What do people think of the 1ghz Pandas?


This whole arguement about cost. is that related to Pandora1, Pandora1.5 or Pandora2?


The Pandora1 shouldn't be increased much. the 3730 should be increased to whatever makes sense.


I would pay more for P2 if it's running a OMAP5 and can get into my hands sooner than the 24 hours+ we waited for the first one.
 
Good god. There is more than APPLE selling shit. Not everyone is making MILLIONS of everything. Could you imagine the reaction GPH would have received if they wanted to sell their handhelds for $700? But Craig routinely said that the Wiz was overpriced (what was it, $150?). And could you imagine the response if they routinely raised the price by substantial amounts? Or if their successors cost much more? These were not selling in the volumes of the millions. Ultimately they were pushed out of the market, but it looks more like lack of demand than lack of profit per unit because they were stagnating. If they maintained the original volumes of the GP2X et al they would have probably survived, and I really don't see these volumes as something unattainable for a similar device today.


Sure, these were not top of the line by any stretch of the imagination and would have deserved a higher asking price for better hardware. But guess what, for most of the components OPT is putting on their boards we know what they cost, including in VERY LOW VOLUMES. Distributors DO absorb a lot of costs, runs in the thousands (as opposed to the tens or hundreds) are already amortizing a lot of expenses for the parts that are actually made available to you. Look at any distributor's public prices and compare the price break at 1000 vs 10000+, it's not usually that dramatic.


There are many other examples. I doubt Archos sells their PMPs in the millions. Hell, even ODROIDs were selling for around $250 in very low quantity. When I brought this up - for a device that had an SoC that was at least comparable to Pandora's, more/faster memory, the response Craig gave was ridiculing them for having such a simple PCB in comparison. But is having a PCB that's more complex than it needs to be something you should be bragging about? The next Pandora can do a fair amount to reduce the number of SMD components, although I think they should move to SMD memory instead of PoP so they won't be chained to spending a fortune on assembly. And they'd save money putting the heavy duty core logic on a separate PCB and moving everything else to something simpler. They'd save money (in components/PCB space/complexity) having less transceivers and simpler PMICs because the newer SoCs integrate more of this logic. And they'd save space/board complexity with zero or one nub controllers instead of two. Bottom line, we keep getting "Pandora is expensive, okay, accept it, next one will be more" and it makes it look like they're not even looking at how to optimize manufacturing costs, or at least they don't want to tell us.


The real problem isn't the amount of money made on a run of thousands, but that with Pandora 1 OPT was never starting with enough money to manufacture those thousands upfront to begin with. So yes, under those terms thing change a lot, and unforeseen expenses can be disastrous. Everyone already knows how I feel about taking preorder money for R&D and first run manufacturing. I'm sure I'll get the response "wouldn't have happened otherwise" and that's great, but consider now that it probably won't happen again. So I hope this isn't even what the argument is about for another one.
 
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I didn't want to, but I have to say, that if the Pandora2 will be priced $700 from the start, I couldn't affort it at all.


I know of the problems and stuff, but well, I just wouldn't be able to buy one. :(
 
Exophase has some valid points.


ED established that $500 was the price needed to make a respectable profit and that was accepted by the investors. This plan was supposed to account for everything, i.e. getting setup at GC, old preorders. The reasons for the price increase for a very small run just seems odd. The first answer seemed to be that the run itself was expensive (why didnt the business plan account for the test build ups for part replacements?)


Then is become the 'we need to make a profit', that then brings up the question is ED's plan incorrect still? When it was promoted that was not the idea that was given when the plan was developed.


Assuming the profit from a $500 unit is the same, how does a drop in (no designed changes) replacement chip cost an additional $200?


Ive been trying to follow the comments closely, and i dont quite see the same vigor that Craig has to promote this as ED has had. I think I saw one comment from ED on the issue, but it wasnt really specific on the price. There really should be a clear cut answer on the justification on the price increase, meaning numbers as they relate to the business plan. If I was an investor I would be concerned about this move and how it effects the plan as it is.


I fear that the pandora is going to price itself out of existence. The price needed is going higher and the interest could die off. And this thing with 1 Ghz pandoras really comes off as a money grab, especially without clear cut justifications i.e numbers. Not just emotional reasons.
 
The affordability and price reasonableness issue is a very different than the cost of production issue.


Individuals can make their own decision about whether or not they


a. think the price is reasonable and


b. whether or not they think they can afford it or justify the cost


These issues are in one sense independent of the cost of production issue. However, in the end, there can be inter-related as if the marketplace thinks the product is priced too high or is considered unaffordable by too many people, then the product will likely suffer in the marketplace.


But just because the consumers think the price is either unreasonable or not affordable, does not automatically mean that the product can be produced for a lower price to make it more affordable, as production volume and other factors; distribution channel costs, etc, will drive the cost of the product, not what you or I wish the cost would be......


