Preorders Have Started. (Previously named starts in two hours)

[Wrath Of Khan]

That figure will not hold. EvilDragon mentioned he sold about 7500 Pandoras in his interview with LPX (after the 20min mark).
At 560 units per month, it would almost equal the Pandora after a year. I doubt that will happen.

Thats right. I listened to the whole interview, it was good stuff. The current pace of sales won't hold indefinitely, no way.
But with advertising and word of mouth we might hit 2,000 pre-orders over the next few months.

I imagine the Pyra might fare better than the Pandora, there was too many issue and false starts in that production. EDs cautious approach is one reason why I pre-ordered. As he has said he will take his time to ensure everything is just right before mass producing any units.

 

[Ocean112]

I think the greatest factor to the lack of Pyra sales is the GPD Win. A x86 processor is much more useful than an ARM based one overall. If this pre-order had happened several months earlier, then we might be in a different situation. If there's a cpu board released with an AMD or Intel x86 SoC then I think we'll see quite a large increase in interest.

A secondary factor is the quality and production problems the Pandora experienced.

What I'd like in the future is a dual boot Pyra Running both Mint or Arch and Windows on a 14nm AMD SoC. I don't really see it happening, but a man can dream can't he?

 

[Klumpen]

Then again, it costs much more than the Pandora ever did, so swings and roundabouts, I suppose.

The 1Ghz Pandora did cost a good chunk more than 600€ once if you bought a CC Pandora earlier and upgraded it later like I did.
The price of the upgrades was a bit high to cover some of the first pre-orderers which never got their Pandoras from "the nameless one" though, I think.

 

[tigerroast]

I think the greatest factor to the lack of Pyra sales...

*ahem* You mean "pre-orders," yes? Thus far, 0 Pyras have been sold, considering a final revision doesn't exist. Ergo, no Pyras are available to purchase. Besides, a pre-order can be cancelled at any time, for any reason, without a single Pyra leaving Dragonbox.

is the GPD Win.

Okay. Let's say, for comparison's sake, we count Pyra pre-orders as sales (which they aren't). What does the GPD WIN have over the Pyra besides:

A x86 processor [which is] much more useful than an ARM based one overall.

Well, the WIN had a hugely-successful IndieGoGo fundraiser, which earned it a budget that's at least double the current funds raised by the Pyra pre-orders. Funds raised by a very broad audience made up of far greater numbers than the Pandora/Pyra community.

Successful campaigns on such sites are also very potent for marketing and promotion. How much promotion did the Pyra get to this point, exactly? Besides the very small amount of marketing and promotion this community alone could provide, there's no way the Pyra has as much wind in its sails as the GPD WIN does right now.

If this pre-order had happened several months earlier, then we might be in a different situation.

Well, they tried to make a robot EvilDragon that runs off of nothing but coffee in order to get the Pyra into prototyping phase much quicker. I wonder what ever came of that project. Hmm...maybe they scrapped it to work on getting the manufacturing process straightened out. Who can tell?

Or...maybe...the robot EvilDragon developed a mind of its own, killed the original and took over! *gasp* Kill the Synth! Down with the Institute!!!

If there's a cpu board released with an AMD or Intel x86 SoC then I think we'll see quite a large increase in interest.

If only the Pyra had a Neo-Geo coming out of the 2nd SD card slot...or a Thunderbolt port to hook the Pyra up with an nVidia Quadro GPU...or a manufacturer of power-efficient x86 SoCs that is willing to sell their silicon at a very low MOQ.

One can dream...

A secondary factor is the quality and production problems the Pandora experienced.

Both of which are mutually-exclusive to the Pyra, which is developed in a different way and headed by a different person.

And here's where the Pyra's lack of marketing force can come into play: building the story. Market the Pyra as the successor to the Pandora, but better in how it's made.

"The Pandora was burned to the ground by a madman who jumped off of roofs to promote his gadgets. From its ashes, the Pyra rose. Led by a man who breathes technology and bleeds coffee, never will the Pyra suffer the same pitfalls in its development that plagued the Pandora."

What I'd like in the future is a dual boot Pyra Running both Mint or Arch and Windows on a 14nm AMD SoC. I don't really see it happening, but a man can dream can't he?

[RANT] Mint is one of the most bass-ackwards distros I've ever seen. "Hey, let's fork GNOME3, and never update it! We'll call it 'stable!'" Ever heard of Solus? They got it right. Focus on what matters the most: the UI. Gnome's got the underlying tech squared-away. No need to fork every component under-the-sun and give it delicious-sounding nicknames. [/RANT]

Well, if AMD were willing to sell at a low MOQ, then it's a possibility.

 

[WizardStan]

I think the greatest factor to the lack of Pyra sales is the GPD Win.

What lack of sales? Accepting the sales/pre-order issue that tigerroast went through already, I don't think anyone here is dissapointed: sales are booming! The GPD Win, with a lower priced, debatably superior product on a major website, sold 69 in 2 days against the Pyra's 400ish without a major website to serve as advertising. It hit 342 backers after just under 7 days; meanwhile the Pyra hit 550 at the end of day 7. It took 2 months to sell about 1800, which averages out to just 30 per day. If the Pyra can maintain 20 per day without the benefits of a crowdfunding website like Indiegogo then I'm actually feeling really good.
The Pyra may have slowed down a little bit, but there's no reason to think it's flailing, especially since ED has only just made the media pack for proper advertising. If Engadget were to pick up the story I'm sure we'd clear the Win's 1800 in half the time.

