Been Away for a While - Where are We?

[tnpir4002]

Greetings all,

I've been away for a while, but I'm not new to what we do--I ordered two Open Pandoras back in the day, the original and then the 1GHz Platinum (look for a video review on that coming soon). I've been passively watching development on the Pyra as I had time, but today I decided to go ahead and place my pre-order.

I remember what it was like when I ordered the first Pandora, so I know how this works. I've seen a ton of threads with a bunch of posts, but I wanted to see if I could get a quick rollup of exactly where things are with the Pyra. I finally pre-ordered my Pyra today but my question is, any idea how soon it might go out? Are we still fine-tuning and resolving issues? (I was frustrated at first with the original Pandora because I didn't understand how the process worked; I'm older and wiser now so I get that there may yet be a good bit of ground to cover, just want to try and get a feel for where things are is all.)

Thank you!

 

[levi]

ED's more or less fulfuilled the original 200 pre-pre-orderers, judging by reports coming in. If you placed a preorder today you'll be in about 1200th place, meaning if ED doesn't speed up more you're looking at a good couple of years before you get yours, but I would expect him to speed up as he gets more used to assembling Pyra and further optimises his workflow.

In terms of performance, it's looking quite good. Gotchas are HDMI out not working properly yet and low power mode not being implemented well yet meaning they won't last a day. Other bits and pieces could be made nicer to work with, but everything else seems resolvable if you fiddle with the settings.

 

[TrashyMG]

ED's more or less fulfuilled the original 200 pre-pre-orderers, judging by reports coming in. If you placed a preorder today you'll be in about 1200th place, meaning if ED doesn't speed up more you're looking at a good couple of years before you get yours, but I would expect him to speed up as he gets more used to assembling Pyra and further optimises his workflow.

Well I also assume he may be getting some help down the road too, perhaps if more people get their orders in and finish paying, it may pay for additional help for assembly. I know some mentions in the past of having Global Components assemble them once production gets rolling.

 

[tnpir4002]

That sounds camparable to where we were when I ordered my 1GHz Pandora--it took a couple of months but I still had my first one to play with, and in the same way I've still got my 1GHz Pandora today.

/Hopefully it takes less than a couple of years though...

 

[PowerGod]

a couple of months

This is the proof that you know how it works

 

[Legodude522]

I pre-ordered mine in March 2020. I'm hoping to get mine in 2022. I have purchased a secondhand 1ghz Pandora in the meantime and have been enjoying it very much.

 

[Git1]

/Hopefully it takes less than a couple of years though...

I assume Levi said that purely for analytical reasons, but it is probably rather unhelpful from a PR/investment perspective. He said 'If ED doesn't speed up', which should be read as 'at the current rate which is nowhere near what a regular mass-production run rate may resemble'.

ED has made it clear many times that the current assembly rate is much slower than what he would consider normal due to premises-moves/supply-issues/early-case-issues-that-must-be-fixed-by-hand-individually-thus-preventing-GC-from-being-able-to-do-the-mass-production.

ED has said all issues are being resolved, so it would be nonsensical to think the current rate of assembly would in anyway extrapolate to long-term outcomes.

 

[HelenF]

IIRC there was also the question about whether the chip shortage might delay later units.

 

[EvilDragon]

Yep, pre-preorders are done, now we're moving to the normal orders tonight.

Even though I didn't start before middle of October and didn't have that much time for assembly, October was the month most Pyras have shipped so far, which is a good sign.
Being able to work in the new rooms properly sped things up.

We might have one small hiccup soon because we need to get more cases, but otherwise, we're good to finish the next 380 units
Then we need new boards, but we're currently doing some minor updates on the current board designs, once these are done, we can order

 

[tnpir4002]

Yep, pre-preorders are done, now we're moving to the normal orders tonight.

Even though I didn't start before middle of October and didn't have that much time for assembly, October was the month most Pyras have shipped so far, which is a good sign.
Being able to work in the new rooms properly sped things up.

We might have one small hiccup soon because we need to get more cases, but otherwise, we're good to finish the next 380 units
Then we need new boards, but we're currently doing some minor updates on the current board designs, once these are done, we can order

Awesome news! Many thanks for the update!