When Pyra would be cheaper? When There would be new replacement boards?

[Grench]

50% will be availible for my budget. Once it will cost 65% of original price or less, there should be peak on buyers
people around me keep talking pyra is twice priced especially with not high cpu board in the price.
I don't want to insult you but there are countries poorer than germany.

Edit : I read it wrongly. Anyway -35% would be much more affordable.

You seem to be under the assumption that the current price of the Pyra was arbitrarily chosen or that economies of scale can be achieved on future consoles based on past sales - and it simply doesn't quite work that way. There are a few parts where the development costs far outweigh production costs (case plastics, keymat, circuit boards). The majority of the price is based around components with large minimum order quantities and no 'volume discounts' to speak of unless the project is buying hundreds of thousands of them. Just the 4G module alone is roughly $100. Small batch pick & place board population is expensive - and again breaks for quantity happen in far greater quantities than this project is likely to see.

It is priced fairly for the contents and costs of production.

 

[ClockworkCoder]

the Galaxy S7 ( or was it 6 at the time) only actually costs Samsung about $200 to make

A bargain at the price, and they double as nice hand-warmers (sorry, bad taste)

 

[TheOldOne]

I found a different report from last month. They admit they ignore development and marketing costs.
https://www.techwalls.com/production-costs-of-smartphones/

 

[comradekingu]

So a Pyra costs less, is more costly to make, and has more capability, and none of the cancer compared to current flagship phones.

The only way they are better are in the way you can't use them, or arguably in aesthetics where they have stagnated fully.
The modern smartphone has crossed line in the megapixel-like race long ago.

Price over time is what you actually have to pay for. When is the Pyra not making sense to buy compared to anything else depends on how much you are willing to spend on anything else right now.

With the support you are getting from Android or iOS devices, you are essentially paying for a subscription that has a physical object tied to it. Once it expires, your object has lost value you will pay for, or that you may have paid to have.

 

[Penguin-Guru]

From a financial standpoint, I think the price is about the same as flagship phones but with a much longer life expectancy and repair-ability so the value should be greater. That said, the Pyra can't really be compared to modern smartphones because the design is totally different. The battery, the keyboard, the joysticks and triggers, the fact that it's open-source, there are a lot of features you just can't get anywhere else. Personally, I would like it to replace my phone and laptop. It could probably even replace my desktop if necessary. I would actually profit quite a bit by selling those.

Rather than cutting costs, I think the most important thing for now is just to expedite the manufacturing process or keep sufficient inventory to mitigate risk in the eyes of perspective buyers. Second most important is showcasing and documenting the product, and third is establishing reliable technical support channels for less technical users (like myself). After all this, run a serious marketing campaign and start saving money to rush development on the next model, maybe around when 5G hits the market (circa 2020). I think marketing is really the necessary component here. A nice splash on top of 5G would pretty much guarantee mass-production quotas and then it would be much easier to cut prices and maintain development of new hardware modules. One big advantage to the modular approach is that (hopefully) the whole system will never need to be redesigned all at once. The more modular the system is, the easier it becomes to maintain. At this point, if all goes well, we would have a reliable market and freedom to pursue other projects (free and open-source Hololens please).

Just my thoughts. Let me know if I've said something silly.

 

[tigerroast]

@Yuji Sakai Your expectations are not only way too high, but also unrealistic at this juncture. Maybe it's a lack of knowledge about the project, and that's not to sound rude; it's understandable that not everyone recites every syllable EvilDragon utters in every Pyra update video before going to bed. I don't intend to come off as patronizing, but you're seriously building a lot of false hope for yourself.

I am especially awaiting CPU board with AMD ZEN and at least 8GB RAM,...

While you're waiting, you can help increase the likelihood of such a board getting made in the distant future...by buying the first-model Pyra in the near future. You're gonna be waiting a helluva long time anyway.

I know the still-unreleased ZEN is the best thing since filtered water, but damn. You plan on hacking War Machine with that? I reckon the current CPU-board can stand on its own fine enough.

...but ARM 64bit with 8GB of RAM or more would be also nice.

LOL! The Porsche was out-of-reach, so I guess I'll settle for the BMW!

...I hope after Semester Pyra would get a bit cheaper (but it is only preassumption, I want to be sure if there are chances)...

Well, at least you admit to putting the horse before the carriage in the context of this sentence...

...or I can buy it at same price but with significantly better CPU-Board

...before riding that carriage into the brick wall that is your negotiating position. Throw us a bone, bro!

why is it so time consuming for design of cpu board?

I'm not qualified to discuss matters in-depth pertaining to small electronic circuit design at all, but I don't think it's a huge leap of logic to consider that something as complex as an ARM-based SoC is kind of hard to draw copper traces for, especially when having to deal with an array of connectors, peripherals and ASICs. And that's before you take into account the added challenges of not crossing traces or frying chips.

