Stuart Ashen Reviews The Pandora!

[Popcorn Dave]

Check it out here.

Just thought you guys would like to know. 47 minutes, longest review I've seen so far.

Hopefully, with his 100,000+ subscribers, this will get a bit more exposure for the device as well.

SPOILER:

He highly recommends it, which is awesome. I can see a lot of very impressed people in the comment section as well. I wonder if OPT will be getting a few extra orders today? Won't it be great if this turns out to be just the revenue boost OPT need?

 

[jdbye]

SWEET, I love Ashens! I'm subscribed to him but haven't checked YouTube the past couple of days so I didn't notice the video.

 

[HackModford]

He was mistaken when he said a pandora is $500
Alot of people seem to be turned off by that...

 

[Popcorn Dave]

I have to admit the review's not his best work, he spends way too long just playing games one by one and doesn't really say anything about the device's other features except "it's a PC duh" (a bit misleading with the whole x86/ARM issue). Nothing about the build quality, wireless, data storage, media playing, Internet browsing, office features, stuff like that. Those are all important things when the price is so high!

I think it's great that he's getting the word out, though. There must be people out there who'd buy a Pandora but have never heard of it, and the video comments prove that. Great stuff.

By the way, the price IS $500 according to openpandora.org. The old pre-order link is gone.

 

[CPUnltd]

as far as the world is concerned, the "Premium" price is the only one that exists... doubt OPT is taking anymore preorders at this point anyway (unless someone has heard of a pre-order over the last couple of months that I didn't)... so, technically, he is right about the "price"... but he doesn't do well to justify the price, which is the biggest drop-off point in the whole thing...

 

[absolofdoom]

Check it out here.
Won't it be great if this turns out to be just the revenue boost OPT need?

At $500? When the heck did that become the actual price, and how many people will actually buy it at that? Did I happen to miss something?

 

[CPUnltd]

two things... 1: for OPT to make ANY kind of profit (the original price was almost at cost), 2: Allows them to hire more people to build more units to get to people faster...

 

[absolofdoom]

two things... 1: for OPT to make ANY kind of profit (the original price was almost at cost), 2: Allows them to hire more people to build more units to get to people faster...

I thought that was just the "premium" business and not the only option.

 

[Jumpman]

two things... 1: for OPT to make ANY kind of profit (the original price was almost at cost), 2: Allows them to hire more people to build more units to get to people faster...

I thought that was just the "premium" business and not the only option.

The premium was, and is for those who preordered who didn't want to continue waiting(and new customers off the street as well). I'm fairly sure it was stated during that time that the Pandora would no longer be $330. All preoders would be honored, but no new orders would be taken at that price point.

500 is the new price for I believe the majority of batch 2 and beyond(I think a small amount of batch 2 is 330 also). Now if production ever starts to run smoothly, and cost come down, we may see a price drop somewhere down the line, but that would have to be in the 10,000+ unit range at the earliest.

So for those who preordered 2+ years ago, you have made a solid return on your investment of at least 170 dollars. So if you stuck around, and let the team hold your money for that whole time, you get a little pat on the back. If your just joining the party, you'll need to pay 500 if you want to play. I thought the Pandora was easily worth that amount when I received mine close to a year ago, so not a big deal for me personally.

Chris

 

[absolofdoom]

The premium was, and is for those who preordered who didn't want to continue waiting(and new customers off the street as well). I'm fairly sure it was stated during that time that the Pandora would no longer be $330. All preoders would be honored, but no new orders would be taken at that price point.

500 is the new price for I believe the majority of batch 2 and beyond(I think a small amount of batch 2 is 330 also). Now if production ever starts to run smoothly, and cost come down, we may see a price drop somewhere down the line, but that would have to be in the 10,000+ unit range at the earliest.

So for those who preordered 2+ years ago, you have made a solid return on your investment of at least 170 dollars. So if you stuck around, and let the team hold your money for that whole time, you get a little pat on the back. If your just joining the party, you'll need to pay 500 if you want to play. I thought the Pandora was easily worth that amount when I received mine close to a year ago, so not a big deal for me personally.

Chris

Well, thank goodness I pre-ordered way back when, otherwise I doubt I'd have been able to afford it.

But I'll say this: I can't help but think this is really gonna hurt OP in the long run; $500 dollars is a whole lot of money. This buy becomes a rather difficult choice, and honestly if I had to make it, I wouldn't buy. I would think that was just me, since I'm broke, but if you look at the comments on that video, it looks like a whole lot of people were interested but then changed their mind when they found out it costed so much. Just my 2¢.

 

[CPUnltd]

as a business, OPT has to weigh the ideas of "cheap enough for the customer to want it" and "expensive enough for the business to survive off it" which is not easy to balance at ALL. From the consumer side, I see your point... that's a "serious buy" decision for the "casual gamer" (as most people who do retro gaming are generally casual about it )... but on the business side of things, they have to sell the device at a profit in order to keep building the device... also, the higher the profit (without requiring the first-born child of the customer) the more money that can be pumped ack into the machine to improve things. Being a startup, they made a few mistakes that probably cost a lot out of their pockets... and some will see the price point as them "attempting to make up the difference"... But at the end of the day, they have to make a profit to continue to produce... and $350 just wasn't a margin that was good enough for long-term sustainability.

I hear what you're sayi "it's more expensive than an XBox 360 or PS3" (but at the same time, it's also a LOT more capable... running on a LOT less power...)

 

[CPUnltd]

here's an example of why the Pandora doesn't look quite that expensive to me...

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-Details.asp?EdpNo=6939096&sku=H24-100048

this tablet is $800 and doesn't do half of what the Pandora can do... Also, isn't pocketable... so you'd have to get this (or something like it, if you wanted a portable tablet device) along with a PSP or 3DS, plus a smart phone to have all of what the Pandora is capable of... well over $1000, no matter what mix of devices you choose (which would include going the route of an ipad/iphone or ipad/3DS or something similar...) And no matter how many devices you combined, they wouldn't all be able to fit in your pocket with the same (or smaller) overall dimensions of the Pandora... so, in my opinion, GREAT BUY!

Also, most every other portable device on the market (gaming, tablet, whatever) is VERY closed and limited to user-end functionality, software modification or updatability (See the Android smartphone/tablets that won't let you upgrade to a newer version of Android)... BUT no matter what I say, this guy didn't cover enough bases in his nice, long review to really show what you are getting for $500... most people just don't know how functional/powerful devices like this are with such price points and just dub it as expensive because of the limited functions they know of.

Some kind of comprehensive list of what it's capable of in the realm of software on the main page would be nice... just the "system specs" is misleading and makes it look inferior to newer devices because it doesn't "have the same level of horsepower"... but would you rather have a hummer with no wheels or a an indestructible mountain bike with tires that never puncture or deflate?

 

[Mjlink]

He was mistaken when he said a pandora is $500
Alot of people seem to be turned off by that...

No, it is $500 since the beginning of February when preordering ended. Premium's started being ordered and preorders were allowed to upgrade to Premium by paying the additional cost to have the unit shipped within 7 days.

The units I have in my shop are Premium upgrades from my preorders.