheKnife]

If the 1ghz were heavily discounted to old pre-orderers I might consider it - but at the current price there is no way I can afford one now. If they are losing money on pre-orders - wouldn't it make more sense to offer batch 1 orderers a better deal - to try and get them to upgrade. Remember if you are a original batch 1 orderer then the profit that is used to subsidise your order won't be required as you've paid extra for a 1ghz order - so you would think us batch 1 orderers could get a better deal. If I was told I could upgrade for say £100 I might then consider it - but I'm sure the figure you need to pay is more than I paid in the first place £200+?


Major Kudos to Ed though - I read how he sends Craig batch 1 orders basically for free on the other thread! I would probably have bought one of Craigs control pad things for my tablet by now - but I refuse to spend any more money until I get my original pandora. Here's hoping Ed can get through all this and eventually clear all the old orders before embarking on Pandora 2 (via kickstarter?)

I would pay £100 to upgrade batch1 unit to 1GHz rather than go for a refund. £100 will be good compensation for old pre-orders and I have mentioned few pages before, but no word from Ed/Craig. Anyway in both cases (refund or go for £100) OP Ltd is loosing money.


Also I do not expect to clear queue before Kickstarter project campaign , but you can imagine ~500 ppl are going to that project for only bashing on 4+ years wait timeline to get their Pandora1.

 

[gunrock]

I love this idea being bandied around by you, that somehow an already struggling project should somehow magic up some extra cash to compensate delayed orders with a more expensive bit of kit for not enough money to cover it. Ed and Craig have already done the honourable thing by not declaring themselves bankrupt and swallowing up everyone's cash and are soldiering on.


I think what rankles you and others (besides the obvious lack of a Pandora) is the fact that Craig (in comparison to ED) is a bit brusque sometimes and is not willing to flagellate himself any time someone posts a 'where's my fucking Pandora, or at least tell me where I am in the queue'.


The Pandora project was a disaster because the lack of experience of the team in making good business decisions and choosing the right business partners. I'm 100% sure future projects (iCP 2 and Pandora 2) will be much better handled, as Craig has shown with the iCP and ED has shown with moving Pandora production to GC in Germany. Whether they can better handle the way they do order management next time around remains to be seen.

 

[aatu]

A couple of things that crossed my mind:


(This first one was probably just a "year typo" on kaiserpc's part (or maybe I simply misunderstood the wording...), but just to make clear for others)


The Craig's "original pre-order" queue is nowhere near 01/10/2009. It's still in the very first few days. I'm holding up on a 03/10/2008 pre-order, and I'm not even sure if 02/10/2008 is reached yet. ED, on the other hand, has already gotten quite far on his queue, he was at least on 2009's side at some point, not sure what year he is now fulfilling.


The £100 (a pipe-dream, though) upgrade offer to 1GHz might sound like a good deal, and I would be happy if Craig decided to offer that deal (or any other special deal for the original pre-orders). BUT, I still wouldn't even bite on it, personally. Though I would surely hope other people would, so the queue gets shorter, and thus I might get mine sooner.


I also share the fear of the idea of Craig stonewalling to strong-arm people to upgrade. And I know it's a mean thing to say, we should give the guy some benefit of the doubt. It's quite a drastic accusation, after all. Nevertheless, after 4 years and all that has happened, the confidence kind of grows thin, too...


(hypothetically speaking, if the stonewalling is indeed the case):


I just wonder how long he'll wait? Until there are only 10-50 original pre-orderers left? Or does he expect everyone to fold and upgrade/refund?

 

[pmprog]

I just wonder how long he'll wait? Until there are only 10-50 original pre-orderers left? Or does he expect everyone to fold and upgrade/refund?

I wonder if there are any laws regarding delivery/turnaround times.


I guess a question is, how long are you really prepared to wait? But I suppose if he is stonewalling, you probably wouldn't want to answer that

 

[WizardStan]

I wonder if there are any laws regarding delivery/turnaround times.

As I understand it there are no laws per se. When you ordered you entered into a contract and you are entitled to one of two things under that contract: the product you paid for or a full refund of the amount you paid. It is your prerogative to wait for the former until you ask for the latter.


What there is a law about, however, is fulfilling existing contracts before completing new contracts. By selling immediate-ship units they are technically breaking the original contracts and old pre-orderers still waiting would be well within their right to sue OPT not only for their original amount but also damages from waiting. Of course, this would be incredibly stupid: if there isn't the money to fulfill pre-orders, there certainly isn't enough to refund everyone plus damages and expenses; all that would happen would be to force Craig and Michael to file bankruptcy and you would get just a fraction of what you were after.


If they really wanted to do everything entirely on the up-and-up, they would have taken out a loan to refund the pre-orders properly (whether you wanted a refund or not) and then done nothing but sold read-ship devices like they are now. That would have sucked almost as much as them declaring insolvency and starting from scratch.

 

[Arkay Firestar]

I think the bottom line is I wish I'd ordered from Michael. He obviously cares about the project and continues to work toward the end goal for all his customers.

 

[JackTheKnife]

I wonder if there are any laws regarding delivery/turnaround times.

As I understand it there are no laws per se. When you ordered you entered into a contract and you are entitled to one of two things under that contract: the product you paid for or a full refund of the amount you paid. It is your prerogative to wait for the former until you ask for the latter.


What there is a law about, however, is fulfilling existing contracts before completing new contracts. By selling immediate-ship units they are technically breaking the original contracts and old pre-orderers still waiting would be well within their right to sue OPT not only for their original amount but also damages from waiting. Of course, this would be incredibly stupid: if there isn't the money to fulfill pre-orders, there certainly isn't enough to refund everyone plus damages and expenses; all that would happen would be to force Craig and Michael to file bankruptcy and you would get just a fraction of what you were after.


