Rev3 case photos, and many many words.
February 6, 2010
The case photos we’ve been waiting for have appeared in MWeston’s album. As you will have gleaned from the various tweets and forum posts in the last 24 hours, there are once again some imperfections that have left Michael and the rest of the team vexed to say the least. Before we get ourselves in a twist about further mould “tweaks” though (hands up if you now hate that word), it has been pointed out that the cases are structurally, and functionally, perfect. The source of vexation here is that the finishing on the cases appears to be no improvement over the revision 2 sample.
It would only be natural at this point to ask what in tarnation the case factory has actually been doing since rev2, if not improving the finish (and ask it MWeston did). But the answer to that is not necessarily nothing, and a couple of possible explanations are being explored. Production cases go through a finishing process after they’ve been moulded, to give them that nice, even matte sheen. It’s likely that the case factory doesn’t deem a small sample batch worthy of this extra effort (even if it’s been asked for). Another likelihood, and not a mutually exclusive one, is that recycled plastic pellets have been used to make the samples; a cost saving measure which can result in uneven colour. If both of these scenarios turn out to be the case, we can pretty well say that they won’t be issues when the factory makes a “real” batch. But they are questions that still need to be answered. Fatih and his trusty translator will no doubt be doing some overtime on this one. (Update: They will be seeking answers on Monday.)
Read on for photos and all the words from MWeston. And just a little bit of advice when you’re looking at the photos – be careful how you judge them in super high resolution. Not many moulded plastic cases will stand up to scrutiny at this level, not even from the big guys. Check out the details by all means, but zoom them back out to “normal” size for a more realistic indication of where the issues are.
The major part of making cases isn’t necessarily molding the parts, but carefully packaging up the parts for shipping. Final parts don’t get shipped like samples do which is crammed into plastic bags inside one big box.
(MWeston)
I’m [trying] to find out if these were made from recycled plastic or new pellets. Maybe that is why it still has rough edges and a greasy finish and a production run will be done differently.
(MWeston)
Well I made it through 17 pages of this topic now so I should post a few comments.
First, I am not looking for perfection. That is an infinite process but there is such thing as a standard quality that any commercial device should meet. I spent so much time perfecting the guts of this thing and it is a true insult to my efforts to see this mold company send me such incomplete samples and call them ‘final’. We will find out what level of purity the plastic was that made these cases. Maybe they know production plastic won’t be swirled and greasy and so when they said we would be happy with these, they expected that we understood that. Communication is a tough one when they refuse to hold conversations for more than three minutes at a time. Don’t ask me why they didn’t put the silk screening on these parts because I was explicitly told they would have them. More lies.
There were a few more internal modifications for rev3 but most of the important ones came from the rev2 samples. A couple of changes for rev3 that I am happy about are a tighter fit on the screws which makes them feel more secure and closing up the nub surround so that the PCB isn’t visible around the nub under certain lighting conditions. It also looks like they closed up a small gap in the lid that let a bit of backlight light shine through the front. The LCD cable slot took a step backwards with a bit of unevenness but since it was right last time, we can assume that more carefully made production parts will be back to normal.
The cases are still very solid. You can try to twist and bend them but they don’t flex much. It will feel like a very solid device in your hands and functionally, everything works exactly as we want. The gaming controls are perfect. The keyboard is perfect and there has never been an issue with buttons getting stuck in the case or anything like that. The problems now are cosmetic. There are rough edges around the connectors, around the edges of that recessed channel in the front the SD cards, volume wheel, etc. and some on the edge of the base parts where the two halves go together. There are some sink marks too which might hide a bit better with a full, proper matte finish but they’re there.
As some people have pointed out, a picture can say more than any amazing piece of software ever will and a reviewer crapping all over the case quality could spoil it for anyone considering the Pandora. I’m one of those people really. These cases aren’t a disaster but I would want something to show off to my friends and having to explain the colored patches and rough edges is a little defeating.
Some pictures are posted on my photobucket and I’m not too sure making a video will show better quality. I will probably still make one anyway but unless I can really master the lighting, my 640×480 videos won’t help you know if I’m holding a rev1, 2 or 3 case.
EDIT: Two more pages were written since typing this. Ah yes, the hinge area. There are clips in that area that hold the two halves tightly together and they screwed up somehow. On this revision, the recessed spots for the clips to sit in got completely evacuated and there are holes right through the case. They didn’t do this on rev2. Rev2 just had roughness on the bottom edges of these parts and not the destruction of the clip channels like this time.
(MWeston)
atomicthumbs
BackAssward
Butterman
gruso
tom
What's this?
mmm, i do love the inbuilt gallery
remind me to use it more
I think I first discovered it when you used it. ^_^
It’s definitely not the best though. Try using two different galleries in one post.
Had me pulling out my hair, thanks wordpress!
words, words, words
I like words
My thoughts exactly
So….another revision of the cases? ….
That’s what we don’t know yet. They haven’t said go yet, but they haven’t said no either. A couple of questions need to be answered before they move forward, and they still have a day or two up their sleeve to make the decision.
