Tisk Tisk Craig

[fearofshorts]

I hate to admit that the Pandora team is guilty of any negligence (as we all do) but I think that Torpor is right. Things are not going well with the QC testing and we should be concerned about it, regardless of what the project leaders say.

We all seem to have an innate trust in every member of the team- why? Simply because we have a love for the Pandora. We overlook delays, false information and generally poor business practices because we want the project to do well. But my fellow Pandorians and Pandorians-in-waiting, please do not do so anymore. Ask (politely) for better quality information and receive it gratefully, regardless of whether or not it is bad news- for I'm sure we are all sick of white lies.

This is the one constant of the Pandora story- there are always problems and we're never told of them until after they are solved. Now, their motivations may be the benefit of the project, but it is not right to protect a project about freedom by removing the freedom of others- the excessive censorship and the making of secrets from things which affect our community will not help anyone.

Please, OP Team, understand- we have stuck by you through all of the white lies and bitter disappointments, and we will still stick with you if you become open about the project's state. People are staying on-board not because we trust what you say or what you are doing, but because we believe in the product. Go ahead and tell us we'll be waiting another year. Go ahead and ask for donations. Go ahead and tell us that you've got the flu. I know that the vast majority of us will not just put up with the delays, but stand by you and respect you for your honesty. We want to be your 'fanboi's. Just give us an opportunity to be them.

 

[Popcorn Dave]

I agree, Torpor. Sending out three defective units in a row is pretty bad however you slice it. At least the third unit (with the proper nubs) should have been up to scratch.

I can accept the argument that this is a small company and they screw up sometimes, but censoring the customer is seriously bad form whether you're OPT or Microsoft. Unless Azure came into the forum calling Craig a giant thieving shitcake and making personal attacks on staff members, there was NO reason to remove the thread. If the worst he did was call the customer service "piss poor", well, it sounds like the shoe fits (I can't read the original post and make up my own mind - convenient!). ED and several others argued that the issue should have been kept private because "the community can't help here, so the only real reason to post it here is to show the world how bad the product is.". That actually sounds to me like a pretty good reason to post a topic - other forum users (customers and potential customers) have a right to know this stuff.

EDIT: Good post, Fearofshorts. You're absolutely right - there's no reason people should blithely accept this shoddy treatment just because they want the product to succeed. I hate how anyone who complains is labelled as a "troll" or "whiner" and are told to shut up because they're being too negative and they might somehow ruin the project just by complaining. It really does feel like a religious cult sometimes, especially when fans say we need to stop asking questions and just trust OPT to do the right thing.

 

[torpor]

A lack of Quality Control is *always* going to make your project fail, no matter which way you look at it. If you don't raise Quality above Production in terms of how it factors into internal resource allocation, you *will always fail*. Period.

No dedicated Quality checking resources == Disaster.

PR efforts won't /ever/ make up for low quality control. If your production line is letting faulty products get in the hands of customers, you will absolutely never be able to do a good PR job. PR, therefore, is not as important as QC. Get the QC sorted and the PR will take care of itself ..

 

[Gruntfuggly]

This is the one constant of the Pandora story- there are always problems and we're never told of them until after they are solved. Now, their motivations may be the benefit of the project, but it is not right to protect a project about freedom by removing the freedom of others- the excessive censorship and the making of secrets from things which affect our community will not help anyone.

That's actually not true at all. We've been told plenty of times when there are problems - probably unnecessarily.

If anything, they've been way to open about the project's state.

 

[Jumpman]

QC is and always has been an issue for the Pandora. Many things like the nubs, and shoulder buttons have been addressed at length, while others have barely been touched on at all. The squishy buttons seem to still happen on a regular basis, and they are an easy fix for some, but I don't think the average user should have to open his/her device and do their on QC fixes for known problems that have not been really addressed on the shipping end. The carry case was another issue that really didn't get addressed till way down the road, and I still havn't been told if I can return my ripped/to small one for a bigger one down the road. I kept it, and never asked for a refund, as I just figured it was a good way to help support the team, but I still think in the future, small things like that need to be taken seriously when time permits.

I know the Squishy buttons normally function 100%, but many complain, and Craig has said it would take a ton of extra time to go thru all those buttons, and clean out the excess plastic. So from his stand point, I'm sure it's a picking "your battles" situation. There are other things that require more time, and can't go unchecked, so the button issue becomes a non issue currently. I can understand that, and except it, many others cannot.