If they really wanted to do everything entirely on the up-and-up, they would have taken out a loan to refund the pre-orders properly (whether you wanted a refund or not) and then done nothing but sold read-ship devices like they are now. That would have sucked almost as much as them declaring insolvency and starting from scratch.

Yeah, but mostly issue is with Craig's queue. Ed has started to move parts around and got things straight. If Craig will go with P2 over Kickstarter and I will not receive my batch1 prior I will be really mad.

 

[aatu]

I wonder if there are any laws regarding delivery/turnaround times.


I guess a question is, how long are you really prepared to wait? But I suppose if he is stonewalling, you probably wouldn't want to answer that

Well, I have already practically written the payment as "gone" (long time ago, I might add). Not meaning that I wouldn't try to get my money back if Craig's company went belly up, and I still hadn't gotten my Pandora. But quite simply, I have come to terms with the fact that I might never get anything back... So whatever happens, I'm 99.9% certain I'm sitting this one to the very end.


And it's not really the lost money that would sadden me. It's the time and energy I've invested in following this project. Now I'm actually quite glad none of my friends were interested enough to place an order of their own. I mean, these 4 years (and counting...) would have been SOOO much worse (as in more stressful) if they had.


And if it indeed is Craig stonewalling us for the said reasons, I really need to start changing my way of trusting people so easily. But then again, the cat doesn't know the stove is hot until it burns itself... So at least this will be a valuable life lesson, if nothing more.

 

[Godmil]

I think because Craig doesn't post as many details it's very easy to guess things and then have people run away with the idea. I still have full faith in Craig, and am confident he is still committed to fulfilling his pre-orders.


I'd guess the reason not many old orders have got their pandoras lately is because we're waiting for the last batch from ED to finish selling before another batch can be funded (which will have the free units for Craig to give away).

 

[Cilph]

So, to save myself from reading the last two months worth of forum posts:


Ordered from Craig/Jacqueline, confirmed end of January 2009. Has Craig even come close to shipping the orders around that time? There is no way in hell that I'm paying to upgrade after all these years, nor do I have the money in the first place.

 

[ekianjo]

So, to save myself from reading the last two months worth of forum posts:


Ordered from Craig/Jacqueline, confirmed end of January 2009. Has Craig even come close to shipping the orders around that time? There is no way in hell that I'm paying to upgrade after all these years, nor do I have the money in the first place.

Very short answer if you want to get a Pandora fast:


- ask Craig for refund


- get your original money back


- replace an order in ED's shop (you may have to pay a bit more than your original order)


- get your Pandora delivered within a few weeks


Or else, you could wait for Craig's delivery but you may be waiting for a long time.

 

[aatu]

Oh, and another thing to keep in mind:


The original pre-orders were started at the end of September 2008 (30/09/08?), that gave HUGE amount of orders, like 3500 in just a matter of hours, so they quickly stopped it. After a couple of days, they decided to open them again, and adjust the size of the first patch according to whatever people were willing to order. That didn't give that much more, though, only about 500 more.


I'm not sure, they might have left the queue open after that, too. But the thing is, after the second opening (start of October), there wasn't that many new orders coming through, anymore. So between that and the start of 2009, there aren't that many between us. Also, there have been quite a lot of people dropping out, and all kinds of special deals, like premiums and stuff, which has shortened the pre-order queue, too.


Nonetheless, I wouldn't be very optimistic of getting your Pandora any time soon, I'm not holding my breath to get mine this year... The Craig's "original pre-order" queue is moving EXTREMELY slow.


PS. Someone might want to correct me on those dates and order sizes, they are just from what I can remember, but should still give some sense of direction.

 

[kaiserpc]

So, to save myself from reading the last two months worth of forum posts:


Ordered from Craig/Jacqueline, confirmed end of January 2009. Has Craig even come close to shipping the orders around that time? There is no way in hell that I'm paying to upgrade after all these years, nor do I have the money in the first place.

I'm in exactly the same position - also ordered at the end of January 2009 via Craig's shop. There has been no communication from Craig as to where he is in his pre-order queue in terms of numbers or dates. A simple post/email/update by Craig would clear a lot of things up - simply say how many are left in his pre-order queue, and approx what original order date are we at - so for example: 350 left, approx 10/10/08. This would also save his mailboxes from being spammed by people requesting if and when their preorders are being sent out.

 

[ekianjo]

So, to save myself from reading the last two months worth of forum posts:


Ordered from Craig/Jacqueline, confirmed end of January 2009. Has Craig even come close to shipping the orders around that time? There is no way in hell that I'm paying to upgrade after all these years, nor do I have the money in the first place.

I'm in exactly the same position - also ordered at the end of January 2009 via Craig's shop. There has been no communication from Craig as to where he is in his pre-order queue in terms of numbers or dates. A simple post/email/update by Craig would clear a lot of things up - simply say how many are left in his pre-order queue, and approx what original order date are we at - so for example: 350 left, approx 10/10/08. This would also save his mailboxes from being spammed by people requesting if and when their preorders are being sent out.

Probably you would be very worried if you saw no evolution at all between two updates

 

[pmprog]

all that would happen would be to force Craig and Michael to file bankruptcy and you would get just a fraction of what you were after.

Actually, wouldn't it just be Craig filing for bankruptcy? The two shops are independant, and it only seems to be Craig's customers feeling very in the dark.

Probably you would be very worried if you saw no evolution at all between two updates

Maybe, or maybe not. It would give Craig's customers a fair indication of what Craig is doing, and they can make a better judgement call on what to do