What do people think of the 1ghz Pandas?

[Mr_Loon]

A couple of things to bear in mind about the price of the 1Ghz Pandora :


The $699 does not include VAT or Delivery :blink:


Although Craig can of course charge whatever he like for a Pandora bought from Open Pandora Ltd. it's ED who we should really be listening to when it comes to future pricing of the Pandora.

 

[Foxgod]

A couple of things to bear in mind about the price of the 1Ghz Pandora :


The $699 does not include VAT or Delivery :blink:


Although Craig can of course charge whatever he like for a Pandora bought from Open Pandora Ltd. it's ED who we should really be listening to when it comes to future pricing of the Pandora.

VAT is for EU only.

 

[Binky]

The $699 does not include VAT or Delivery :blink:

So thats more like 680EUR=£550

 

[Ian J]

I really fancy one for some of the more demanding games in the various versions of MAME we have, I was hoping that the DSP on P1 would help with this but as far as I am aware the DSP may never be used fully.


Will the newer CPU have all of the drivers required to get full use out of it?

 

[Exophase]

I really fancy one for some of the more demanding games in the various versions of MAME we have, I was hoping that the DSP on P1 would help with this but as far as I am aware the DSP may never be used fully.


Will the newer CPU have all of the drivers required to get full use out of it?

Drivers are no problem with DSP usage, that is ultimately down to no one developing for it. DM3730 version won't offer any better software/drivers.

 

[Null]

So thats more like 680EUR=£550

 

[Ian J]

This is the only issue I have with the Pandora as a whole, the hardware is not being fully utilised.


Mame at 600mhz runs better on the P1 than on my galaxy phone at 1ghz due to the software being optimised, I can only dream of how much better it would run on a 1ghz machine.


Oh to have fully supported hardware though.

 

[sepp256]

This is the only issue I have with the Pandora as a whole, the hardware is not being fully utilised.


Mame at 600mhz runs better on the P1 than on my galaxy phone at 1ghz due to the software being optimised, I can only dream of how much better it would run on a 1ghz machine.


Oh to have fully supported hardware though.

How is the hardware not being fully supported? We have access to everything, but it's up to the individual PND authors to optimize for Pandora. The fact that Mame works better on P1 is an indication that the P1 hardware is being better utilized than the galaxy.

 

[Ian J]

The DSP was supposed to allow us to play back video without strain on the CPU, if I want to to play the majority of my files on the Pandora I have to re-encode them.

 

[rohezal]

Just my opinion as a forum member with some experience with chinese tablet factories and bad english ( I AM FACTORY tm).


Craig, for 700$ I can get a new desktop pc or a full gaming laptop. Yes this is something different then the Pandora, but I do not think a lot of people will pay 700$ for the pandora (with out a stupid apple on it). The price (700$) and the gain (a small cool gaming laptop with long battery lifetime) just differs too much.

So, that's $450 for the unit alone, a singe built Pandora console ready to go to a customer. Now, we also have monthly costs for just running the business. [...] Also both I and Ed have part time extra staff. Paypal fees, credit card fees, bank fees (these can easily eat up 5-10% of the Pandora price).


$500 is selling at either a break even, or a loss, depending on numbers sold each week.

Ok so 500$ are needed for the final product (to cover banking costs, people who assemble the pandora etc).

At $599-$699 we will potentially make $150-$200 a unit, however we have debts to pay back, money to cover shipping out original, non-upgraded preorders, some money to fund future consoles

Funding the development of the Pandora 2 is a good thing. But scare away customers is a bad thing, especally with the euro crisis (the Euro dropped from 1,40$ to 1,25$).


Take the money that covers the costs without loss for sure (500$) + X for the debts and the old devices. It would good to be 549$ (good price border). If not possible take 599$ which looks much nicer then 700$.


Sell special units (like the 7 day pandoras) with maybe some special software (1 or 2 games of you like the wizard games) preinstalled and a letter from you for 700$ or more.


This way you will keep your normal costumers and can get some extra money.


Just my 2 cents...

 

[WizardStan]

The DSP was supposed to allow us to play back video without strain on the CPU, if I want to to play the majority of my files on the Pandora I have to re-encode them.

The DSP is available now, thanks to Notaz. No one has used it yet though.

 

[Prometheus]

A couple of things to bear in mind about the price of the 1Ghz Pandora :


The $699 does not include VAT or Delivery :blink:


Although Craig can of course charge whatever he like for a Pandora bought from Open Pandora Ltd. it's ED who we should really be listening to when it comes to future pricing of the Pandora.

