Dat Price Tag Tho

[WizardStan]

The only thing the Pyra/Pandora have going for it is the size, keyboard, full linux and a great community.

pffft, "only".

 

[DrHAX]

Under 1000 USD I'd be happy with otherwise I'd be picking up a used one. Not endless end comes out with some limited edition awesome cosmetic nonsense

Sent from my Z665C using Tapatalk

 

[Grench]

Erm... no, that would make no difference whatsoever to the issue I highlighted.

The only way I could see such a system working is if the bidders were under the impression they would have to pay the full amount of their bid, regardless of what anyone else bid and the "All winning bidders pay the same" aspect was completely withheld until after the auction was completed.

- Neelix

 You could take the median of the top-2K bids instead of the minimum of the top-K bids. That way it is perhaps clearer that each bid has an influence on the actual price.

Anyway, if selling only starts when they can be produced in big quantities, I don't really see a need to sell the first ones at a higher price -- we don't want to artificially postpone shipping the rest of them, do we?

The idea with the auction method is to ensure that ED gets the 'first off production' prices. Remember how the first Pandoras purchased for $300 ended up on Ebay for $1000+? If anyone is going to make that kind of markup on the 'first lot', it should be ED.

Those first 100, sequentially numbered and individually signed, sold at auction, might be able to cover the production costs for the first 500+.

If your concern with the auction method above is artificial overbidding, then have them actually bid for their rank by each serial number 0001 through 0100. ED keeps number 0000. The person who bids the most gets 0001 and so on down the line. We scrap the 'lowest bid = price' bit and everyone bids exactly what they're willing to pay. If they're outbid, they move down 1 spot - which makes participating in the race for unit 0001 very risky as you might wind up far overpaying for unit 0003.

Then put in a 2 month lag between the first 100 produced and continued production.

Why only 100 and why the 2 month lag?

Those 100 are a public beta test. If hardware issues are found requiring case or board revisions or RMAs, better to be on 100 who paid high $$$ than on 2,000 who paid 'normal' prices.

 

[Klumpen]

The Raspberry Pi prerelease auctions were very succesfull,

I think that it's a good idea to get a bit of the investment money back.

 

[deivid]

There'll always be users who will say it will fail if it will be sold for more then USD 200.


I really don't care about that, seriously.


I can understand them, they only want to play some games - and cheaper devices are available.


Price is always an issue here.


Usually, there are two kinds of people (based on experience from FOSDEM, GamesCom, etc.)


When you explain the system and what it can do, they either say "500 EUR for a game console? You must be crazy!" or "Wow, that's a decent price for all those features!"


Only people who care about the full desktop PC, the openness, the gaming controls, AND the form factor at the same time will find the price decent.


Otherwise they'll always find a system that might be better for them (i.e. Core2Duo Laptops or the Shield - both can do similar things the Pandora can do, but they are not really pocketable).


So yes, our customer group is limited, but still large enough to keep it alive

I'd seriously love to get a Pyra, but the comparison I made to a C2D laptop was because the computational power is similar, versatility, software. The form factor is not, the joystick isn't either, and a pocketable computer is damn awesome.

BUT, as I posted before, for everyone that doesn't live in Europe, 500 EUR is a LOT of money, think that it's about a month's pay (if you don't spend anything in food or gas, or anything at all) so it'd cost about two month's pay to get one. Plus shipping.

Just a little angry because the project is awesome, and totally open but it's most likely going to be out of my reach.

 

[ekianjo]

come on guys, if you lived in the 90s PCs were ridiculously expensive and you needed a solid 3 to 6 months of work to afford them. we have our gadgets for very cheap nowadays compared to that time.

 

[TrashyMG]

^I paid $1300 USD for the Pentium II 400MHz processor alone when it first came out. Think I paid close to $300 for 128MB of RAM.

 

[cuetzpalin]

BUT, as I posted before, for everyone that doesn't live in Europe, 500 EUR is a LOT of money, think that it's about a month's pay (if you don't spend anything in food or gas, or anything at all) so it'd cost about two month's pay to get one. Plus shipping.


Just a little angry because the project is awesome, and totally open but it's most likely going to be out of my reach.

Hello deivid,


I understand you, I live in Mexico and the income is pretty close to Argentina. So, 500€ is a lot of money for me too.


HOWEVER, we can start saving right now.


I don't see the Pyra being released for another two months at least. So, I feel I have enough time to save enough money to get one when it goes on sale.


Another good point here is the fact that we can trust ED handling the project and we won't have availability problems like the pandora had. So even if one cannot enter the preorders, the Pyras won't run out.


¡Saludos!

 

[LineOf7s]

^I paid $1300 USD for the Pentium II 400MHz processor alone when it first came out. Think I paid close to $300 for 128MB of RAM.