EDIT: So rather 3000 Pyras? Yay! this can be achieved after a quater of year, so I can be very sure it happen before I intend to buy the device... I am student AGAIN and it seems family funds me someting if I finish semester properly. It would be Pyra Mobile of course

Dude, this project ain't exactly a new Xbox release, no. 3k sales in 3 months for such a tiny project (no pun) would be short of a miracle (no pun), and you're thinking the Pyra's gonna conquer Linuxdom. Not happening.

At least AMD chips should be able to be sold on low volume, I am sure.
hopefully after first test/production cycles you should be able to make enterprise prices, not customer ones.
there are many people which want buy something x86 and ZEN is 64bit (perfect for linux+wine)

In the past, people on this board wanted, begged, and pleaded for an x86 CPU, exploring every avenue and pathway to a feasible CPU-board candidate. Quite a few folks in this very thread know much better than I do as to why that ended up not bearing any fruit. I believe one of those reasons was the lack of chips available at ~1k order quantities.

50% will be availible for my budget. Once it will cost 65% of original price or less, there should be peak on buyers

Arbitrary percentage. 65% of the final price (let's say ~$700 with current exchange rates) is ~$445. From what I remember (don't quote me on this; can't cite this claim), I think it costs ~$352 to make a Pyra, and that's production costs only. No marketing, distribution, development compensation, profit, etc.

How can ED make a dollar on that without betting on tens of thousands of Pyras selling in order to make up for non-recurring costs?

people around me keep talking pyra is twice priced especially with not high cpu board in the price.

Do any of those people ever tell you WHY that's the case? Because, as far as I can tell, you don't see the WHY of it either. You just see specs.

 

[Yuji Sakai]

Sorry, I don't want to be rude or sound insulting...
Yes arbitrary numbers. Next guess: 75% of original price?

 

[spud42]

what part of no do you not understand? The Pyra is still not a retail product yet. we do not know the actual final price. All we have is ED's best estimate on development costs and manufacturing costs. The man has to eat and provide for his family and employees.
3000 sales will only pay back investors,cover development costs and a small profit for ED. More will have to sell to have funds to produce further units.
Pre orders started on May 1. it is now October 12 and we only have 900 pre orders.this is only enough to produce the pre orders and maybe a total of 1500 Pyra.
It is very unrealistic to think that suddenly there will be thousands sold upon the release of the retail product. for one thing there will not be thousands to sell! ED will have to order more parts and build in batches.
I sincerely hope ED does get thousands of orders, He and the Pyra deserve it but i think it will be more Tortoise than hare.

 

[TrashyMG]

and employees.

He has employees? I know Askarus helps out, but not sure if he's an employee. Nikolaus is paid, but not employed with ED. Global Components does a bit for ED, but they're contracted to. EvilDragon does all this in his "free" time when he's not doing his actual real job.

 

[Yuji Sakai]

again sorry for me beeing not communicative. I expect in my calculations that once some thing happen (i.e.3000 pyras sold) there would be significant lowering in the price, once there are Pyras would make profits for ED, as opposite now it covers costs of the project. But I understand ED still want to profit enough, and in the end source parts have just a price especially in small batch. However IDK how significant it would be or should be or could be.

But if I am wrong, could I suggest more sophisticated way of solving this? you may lower the price each batch with small amount of money. this will make price more fluent and would mostly eliminate a problem that some of us would wait for 3000 or 5000 or 7000 sold. of course it shouldn't lower below some limit. I hope I don't sound rude, I wan't to be helpful for both community and my wallet

I am happy that ED use some of collected money to make projects. I would help ED with new cpu-board for Pyra if I only could (but I can't).

I very probably would buy Pyra, but it seems rather costly for me but perhaps I would be able to afford this. Sadly I haven't preordered because current price. Not counting price and 32bit not so fast CPU-board it is perfect device for me (I wish camera also but thats not a problem since I almost not use camera in my phone lately)

 

[ible]

probably the idea is to keep the price where it is, in order to start financing the next projects, and give ED a bit more liquidity for that sort of thing. but the price could drop a bit, too.

 

[bzar]

I very probably would buy Pyra, but it seems rather costly for me but perhaps I would be able to afford this. Sadly I haven't preordered because current price. Not counting price and 32bit not so fast CPU-board it is perfect device for me (I wish camera also but thats not a problem since I almost not use camera in my phone lately)

Okay, what would be an acceptable price point for you for a device with the current specs? I'm fairly certain, based on the conversation so far, that your answer is going to be under the price of manufacturing one

 

[Binky]

I expect ED to sell Pyras for £100 each, and if my expectation isn't met, that's his fault!

