First impression, they haven't all been studying English while they were gone:
Questions?
This should be "arises".
And this should be "amaze".
OK, so they are back, and the reason they went away the first time, has to do with how they are back in two ways, and a reality that lies amidst the two:
- They learnt their lesson
- They didn't learn enough
It is a flatheld, so that means less engineering, no hinges, less boards. Even still, there is a moduleboard, and it is standardized. Great.
So this means it is on the smach-z people to produce a mainboard, and a case. And they can do so knowing the moduleboard is supposed to work.
Right now they have met their "goal", which is to say they have the go-ahead from kickstarter to receive funds, should the clock run out without backers pulling out.
And this is how that scales, good that you have that to sell, but once you get into the promises, it is selling the most lucrative pieces first, to have others come in later to see belief.
Where that scales really well, is if it happens, if not, then the math of doing it, doesnt pan out. And where it scales really badly, is if you start making costly inroads into budget with added complexity.
You can wait it out, as prices of promised hardware go down over time, but there is a deadline on this, and it is estimated to be april -17.
What you want is to make it more lucrative, not less. At best that is more money left over for the maker, at worst it is the likelihood of the project succeeding.
And it is both, making that cut when its available, is really when you can start being generous.
1080p screen at 300K is where it gets expensive right away. So much so in-fact, that it doesn't make sense to do anything below 300, if you are going to offer it at 300. So it was always in the plan, we assume. Which makes it strange for not offering it right away to drive sales. Could be that they were smart and knew sales would be driven anyway from early-birding, and that announcing things is going to be the kicker. Early backers will have thought the same, seeing it on the horizon so soon.
Then at
350k you have
Windows support, ugh. Need the world be reminded that zero, 0, no devices coming to market with windows 10 have been successful. If your business isnt the sinking ship legacy, you burden yourself with this. Especially considering Linux|Gnu is already planned, and supported.
Make the commitment, you can't afford to be in supporting both, it is not that type of premise.
Also MS has changed their requirements for the "free" as in gratis to spy terms before, and probably will again. Still they look to sell around 1k devices at that point, so for the time being it pans out.
We know MS doesn't give for the sake of giving, and it doesn't stop taking whatever leisures it can find at the expense of others. Right now it is the users, but if it should ever be the manufacturers again, they got you by the balls.
Then it gets progressively less costly, making sense for scale, till we get to 2 million, free shipping. That is very costly outside of Europa, what it will do is favour Europeans till it comes within sight though.
3 years warranty is only 1 more than required EU-wide, so that isn't huge. What type of warranty is yet to be disclosed.
Android support is where it gets ugly again, also considering future boards are then hampered by having to do 3 operating systems for each.
Phone functionality off the bat is very expensive, and makes the whole unit into a luxury product, for which it makes sense to upgrade everything, as it can not be added on the cheap.
So yes, backers can be hyped to know "i can't believe that we are also getting *" but they are already in, and they arent in for more as more come in.
This is where everyone needs to look themselves in the mirror and ask themselves if the money they put in will even make anything happen, or just cause grief to both parties at best.
Cut the right corners.
This is not one of them. That is just as
bulky, for every interesting purpose and intention, but a huuuuge deal more expensive to make.
It would make sense if you could remove those flippers, similar to NX from Nintendo, but then you are looking at hassle, and it doesnt start to make sense before its all wireless to, so don't do that.
The sweet-spot is the prototype. Promising a final form-factor before the engineering is done, is silly. Make it within reason and consider the prototype to be the spacial budget to play with.
A lot of it has to do with
cooling, and as of now, their solution is unproven by them, and not available in any other commercial product as far as i can tell.
"
Undisclosed private investors" makes it impossible to get into economy on their up-front promises alone.
Their engineering department is what gives this whole thing credibility, by that i mean "Imasd" and "mola". Haven't looked into it, but a word from them would certainly be welcomed.
What they could do is show their contract without the name of the investor, to prove the authenticity of this claim.
So what are some
better stretch-goals to make:
Conflict-free - Tin/cobolt/else. Not that expensive, in the order of hundreds of euros, and will actually bring more back than it costs.
Sustainable - packaging. Win-win, spend less on packaging, get more in return. Awareness at the price of profit, brilliant.
Environmental - case. If a material to replace polycarbonate or other, could be found, in pebble form, it is a replace equal for equal and paying a bit more, and then getting a lot more publicity in return.
Controllers - for other consoles, quite expensive, but that is really the ground-work, if that is in, at high intervals, it makes sense to offer more form-factors.
More software - forming software relationships, like KODI getting to shine on an official platform, or similar, is at best win-win-win.
No camera/mic - for the privacy-concerned, having none of this garbage is better. Saves the project money, will never be good anyway. Some cost, some reward.
A lot of these are done/for the taking for the Pyra too.
As a kickstarter campaign right now, Smach Z's biggest mistake is not putting searchable words in the ingress or headline. That is how KS works, try it.
Nobody searches for "10k"
SMACH Z - The Handheld Gaming PC
SMACH Z is a handheld PC with haptic touchpad controls that's powerful enough to play any AAA game natively (10K games out of the box!)
Lets break it down:
Gaming Good call, that is your focus, that is your market.
PC A lot of people search for this, and a lot of people have it, so good, but needs more coverage.
Handheld Good, handhelds are in demand, some might find it this way.
Box Unintentional discovery, not bad, not great.
AAA Ok, maybe.
Touchpad Well, no, or, somewhat
haptic Couple of takers there, but could be replaced by a useful word
Powerful Maybe someone crams this down, is bored, has money to spend
Smach Z Got this anyway, and works for people who already know.
How about.
Smach Z - Open Platform Gaming Handheld. Designed and manufactured in Europa!
Play AAA and retro games on a Linux | GNU everyday carry (edc) PC with modular controls and upgradable hardware. Haptic touchpad controls and touchscreen and power too.