:)
 
Craigix said:
The good news about the $699 price is that people are happy to pay it for the 1Ghz units, we're actually really thankful about the number of orders everyone is placing, [...]
Click to expand...
Hm. I had already suspected that it would surprise you, but still it surprises me that this does in fact surprise you...


Obviously 1 <MONEY> is worth more to some than it is to others -- some people can afford to spend more money on something than others. This is one of the reasons things like Kickstarter or the Humble Indie Bundles are working so well: they inherently respect that the worth of 1 <MONEY> is relative, which is true progress for once (finally, may I add!), and that is automatically respected by a lot of people.


What's also obvious is that there are a lot of people who do not want to see the Pandora project die. The same principle as above applies, so it's not surprising that there are people who order a 1GHz Pandora at 699$. Some people might just want to own a Pandora with 1GHz for what it can do that other devices including the 600MHz Pandora don't, but some people out of that subset still can afford 699$ enough that they will buy it, too. Most of the current 1GHz orderers are probably some of both.


So, it's both true: there are quite a few people who would buy a Pandora at 600$-700$, but utilizing the simple principle of demand and supply to extrapolate that it's a generally acceptable price is (and has always been) a bad thing to do, to say the least, or at least that's the way I see it. Thus, to be able to get a better overview over what individual people /might/ *truly* think is an acceptable price, I propose the following:


Allow people to pay more for a Pandora than its actual price of 600-700$ (or 499$, or whatever the 'base price' for a certain Pandora). People who buy a Pandora are allowed to freely split the excess money à la Humble Indie Bundle between:

  • Fund for people who cannot afford to pay the base price or do not want to pay the base price (some of the money will be used for management purposes) <-- "...do not want to pay the base price" for the unlikely case that too much money will pile up.
  • OpenPandora (bound to lowering the Pandora's base price)
  • OpenPandora (bound to development of future products)




-----


And while we're at it:


Make regular Pandora coding competitions. Allow people to buy the winning PNDs individually in addition to being able to download them for free, where buyers can freely split their money between:

  • Author(s) of PND
  • Price money for 1st winner of next competition
  • Price money for 2nd winner of next competition
  • Price money for 3rd winner of next competition
  • Price money for 4th winner of next competition
  • Price money for 5th winner of next competition
  • OpenPandora-initiated gameplay project
  • The Electronic Frontier Foundation




-----


...these are ideas that are not fully thought-through. Is anything of this feasible? This is quite off-topic here, so if it requires discussion, please don't hesitate to open a separate thread, anyone.
 
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A nice idea but would be a bit risky for such a small project, I think.
 
ArchiMark said:
Obviously, you have not ever had to run your own business (I did for 14 years)....
Click to expand...
If you had run your business for four years and kept increasing your prices because you were outright losing money on every sale, do you not see how someone could argue that you are failing at your business model for being unable to identify your break even point the first three times?


That is the argument that Exophase seems to be chasing: not necessarily that it is too much, but that they seem to be taking a trial-and-error approach to pricing; this price seems to work until suddenly it doesn't for not entirely well explained reasons, and that seems to be part of what Exophase is taking objection to. It's an entirely reasonable complaint.
 
Your price would jump up and down and you will get speculating, when people will have paid enough to get the price you would like to pay for it. Almost like gambling and if too many people wait there will be threads saying someone paid less than me and let the whining begin.


Edit: Don't get me wrong, I really like the idea, but I don't know if it will work out in the end.


With software, like in the indie bundle, this works, as the devs don't really have anything to loose, as the games are on the market for a while already. With hardware, that is built on demand I just see some problems here.
 
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mcobit said:
Your price would jump up and down and you will get speculating, when people will have paid enough to get the price you would like to pay for it. Almost like gambling and if too many people wait there will be threads saying someone paid less than me and let the whining begin.


Edit: Don't get me wrong, I really like the idea, but I don't know if it will work out in the end.


With software, like in the indie bundle, this works, as the devs don't really have anything to loose, as the games are on the market for a while already. With hardware, that is built on demand I just see some problems here.
Click to expand...
I forgot to mention that the price would have to be adjusted after certain timeframes, such as every TWO MONTHS, but that might still not solve the problem.
 
WizardStan said:
ArchiMark said:
Obviously, you have not ever had to run your own business (I did for 14 years)....
Click to expand...
If you had run your business for four years and kept increasing your prices because you were outright losing money on every sale, do you not see how someone could argue that you are failing at your business model for being unable to identify your break even point the first three times?


That is the argument that Exophase seems to be chasing: not necessarily that it is too much, but that they seem to be taking a trial-and-error approach to pricing; this price seems to work until suddenly it doesn't for not entirely well explained reasons, and that seems to be part of what Exophase is taking objection to. It's an entirely reasonable complaint.
Click to expand...

Yes, I do see how someone could argue this...and thanks for succintly clarifying what you think Exophase seems to be arguing about....the way you put it does make sense...