Now for me personally, I look at the Pandora as a grass roots garage project, and as such, I always expected a certain level of issues. Once I received my unit, I was amazed at how well it all turned out. I looked at my Pandora cup as being "half full". There was some small issues, but considering what had been done by 4 guys in seperate corners of the world it just blew my mind, and still does today.

Now if I would have had 3 or 4 bad units at this point, you can believe my cup would be "half empty" at this point in regards to QC. So I can understand all sides to this argument. I have seen many other 3 and 4 return customers who are still in love with this device, and have had super customer service in regards to so many defective units. I have personally had nothing but great experiances contacting the girls at Craig's shop. I have my only repaired unit returning tommorow, and rest assured if it has any problems that my first unit didn't have, you will all hear about it here. I will also contact Jackie, and do what I need to do to make sure I get a 100% functional unit ASAP.

Now if any PAYING CUSTOMER has a problem that they can't seem to get solved thru the proper channels. ED, Craig, Michael or Fatih should PM that person, and get the specifics, and neither fix that persons problem, or issue a refund ASAP! I think it's great that the team is on the forums everyday answering questions, and helping with customer support, but if a paying customer can't get 10 minutes of a team members time after waiting 2+ years, then there is a HUGE PROBLEM that goes a lot deeper than a thread being removed!

Chris

 

[DavidBowman]

Well said, Jumpman. I don't have much to add except that I still think that our opinions of QC are colored by the number of threads we see for issues. However, how many Pandora owners have posted to say that they got their units and that it is working perfectly? Mine is, and even though I said so on the official forum, I still think that the vast majority of preorderers and those of us who have our Pandoras do not post at all, ever. A "silent majority" if you will. I'm usually a lurker myself.

That doesn't excuse deleting a thread, nor does it excuse any QC problems that may exist. It's a rough situation. Both Craig and ED are working almost every day, more than 12 hours most of the time to get this project somewhere. I tend to cut them a little slack for that reason.

 

[Exophase]

For what it's worth, he's far from the only person on their third or even fourth Pandora, it's not a fluke. I'm not going to work out the exact statistics, but if several people have returned Pandoras two or even three times - even knowing they'd have to wait weeks or longer often, mind you - what are the odds that the majority of people never experience problems?

Of course the big contributor to these returns have been the bad nubs which were destined to fail. I was pretty confident that the nubs were doomed once the first Pandoras shipped but I think OP wasn't, or didn't want to admit it for a while, and the RMAs piled up.

It's also because of the failure rate that OP can't afford to sell Pandoras at $350. Craig has told me Pandora's assembly is more complex than any device on the market, and I think there's at least some truth to it - with gaming controls + keyboard, shoulder buttons, dual nubs and dual SD slots Pandora has more that can go wrong with it than the standard mobile device. But the big things that have failed have been the nubs and the LCD cables, both due to design flaws and not just having more components.

 

[Trip]

I have to be careful what I say on these forums because if I post anything negative these days I get called a troll.
What I will say in regards to posts being deleted on the other forum and the QC though is...

There's nothing wrong with negative feedback. What makes a company look bad or unprofessional is the way that they react to that feedback. Deleting threads on a forum is not a common tactic by other companies, which is why Apple faced so much criticism for it with the faulty iPhones etc.

As for the quality control; apparently a lot of work has gone into making the work area more professional recently. Hopefully these changes will mean improvements in the building of units too. Some of the problems that people seem to be experiencing do seem to be easily checked for before being shipped off though, so it might be a good idea for them to have an official check sheet for people to sign off on. That way they can see where the most problems are coming from.

 

[Phawx]

On the positive side of things, the three Pandora's I ordered were pretty good. Two had shoulder button issues and one had a battery door issue. But aside from that, everything else worked perfectly. I agree with Torpor, but I lean more with Jumpman. I've always felt communication should have been handled better, however, because this project is physically put together by 4-5 people, what I received is far greater than what I would have expected from that amount of people.

Just considering everything, personally, I think the Pandora is amazing. However, on the negative side of things, with it's late arrival and those considerations, I really don't see the Pandora going further than 20,000 units. As it is I am looking at the Xperia Play line to replace my Pandora, provided it works well.

 

[DavidBowman]

For what it's worth, he's far from the only person on their third or even fourth Pandora, it's not a fluke. I'm not going to work out the exact statistics, but if several people have returned Pandoras two or even three times - even knowing they'd have to wait weeks or longer often, mind you - what are the odds that the majority of people never experience problems?