More seriously, these threads seem to arise from the way that, with large companies, there really is a very lose relationship between cost-to-make and price-to-buy. Big name companies routinely sell products at a loss, or increase prices to manipulate customers' habits.
Many people don't realise that the capital needed for such stunts is hopelessly out of reach of projects like the Pyra/Pandora.

 

[ClockworkCoder]

When Pyra would be cheaper?
When There would be new replacement boards?

すみませんが今まだだれも知らない。ローンチした時から待ちなさい。
Sorry, nobody knows yet. Please wait until after it's launched.

 

[levi]

Big name companies routinely sell products at a loss, or increase prices to manipulate customers' habits.

TheOldOne's link up the page seems to sow doubt on your first assertion, although of course I don't know what marketing spend or R&D costs they need to recoup. What's true is that phone companies often let you have an expensive phone with a smaller up-front cost, because they can recoup that with the monthly fees.

 

[FBnil]

Well... it seems the Euro is going into negative inflation (with negative interest for having money in the bank), I expect the device will cost less euro in the near future (however, outside the eurozone, the value will remain the same, like the Brits that now pay more after brexit).

I expect ED to sell Pyras for £100 each, and if my expectation isn't met, that's his fault!

Wait... all this talk about FREE software, and the hardware is not free also? I need to go to talk to the Free Hardware Foundation...

@Yuyi Sakai: Would a GPD Win be more of what you are expecting? x86 architecture, Windows compatible, etc?

 

[TheOldOne]

Big name companies routinely sell products at a loss, or increase prices to manipulate customers' habits.

I'm aware of that in the video game world where Nintendo/Sony/MS take a cut from the game sales or charge for access to a dev box to even make the games. If it's a semi open system (like android) they can't do that as easily but of the three only Sony makes android devices and even they have there own store they take a cut from on it that only their phones can run. MS and Nintendo only make devices that can only run software from their stores or that have paid for their Dev kits.

 

[Yuji Sakai]

Sorry, but I wished to buy Pyra Mobile not GPD win since GPD win cannot phone calls.
The variant is now 745 euro including tax. I would happily buy Pyra for around 500 euro if I can. I don't know if it would be final cost or not, but really hope it is above manufactoring cost.
If it's not then I am very sorry and very grateful ED doing such risky buisness. Once in the past I dreamed for creating such device like Pyra but haven't enough abilities and courage to try. I surely buy Pyra once, but currently I prefer wait for price going down than getting fresh device. The non x86 is not an issue since we can have wine/qemu tandem, but then performance matters. The most blocker aside the price is 32bit processor, but if I have to wait over 18 months for new cpu board, I prefer to buy pyra as is, then consider an upgrade later.

 

[Yoyobuae]

While an exciting possibility, I don't think making and receiving phone calls comfortably will happen early on. Probably setup might be rather awkward at the start and will require some amount of software development effort to make it really streamlined.

 

[Penguin-Guru]

Sorry, but I wished to buy Pyra Mobile not GPD win since GPD win cannot phone calls.

I just took a look at the GPD and I think there are a lot of problems but that is not one of them. There are multiple ways of using data service (4G) to handle phone calls, depending on your service provider. The most obvious method is SIP, and the picture of somebody typing on the GPD's tiny keyboard with two hands on home-row is priceless. If they have that kind of spacial distortion technology, sign me up.

The variant is now 745 euro including tax. I would happily buy Pyra for around 500 euro if I can. I don't know if it would be final cost or not, but really hope it is above manufactoring cost.

I don't set the prices but I think it's safe to assume the Pyra will not be sold for 33% less within the first two or three production cycles. MAYBE it could go down there eventually, but I think it would be at least 4 years for new units, and that's assuming the business is pretty successful. At that point, you will probably want new specs, which will cost more. You should probably consider buying a used unit or, something I forgot to mention earlier, save your money. If your family will fund you after each semester, just wait for two semesters and you've got twice the budget. If you're willing to wait for 18 months, it's time to think outside the box.

...if I have to wait over 18 months for new cpu board, I prefer to buy pyra as is, then consider an upgrade later.

I don't imagine the Pyra will begin shipping with a new chipset architecture in the next 18 months. You should probably buy as is. I think the Pyra looks like a great system and the architecture really doesn't matter because all the best programs compile from source anyway. People can correct me if I'm wrong but I think the only significant difference between the x32 and x64 chipset is the maximum memory capacity. 4GB is a lot of memory for a linux system so you're basically only precluding Windows virtualisation. I think emulating in Wine would work fine, although it would obviously depend on the host application. Why do you need more memory? If it's not memory, why is the x64 architecture so important to you?