:)
 
Exophase said:
Good god. There is more than APPLE selling shit. Not everyone is making MILLIONS of everything. Could you imagine the reaction GPH would have received if they wanted to sell their handhelds for $700? But Craig routinely said that the Wiz was overpriced (what was it, $150?). And could you imagine the response if they routinely raised the price by substantial amounts? Or if their successors cost much more? These were not selling in the volumes of the millions. Ultimately they were pushed out of the market, but it looks more like lack of demand than lack of profit per unit because they were stagnating. If they maintained the original volumes of the GP2X et al they would have probably survived, and I really don't see these volumes as something unattainable for a similar device today.


etc. etc.
Click to expand...

Right, we get it, you don't like the idea of us trying to make money, at least not by charging more, I suspect you would secretly like to see this project fail, and the fact people are willing to pay $699 for something as unique as the Pandora has probably irritated you.


OK. That's just how your posts come across.


In regards to other things you have said and facts your have stated, I understand your views.


I generally don't agree with them. It's not you running this business, it's me, Ed and Michael.


I doubt we will see eye to eye on this, I've said the basic facts and I'm no longer interested in debating


the price, it is what it needs to be for there to ever be a Pandora2 (without some kind of crazy preorder business again).


So can this be the end of it? As much as I like to debate and try to get our view point across this sort of thing takes up too much of my time.


I might make a sticky post about the price increase so people understand it, there is little more I can do.


No one is forcing you to buy a 1Ghz Pandora, equally no one is forcing you to buy an exotic car next time you're car shopping etc. I'm sure there are communities for those cheap Chinese phones/tablets/consoles, but we're offering something different.
 
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Your views are both valid, but when the price was 250€ 4000 people preordered in some days. Now you have under 100 preorders for the 1 ghz units. I don't think this will work out, if a small amount of people will pay more. But I think you need a bigger userbase instead. But thats just my uneducated view on those things. I'msure you know it better, as you have a business for a long time now. I don't want this project to fail now that it has come this far and of course you need to get some profit from it. I just want to mention, that a lot of people won't be able to affort such a high prize and won'tbuy the product in the first place, if it is that high.
 
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Craigix said:
Right, we get it, you don't like the idea of us trying to make money, at least not by charging more, I suspect you would secretly like to see this project fail, and the fact people are willing to pay $699 for something as unique as the Pandora has probably irritated you.

OK.
Click to expand...

Now who's trolling..


I sincerely think you have more earnings potential if you could sell for less than $699 (ie would sell a lot more). And at this point I don't think you're being greedy, but I do think something similar could be sold for a lot less. And while I don't hope for you to fail outright I do hope for someone else with a little more money to invest makes a competing product that sells for less than this, which would indeed probably result in OPT failing.


But no, the willingness of some number of people to pay $699 on Pandora doesn't irritate me. Why would it?
 
Personally I could never afford $699 for such device too, if I told anyone I spent that much for my pandora here, they would say I'm crazy. I really hope you can come up with more affordable final price.
 
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In the long term, $700 pandoras won't work - too many customers will be put off buying them, and word-of-mouth publicity will stall


In the medium term, it may be the best way to clear up the current financial mess.


in the short term, people will buy the limited-edition upgrades
 
not to stir the pot, but as long as the increasing price is not a upward trend that is bound to continue I don't really see a problem with there being an actual "premium" batch... unlike the somewhat shady "premium preorders" that bumped their way ahead inline of those that waited for years.... that's all in the past... so whatever water under the bridge...


anyway... what really turned me on to the pandora originally was the less than $350 pricetag.... the $250-350 range is a sweet spot when it comes to technology I think.. specially game consoles... $500-700 is too much... when the PS3 came out that $600 pricetag was an instant "hell no"... not that it wasn't worth it, but mentally looking at that price all at once... once it dropped to $300 I picked one up... I also spent over $300 on games etc not to mention micro transactions for it so it wasn't the matter of not having the money for it... but the initial price tag is what turned me off. I'm also not salivating over this price/specs but I understand it's purpose, if I had more disposable income I would definitely consider it.


I hope... and this is a big hope, but I hope that after all the problems with the pandora 1 are over financially, that once the company is back on the up and up, that you guys are able to start moving that pricetag below the $500 mark and back down closer to that $250-350 sweet spot. I understand at $500 you are able to keep business and pull a profit to pay debt and investors. But to bring in fresh blood and relight the fire that once captured this niche by storm that price will need to come back down at some point.


To make up for the lack of profit make some special edition pandora 2's like this and sell them in much smaller batches to keep the price of the main unit down. Pump it with extra ram/nand or whatever... make aluminum cases or just throw money at it and make it really premium but charge like it's premium... someone will buy one. Those that have the money to absurdly throw at having something premium and shiney can take a bite off the cost for the buyers who are more frugal.


TL;DR summary.. I like the idea of these expensive faster units as a premium special edition of basically the same unit. Hope something similar is done with the next to push the price down for future modles.
 
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