We can only base our numbers on those who speak. Since I know that not every Pandora owner also posts, it's hard to say. However, there was a thread and poll over in the official forums and just shy of 75% of the votes said that they received a perfect Pandora. Granted, you can't use that to prove anything, but I'd still say that this is one of those "squeaky wheel" situations. I don't think you're wrong about the multiple RMA'd units, however.

 

[Exophase]

We can only base our numbers on those who speak. Since I know that not every Pandora owner also posts, it's hard to say. However, there was a thread and poll over in the official forums and just shy of 75% of the votes said that they received a perfect Pandora. Granted, you can't use that to prove anything, but I'd still say that this is one of those "squeaky wheel" situations. I don't think you're wrong about the multiple RMA'd units, however.

What thread? In the defects thread on this forum I remember the numbers were much worse than that. There the argument was still being made that only the people who have something to complain about would bother voting in that poll.

My guess is that there's a correlation in people who have a perfect Pandora and when they got it, since a lot of the recurring problems have been gradually taken care of.

 

[WizardStan]

What thread?

This thread

 

[Exophase]

This thread

Ah, pretty new thread. A lot of the people voting just got their Pandoras and haven't had a lot of time for them to fail, but I'll give it the benefit of the doubt.. if the nubs are really fixed and the LCD cable problem was reduced or eliminated somehow then there should be a lot fewer unhappy people.

25% is still pretty bad, though, IMO..

 

[Trip]

I can't help but wonder how many people voted for fully working on that thread, but then added "except for.." when it came to actually commenting about it. Seems like quite a few from reading through it.
I know that they say you shouldn't expect perfection from this kind of project, but people really need to be completely honest about stuff like that if they want the project to continue to improve and succeed.

 

[fusion_power]

It's also because of the failure rate that OP can't afford to sell Pandoras at $350. Craig has told me Pandora's assembly is more complex than any device on the market, and I think there's at least some truth to it - with gaming controls + keyboard, shoulder buttons, dual nubs and dual SD slots Pandora has more that can go wrong with it than the standard mobile device. But the big things that have failed have been the nubs and the LCD cables, both due to design flaws and not just having more components.

I guess the Pandora wasn't designed with an easy assembling process in mind, at least not at first priority. DaveC can tell us more about this part I guess. But I doubt that the Pandora is so complex that it would cost to much time for good QC control. Getting 3 faulty units in a row is inacceptable and can't actualy happen when there is a half decent QC.
If it cost it's time for assembling, they should take their time. Craig don't have to rush at the cost of Quality! We waited for years, some more days can't hurt. If OPTeam takes its time during assembling, stuff like missing Stylus or screws or non working buttons etc. shouldn't happen at all.
There is an interesting pic these days in the webs:
http://guide-images.ifixit.net/igi/hHNFdnPULwGUH2QB.huge
3DS dissassembled. Well for me this looks even more complex than the Pandora, 2 LCD Cables alone. Much more tiny stuff that can be forgotten. h34r:

 

[DaveC]

It's also because of the failure rate that OP can't afford to sell Pandoras at $350. Craig has told me Pandora's assembly is more complex than any device on the market, and I think there's at least some truth to it - with gaming controls + keyboard, shoulder buttons, dual nubs and dual SD slots Pandora has more that can go wrong with it than the standard mobile device. But the big things that have failed have been the nubs and the LCD cables, both due to design flaws and not just having more components.

I guess the Pandora wasn't designed with an easy assembling process in mind, at least not at first priority. DaveC can tell us more about this part I guess. But I doubt that the Pandora is so complex that it would cost to much time for good QC control. Getting 3 faulty units in a row is inacceptable and can't actualy happen when there is a half decent QC.
3DS dissassembled. Well for me this looks even more complex than the Pandora, 2 LCD Cables alone. Much more tiny stuff that can be forgotten. h34r:

It is not all that hard to assemble. It isn't trivial but it was designed to be able to assemble. It is more complicated than a Wiz or Caanoo of course. Building a clamshell system is like making TWO units for one as you have the upper lid halves and the lower halves. There really isn't much that could be done there without compromising other things. You want to know what was not designed for assembly was the first iPhone, I had a busted one open and that thing looked like a rushed design, you couldn't open it without ruining it basically.

The Pandora nubs have been fixed and that was the supplier's fault. The cable seems to be a supplier issue too and those guys aren't used anymore either.