Bah!  I paid $300 for 512kB of RAM for my Amiga 500!     And $499 for my Commodore 1541 floppy disk drive for the Commodore 64!  As much as the computer!!!111

The Pyra (and Pandora) is very very niche and it will cost what it costs.  If that's too much for you - like it may well be for me - then add it to the list of nice things you wish you could have someday if you do all your homework and eat all your vegetables.  Don't come crying to mummy; she ain't listening.

 

[TrashyMG]

Bah!  I paid $300 for 512kB of RAM for my Amiga 500! 

Amiga 500 was the computer I always wanted, but couldn't purchase since I was still in school and only had summer time work...  I ended up with a Tandy 1000 HX instead ..

then add it to the list of nice things you wish you could have someday if you do all your homework and eat all your vegetables. 

 
I would of ate a forest of broccoli if It got me an Amiga back in the day..

 

[LineOf7s]

Bah! I paid $300 for 512kB of RAM for my Amiga 500!

Amiga 500 was the computer I always wanted, but couldn't purchase since I was still in school and only had summer time work... I ended up with a Tandy 1000 HX instead ..

Oh, I'm so sorry.    

 

[xiongxioi]

I would of ate a forest of broccoli if It got me an Amiga back in the day..

Then you will dream of the legendary broccoli man who devours ethical children and hide under young boys' beds.  

It's amazing how yesterday's treasure can turn into utter trash so quickly. (unless you are a collector) 

I'm still waiting fro computers to quadruple their performance so I can get one that will run everything I ever liked in the past. 

 

[Klumpen]

for everyone that doesn't live in Europe, 500 EUR is a LOT of money, think that it's about a month's pay (if you don't spend anything in food or gas, or anything at all) so it'd cost about two month's pay to get one. Plus shipping.
Just a little angry because the project is awesome, and totally open but it's most likely going to be out of my reach.

I don't know why people outside always think that Europeans are rich, those times are gone for most people, it was the case with our parents generation.

It in fact is a whole month's pay for me too and the rent of my 29m² appartment here swallows up most of it.

 

[vcoleiro1]

When UMPC's where a thing , they were pretty expensive from memory also.

 

[doragasu]

Great estimation @Exophase. I think maybe passive components will be higher than $5 (tantalum capacitors used in slim profile PCBs are expensive, you have to add some more connectors...), but that was a great investigation work and I enjoyed reading it.

I also think it will be around 500€. I will have to do a great effort to buy it at that price, but I think it will be worth it. I hope it doesn't cost more than that, because I know I'll buy it even if it does, and that may cause me problems (assaulting a bank or something). It would be an extremely nice surprise for me if Ed gets it cheaper than 500€. Do you believe in magic?

 

[Reyhn]

Wow, I hope estimations over 550/600€ are wrong. That would be around the limit of an overpriced device I think ...

Not that it wouldn't be worth its price, but that's quite an amount of money, for everyone not having a comfortable income (poorer countries than western UE, students, etc.).

 

[EvilDragon]

Wow, I hope estimations over 550/600€ are wrong. That would be around the limit of an overpriced device I think ...

Not that it wouldn't be worth its price, but that's quite an amount of money, for everyone not having a comfortable income (poorer countries than western UE, students, etc.).

Right now, the Pandora is at 420 EUR.

If we're trying to keep production costs similar (maybe slightly higher), then it shouldn't be a lot more than 500 EUR.

 

[Reyhn]

I bought a pandora preorder when I was still in high school with my savings, and never canceled to support the OP team despite all the problems that happened to the production. I will certainly do the same for the Pyra because you ED totally deserve it, just wanted to point out that anything over 600€ is not reasonnable, as it will clearly stop it from becoming popular ("600€ a hanheld game console ? no way !!")

Wow, I hope estimations over 550/600€ are wrong. That would be around the limit of an overpriced device I think ...
Not that it wouldn't be worth its price, but that's quite an amount of money, for everyone not having a comfortable income (poorer countries than western UE, students, etc.).

Right now, the Pandora is at 420 EUR.
If we're trying to keep production costs similar (maybe slightly higher), then it shouldn't be a lot more than 500 EUR.

That's good to hear

 

[WizardStan]

as it will clearly stop it from becoming popular

Define "popular".The Pyra, like the Pandora, doesn't need to sell millions. If there's a niche of 10'000 users willing to buy it at that price then it'll do just fine.

 

[Reyhn]

I guess that one goal of ED (as well as many others I know right) is not to loose money with this project. Keeping a community of the shape of Pandora's (and more or less the same) would be great, but I bet nobody spits on more people looking at the Pyra and buying it, right ? We here all probably know the value of the OP/Pyra and are willing to pay the price for it, but let's not be elitist (like the ones complaining of x86 bringing hords of dumb g4merz ). The more people interested in the Pyra, the better. And price is a serious argument.

edit : to be clear, by popular I mean less confidential than the OP, not selling millions of units