 

[vcoleiro1]

I think people are vastly over estimating the value of crowd funding sites marketing value. Especially Indiegogo. It's marketing value is almost zero. The WIN for example didn;t take off until GPD got a story on it on Japanese Engadget. Suffice to say, about 75% of backers are japanese.

Indiegogo in itself , is bad. Your project pretty much is relinguished into obscurity on the site very quickly. Youi are reliant as always, and as per other crowd funding, on writing to the media and getting the word out. Whether that's big tech sites, big forums etc etc.

For example , GPD put the 128GB version of the XD on Indiegogo, the 45 day campaign just ended. It got 20 backers. You heard that right, twenty raising $4,500 . Indiegogo is crap for marketing.
Unfortunately for GPD, unlike with the WIN, they never got much if any tech sites to run a story on the 128GB XD offering. And there you have it.

Same with the MJ Linux Tablet, hardly any publicity, and it went down also. I still can't believe they couldn't get many tech sites of worth to do a story on it. You would think a 10 inch Linux tablet with a Z8750 high res screen etc for $300, would get publicity easily. I guess they didn't write a compelling letter to tech sites, if they did at all attempt to contact them

To be fair, the Pyra got a huge intial boost because it had a multi year build up from a dedicated community. ie there was a pent up demand. The WIN on the other hand came out of the blue in comparison

Now is the hard bit though, it's about the grind of getting backers that are not part of the community. It's about getting onto as many tech sites / forums etc to get the word out and sway those who haven't been part of the ride, and know little about the Pandora/Pyra

 

[Klumpen]

The WIN for example didn;t take off until GPD got a story on it on Japanese Engadget. Suffice to say, about 75% of backers are japanese.

So... where's the Pyra article on Engadget?

 

[vcoleiro1]

Pyra did get onto The Verge ( a very big site also) . But the Pyra orders to date , would primarily have been pent up demand from the what is it now - 2 years in developmnent buildup (something the WIN didn't have), and also the base of Pandora communtiy. A lot of that pent up demand is probably burnt through now

The motto of the story, is we need to get the word out more. But thats not saying anything we all don't know already.

 

[_jr_]

That figure will not hold. EvilDragon mentioned he sold about 7500 Pandoras in his interview with LPX (after the 20min mark).
At 560 units per month, it would almost equal the Pandora after a year. I doubt that will happen.

But (unless there are significant issues) it seems quite reasonable (when considering Pandora sales and the Pyra preorder) to assume that he will sell several thousands of units. If I had - let's say - half a million EUR (or even 100,000) I'd ask ED for investment conditions.

 

[Silent-Hunter]

What about Google AdSense?

 

[iprice]

[MODS] Can you change the thread title to "Pre-orders have started" or something similar?

 

[TrashyMG]

[MODS] Can you change the thread title to "Pre-orders have started" or something similar?

Done.

 

[iprice]

Cheers

 

[rygD]

The old title was fine. Has the original post been changed to fit the new title?

 

[matzesu]

I wonder: whats the Ordernumber of Craig "Craigix (the Furhat)" Rothwell??
Do whe know if he also dit a preeorder??
Or is he gone forever??

 

[Klumpen]

I wonder: whats the Ordernumber of C**** "******* (the Furhat)" ********??
Do whe know if he also dit a preeorder??
Or is he gone forever??

You broke the taboo. :X

 

[iprice]

I wonder whether "He who must not be named" is aware of the Pyra and if so, whether he pre-ordered one.

TBF without his vision, the Pandora and thusly the Pyra wouldn't exist. Thankfully, despite HWMNBN's feck ups, ED managed to keep the torch burning

 

[logenkain]

I think the greatest factor to the lack of Pyra sales is the GPD Win. A x86 processor is much more useful than an ARM based one overall.

A few issues with that
Most importantly, Intel seems to be abandoning ATOM, so we will see how that goes.
Atom processors are pretty crap in my experience, but my main experience with it is a pretty crappy tablet (Chewi Hi8)

For Windows it's more of an issue, but in Linux there's not much you can't do in ARM these days that you can do on x86. Neither the WIN nor the Pyra will be able to deal with any modern games.

Aside from games, who cares about x86 anymore? Sure, there are still some use cases, but they are becoming fewer and fewer by the year.

 

[tigerroast]

GPD put the 128GB version of the XD on Indiegogo, the 45 day campaign just ended. It got 20 backers. You heard that right, twenty raising $4,500

Jesus Hippy Communist Zombie Christ...

 

[slimeycat]

I remember the RISC vs CISC arguments of the 90s. ARM has won that. In my opinion.

Gpd win has its market and Pyra also has a market. They are both niche devices, the differences will become self evident once they are in people's hands.

Gpd has to pull off a huge upset if it can produce a device with as much quality as the pyra.

I will buy one of each and the pgs too. Software will help define each device. With guys like notaz, exophase and ptitseb in our camp I doubt we will lose anything.

Ed has proven himself to be adept at navigating the waters with consideration of the community and that will also benefit the longevity of the pyra.

Gpd and it's peers are in it to satisfy a market driven by the next thing and typically have not given a shit about the people buying and using their devices.