EvilDragon said:
Erm? The latest official update about us ordering the next cases was last week in the blog?
Yes, that was mentioned in the blog, but that was nearly a week ago, now - were the cases only ordered then, or had they been ordered a few days before? Were the cases ordered just the 3000, or the entire remaining 9000? I could interpret either way.
The only thing you mentioned that has changed was the button/dpad painting. However, craig suggested the possibility of some other things: http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/53850-how-many-in-total/page__st__30__p__863453__hl__keypad%20paint%20stickers__fromsearch__1&#entry863453 and it was unclear if those would happen, or how much additional time any of this would add to the creation of the cases. Heck, I guess I should ask how many keymats are at Craig's, if you were thinking of changing that - was it just 1000 as well, or the whole 4000 (10000?)
Previously, you've told us that the case factory can pump out 1000 cases a day (unpainted, clearly). You've also said that some of the past delays were because of setup/first time stuff, and figuring out how everything should be, so the next ones would (ideally) be faster. Of course, all times at the case factory should be taken with a grain of salt, but did they at least give an estimate to you (I'll double or triple the length for when I hope to actually see results) of how long this would take? At 1k a day, or even half that, I'd hope that they'd have at least done the injection moulding for all the cases by now, if not the painting (where appropriate) or stickers (you doing that?), let alone the packaging/shipping.
Don't get me wrong - I know it's hard dealing with them, and they don't give a lot of information, change it, and are completely unreliable. But the cases (and the boards - how many of those do you have, now?) are the final thing holding up the rest of the first batch. People are hungering for more information, any estimate, however rough - give it to us, and tell us to multiply by three for a real expectation (no "best-case scenario" junk). For me, knowing that production is happening, and that the count is slowly but steadily getting closer to my Pandora shipping is infinitely better than sitting in limbo not knowing anything other than "it'll happen when it happens."
EvilDragon said:
And we told them to NOT paint them... but what should we do? Ship back the painted buttons and wait until they redo them?
You guys would've killed us
And it's not that the Pandora is useless like that..
No, absolutely not. You did the right thing, as far as I'm concerned with regards to assembly.
But knowing that makes it better in my mind. It's the first I've heard anyone say that you'd specifically told them not to paint the buttons/dpad, and they didn't listen. What to do? Perhaps if you complain loudly enough, you can get them to give you a discount on the parts the messed up. Or bump you up the queue because of it. You should get something in compensation for how much they've screwed you over.