VAT is for EU only.

Which is where Craig's shop is based.

 

[jorlinn]

I can't see enough people being able to afford $700,- ex. VAT and delivery for a handheld gaming device for this project to even break even. As mentioned before in this thread this is extremely bad for PR and it will cause you to gradually loose goodwill and become a gravestone in the annals of private enterprise, rather than a shining example of a crowd-funded, open-source enterprise. I agree with Exophase that pre-order money should never ever be used for R&D for future models. Order money? Sure, no problem, reinvest it in moderation, but never preorders, because that money is essentially a loan to OPT without interest until the product has been delivered. One of the causes of this bloody crisis is bigwigs/wannabees gambling with borrowed money, which is asking for disaster straight off the bat.

 

[zonova]

In the 1ghz Pandora thread, it's stated that it is over-expensive. People that buy it are people that love the idea and can't wait to get a hold of one. There are plenty of people like that, or atleast i hope.Them wanting to make some money and get this project stabilized is fantastic idea, and if the have to charge extra for a premium product, then i think they should.


Also, i'm currently saving up for the 700$ pandora, so there definitely people looking to buy it. Though, the 599$ idea was pretty sweet. In the end, whatever works best.

 

[sandwhich]

700$ and whatever it would be in Euro is no price I can imagine enough people are willing to pay. Hell, I would not. That's more money than lots of people, even in europe, have to live of for a month, even if I could afford it, it's crazy. I dunno in details what's dooming this project and what's taken the price from 250€ to 440€ over 4 years, but I seriously can not see a living user/dev price for a gaming gadget that costs 700$.


And I have no problem with you making profits, even though some might be sceptical towards it in this OS/F software world, I would love to see it. But again, I cannot imagine any longterm good for the pandora with such a price tags, I'm sorry.

 

[jonny:Dumb]

I have to add myself to the list of people that will not be able to buy a future version of the pandora at that price. It looks like, the only thing left for me now is to wait for my pandora to arrive and be very happy about the lower price i paid and the awesome device i got (I ordered sometime in October 2010 i think).


I hope there will be enough people who can afford the higher price and will buy one. I have to agree though with the more pessimistic view of things, people are buying the more expensive 1GHz version now because of the exclusive character it has now. I don't see that additional motivation anymore when half a year or more time has passed and higher volumes are available. The number of orders might not be enough.


I am a little sad about the necessity of the higher price and, probably like many, I wish it would have come differently. Sad, because I feel that the existence of this project is threatened, or, if the project survives, I will not have enough financial capacity to feel connected to the project anymore or even support it by buying another unit some time in the next 4 years.


It feels a little like a lose lose situation for me personally, but I hope that craig and everyone else with loses from the project will recover! I am just sorry about my incapability to help with that .


I am back to lurking for now, all the best!

 

[Ian J]

What would be the total price to me then (UK) including shipping?

 

[laurencevde]

So, what about this: Continue selling the 600MHz-ones for a small profit, until you run out of OMAP3530s, and also start normal production of 1GHz-ones, whose price starts at crazy amounts to whoever thinks it's worth it, and slowly drops to whatever happens to generate a sustainable profit? That sounds like a reasonable plan to me.

 

[ElPoco]

I don't understand.


In the Pandora Outdated? thread, ED said that there was nearly no difference between the 1Ghz SoC and the 600Mhz one. He also said that using the next generation would only get a 10/20% improvement, and that there was no need for a more recent CPU.


And now we have these pretty smiliar 1Ghz available, and they suddenly give a 66% speed increase and would be worth paying a lot more..?


Either there's someting I don't understand, or either ED's post or the new CPU are just meaningless marketing.

 

[Foxgod]

I don't understand.


In the Pandora Outdated? thread, ED said that there was nearly no difference between the 1Ghz SoC and the 600Mhz one. He also said that using the next generation would only get a 10/20% improvement, and that there was no need for a more recent CPU.


And now we have these pretty smiliar 1Ghz available, and they suddenly give a 66% speed increase and would be worth paying a lot more..?


Either there's someting I don't understand, or either ED's post or the new CPU are just meaningless marketing.

In terms of running software theres no difference, all the software on the 1ghz will also run on the 600 mhz, its 100% backwards compatible.


In terms of speed there do is a difference, about 40~45% would be a safe bet, it hasnt been fully tested yet.


But since most software runs at full speed already, the extra speed benefits mostly in those things that dont run full speed (yet) on the 600 mhz pandora.