Pandora Pricing And Battery

[christo930]

I was checking out the openpandora site and from what I have read they are ready to mass produce and ship, is this true?

It's not entirely clear if the Pandora comes with the battery because on ordering page battery pack is an optional item, is that just for an extra battery?

What happened with the price? It's been a while, but the last time I checked they were being priced in the $335 range or something like that and now they are at $484 at the present conversion rate and it's being priced in Euros rather than in dollars like it was originally planned.

Once mass production is started, is there going to be a drop in price? I am not trying to complain or be unreasonable, but $500 is rather high, especially given the age of the specs. This was cutting edge in 2007-2008, but this is 2012 and I assume that mass production will have substantially lower labor costs. I would really like to get one, but I don't think it will ever be worth $500 to me. While I am being frank, I am no way trying to be deliberately provocative, so please don't take it as a troll or bashing. I appreciate all the work and years that has gone into this project, I am just disappointed at the price.

Chris

 

[gp32rich]

Production is once again ramping up with a German company putting the boards together

A battery is supplied: the optional battery is an additional battery should you be away from power for >10 hours

The price changed a while back for 'premium' orders to jump the queue in an attempt to bankroll production so the original pre-orderers who didn't bump to premium could eventually get theirs. All new orders are now 'premium'

ED has created business plans for selling enough units to complete all orders and repay loans. Pandora is as unique now as it was in 2008 (some components have changed; e.g. extra RAM) don't expect the price to drop just because production is rolling.
If you're going to wait you'll have to wait until ED's business plans are fulfilled.


But by then the sold units will be bankrolling P2, eh?

 

[ivanovic]

What happened with the price? It's been a while, but the last time I checked they were being priced in the $335 range or something like that and now they are at $484 at the present conversion rate and it's being priced in Euros rather than in dollars like it was originally planned.

Once mass production is started, is there going to be a drop in price? I am not trying to complain or be unreasonable, but $500 is rather high, especially given the age of the specs. This was cutting edge in 2007-2008, but this is 2012 and I assume that mass production will have substantially lower labor costs. I would really like to get one, but I don't think it will ever be worth $500 to me. While I am being frank, I am no way trying to be deliberately provocative, so please don't take it as a troll or bashing. I appreciate all the work and years that has gone into this project, I am just disappointed at the price.

In fact the mass production run in Germany is more expansive than the estimated production costs were in the initial batch for the company in Texas (which failed miserably!). That is the size of the production run is *not* higher so there is no pricedrop due to lower manufacturing costs.

If the device is not worth the price for you, then you simply should not buy it. It is easy as that. Sadly producing a device in such low numbers is freaking expensive. That is the difference between 10k devices to 10 million devices, numbers the pandora will never reach simply due to being in a niche market.

 

[christo930]

What happened with the price? It's been a while, but the last time I checked they were being priced in the $335 range or something like that and now they are at $484 at the present conversion rate and it's being priced in Euros rather than in dollars like it was originally planned.

Once mass production is started, is there going to be a drop in price? I am not trying to complain or be unreasonable, but $500 is rather high, especially given the age of the specs. This was cutting edge in 2007-2008, but this is 2012 and I assume that mass production will have substantially lower labor costs. I would really like to get one, but I don't think it will ever be worth $500 to me. While I am being frank, I am no way trying to be deliberately provocative, so please don't take it as a troll or bashing. I appreciate all the work and years that has gone into this project, I am just disappointed at the price.

In fact the mass production run in Germany is more expansive than the estimated production costs were in the initial batch for the company in Texas (which failed miserably!). That is the size of the production run is *not* higher so there is no pricedrop due to lower manufacturing costs.

If the device is not worth the price for you, then you simply should not buy it. It is easy as that. Sadly producing a device in such low numbers is freaking expensive. That is the difference between 10k devices to 10 million devices, numbers the pandora will never reach simply due to being in a niche market.

That's odd, I always hear about Germany's manufacturing sector being so "competitive" and how they have a trade surplus with China, I thought they actually would have lower production cost.OTOH, I guess they can't compete with a manufacturer in the US that has a 25% failure rate either.

Once all the loans are paid, a lot of the fix costs are over and done with, for example, they won't need to pay for molds again etc. So maybe after all the debt is debt is paid down, the units can be sold at cost. I don't think anyone (except 3rd parties like the manufacturers) should make any money off the Pandora given that it was financed with pre-orders and to a much less extent, donations. At least I can hope.

But by then the sold units will be bankrolling P2, eh? QUOTED FROM EARLIER POST

Do you think there will be another Pandora?I doubt it. It took so much longer and so much more headache that they ever dreamed of. Though it's specs aren't cutting edge anymore,they are still fairly good and they can probably sell these for at least 2 years, plenty of time to pay back the loans.

Chris

 

[dadioflex]

That's odd, I always hear about Germany's manufacturing sector being so "competitive" and how they have a trade surplus with China, I thought they actually would have lower production cost.OTOH, I guess they can't compete with a manufacturer in the US that has a 25% failure rate either.

...snip..

Chris

With German manufacturing, you're paying for quality. They're competitive, because often there's no-one else that can offer the service or products that they provide, and a great deal of that trade surplus, aside from cars obviously, is the high-end production machinery that China needs to become more efficient and which they simply aren't able to produce themselves.

 

[Mjlink]

Also every three units sold for the current price yield a 4th unit going to a preorder IIRC. So once we get past the Batch 1 & 2 preorders being fulfilled, we might see some change in price. That's just a guess on my end.