As far as Pandoras shipping with screws missing, screwed too tight causing cracks etc that seems just like poor assembly. No design in the world can prevent that. If you have school kids throwing them together or whatever and don't care about quality then that is what you get. I do think they should be tested better before shipping. If I was there testing units, nothing dodgy would get past my eagle-eye.

As far as the DS, well if OP was a multi-billion dollar multi national corporation like Nintendo then things would be different. They probably had a whole bunch of working prototypes with full molds to try and they probably went through a bunch of revisions and scrap whole mold sets for the final one. Even then the first DS lites had cracking hinges, and that is from NINTENDO. OP can't afford 10 million dollars or so to develop the Pandora. There was only one Pandora mold and that is all that could be funded. Are there minor things that could be tweaked? Sure but without unlimited cash they will need to wait.

 

[Esn]

I have to be careful what I say on these forums because if I post anything negative these days I get called a troll.
What I will say in regards to posts being deleted on the other forum and the QC though is...

There's nothing wrong with negative feedback. What makes a company look bad or unprofessional is the way that they react to that feedback. Deleting threads on a forum is not a common tactic by other companies, which is why Apple faced so much criticism for it with the faulty iPhones etc.

As for the quality control; apparently a lot of work has gone into making the work area more professional recently. Hopefully these changes will mean improvements in the building of units too. Some of the problems that people seem to be experiencing do seem to be easily checked for before being shipped off though, so it might be a good idea for them to have an official check sheet for people to sign off on. That way they can see where the most problems are coming from.

Well-said.

By the way, I made a poll to get some idea of what the situation is like for people who visit this forum. It's a bit more detailed than the poll on the other forum.

 

[fearofshorts]

People, look- Multiple RMAs from one person?
I mean, come on. The number of complaints and the "silent majority" mean nothing compared to that fact.
From a probability standpoint this is indicating a very, VERY high level of failed units.

And there is nothing to explain away this fact. Look at this from the point of view of a business man- if a customer has returned a device to you because of a fault, then it is in your best interest to ensure that the customer is sent back a fully functional unit. If you were to do so, then the customer will feel as though they were just unlucky, as opposed to feeling as though they had bought a product with serious issues. So, in other words, there can be no rational justification for not providing extra service to these customers unless this is not feasible.

Why is it not feasible for them too perform proper QC testing right now? Probably a lack of funds. Why they wouldn't at least provide a reason fails me.

Once again, I humbly ask OPT to make public any information to do with this issue- while I (and others) may seem to be bitter, don't think that I would not defend you and assist if the company is in need of help.


PS: I apologize for the terrible quality of this post, I'm exhausted and can't really form an eloquent or well-structured argument right now.

 

[Lorkile]

fearofshorts, I've long assumed that when I RMA a unit the replacement has been from the RMA pile, it's the simplest explanation I can think of to end up with 2 (potentially 3, not to say this one is without it's fault aside from one issue with the battery) bad units in a row.

Maybe I'm just fairly happy whenever I get a working unit, or overly pessimistic with the issues (original had dead nubs on arrival...second the screen died within a month, showing signs within a week, and third can't read the battery life which today has been frustrating with it dying twice), or even just optimistic about the situation as a whole. But I do try to keep up with the boards, and things like when Craig denotes that hiring more workers wasn't only about getting units out faster, but to improve QA and turnaround times for RMA'd units.

So I'm of the firm belief that things are improving in general. Seems worth noting, I've had a string of bad luck over the past several years (a minimum of one what I consider major issue a year, ranging from mom getting cancer to me finding myself scheduled for emergency surgery, to most recently my longterm GF of ~6 years leaving me) so minor electronic issues like these just seem business as usual for me these days regardless of product.

 

[quartercast]

For what it's worth, he's far from the only person on their third or even fourth Pandora, it's not a fluke. I'm not going to work out the exact statistics, but if several people have returned Pandoras two or even three times - even knowing they'd have to wait weeks or longer often, mind you - what are the odds that the majority of people never experience problems?

Of course the big contributor to these returns have been the bad nubs which were destined to fail. I was pretty confident that the nubs were doomed once the first Pandoras shipped but I think OP wasn't, or didn't want to admit it for a while, and the RMAs piled up.

I can identify with this, the left nub on my replacement Pandora just died. They felt quite flimsy to begin with and now the left one refuses to spring back to centre. In fact I have to disable the nub because it makes the Pandora unusable due to the cursor going crazy.

I'll be on my 3rd unit soon, see how long that one lasts