All hope is not lost yet.
Can the hinge issue really be addressed? If they made the case clip holes all the way through, they can’t undo that, can they? (my understanding was that they were shaving off pieces of the mold so that can’t be undone right?)
It doesn’t work like that. I’ve tried to explain it on the forums, but technical English is even harder than regular English. EDM makes the case thicker, not thinner(keep in mind that the tool is negative, the case is positive). Those clip holes are made by metal pices on the tool side that sits towards the injector. These metal pieces can be adjusted and are often controlled via hydraulics. I think that the hinge crack is caused by those misaligned metal pieces, too.
I don’t think we have the final word on that yet, we’ll need MWeston to clarify.
So when do we hear back about the answers? They’re probably not there until the end of the weekend, and if they delay their responses as they seem to usually do, the 8th will be past. Not to mention deciding if we think their response is good enough, which should possibly be more than a 1-person decisio (from the *TEAM*, not from the community).
I’m torn about the finish/color, but I personally don’t think the regression with the LCD cable slot is OK. I’m not willing to risk that being ragged and tearing the ribbon to shreds. You?
well, imo the case looks ok, they might say go, at least i hope they would)
How can the factory think people will want to do further business with them, when crap like this keeps happening, they have no understanding of what was needed?
+1
Their USP:- Cheap!!!!!!!
I guess they get so much business that they take their customers for granted. Maybe our guys were the most demanding ones they’ve met yet..
they ask about 5 times less money for this then other companies)
I think they are getting nailed… The factory probably know they don’t drop them after the investment and trying to squeeze more money out of them.
sigh…
http://www.kenplas.com/service/imtroubleshooting.aspx
I like what you’re implying
Yes, there seems to be hundreds of random factors when creating these cases, but I cant understand why the non random factors, low grade plastic and no silk screening, for final cases…
This 3rd revision is still looks crappy in comparison with my Zaurus. I’d be glad to pay another $50-100 in order to get rid of this f####ng Chinese factory.
s/is still/still/
would’ve been more efficient in this case to do s/ is// … just sayin’.
Would’ve been more efficient to just type the right thing to begin with. That’s really something that the `sed` man page should state!
I’m disgusted by china (sigh)
I’m fine with the current case as long as I get a REALLY good discount on a perfected case later on after I get the thing.
But then again I would like to show it off and sight means everything to the stupid and uninformed individuals.
This is really, really bad. It looks like garbage.
LETS MAKE WOODEN CASES!!!
I bet with no skills whatsoever I can carve a wooden case quicker and better than fucking chinese factory.
Same here. Just send me the stuff I paid for, I will fix the case by myself. The waiting has been long enough…
Yes, but can you make 4000 as fast as them?
But can you carve ten thousand of them?
Actually he might finish them faster, if he started at the same time… i.e. 15 months ago…
I dont care about finish, send me one with uneven color. I could care less, ship the bastard to me.
devs are first in line to get screwed up cases
MASS PRODUCTION START. NOW.
it is going to be really hard to keep from producing a thousand and just hope at this point. This is sucking. No end in sight and no ideas how to go forward March at the soonist…
Looks like here’s a huge amount of people who are literally tired of waiting and want to get this crap as it is.
We’ve waited years. Might as well wait another 6 months and get a better product.
Says you!
It already does everything I want it to do, and I’ve already paid for it!
Ship it!
If they intend to make me wait six months (or anything close) for cosmetic changes I don’t care at all about, they can just give me my money back, thanks.
Give the It-Must-Be-Pretty crowd the option of waiting for batch 1.5.
+1
A lot of people have been waiting a long time to simply get a functional device. This meets that criteria, so it ought to be shipped ASAP. If you want perfection, you’re willing to wait anyway, so wait for the next batch.
They could have shipped a half-assed product a year ago — they assert that the delays have been due to wanting to perfect the device.
If we STILL get a half-assed product, then we’ve been hosed.
They could also send everyone that wants it now a ‘DIY pandora’ set. They could buy/receive the case when it’s done. I bet their are a lot of creative people that can build their own case.
I say give every preorderer back 100$ and ship all parts except the case as a DIY kit to them. Next year, when the cases are finished and perfect, sell them seperately at the official Pandora shops.
I have my wood-working utensils ready and I’m not afraid to use them.
This may be the best thing to do, or promise better replacement cases when they are ready, hopefully the crap cases won’t garrote the lcd cable, hopefully hoping hope…. hope …!!?!?!?!!??!
This article broke my patience…
How do you explain to someone that it takes 1 month to bake a perfect pie?
Folks there is one well-known adage that unfortunately applies here… You get what you pay for.
Time for someone to fly to China. Or we change factories. How long are we going to play this game?
Maybe the Chinese factory decided to skip the refinement steps so they could get the sample out as quickly as possible. I’m sure they were getting intimidated and worried about all the complaints about delay from OP.
I doubt they are getting intimidated. They have the money, and a run of 10,000 is almost laughable to them. They’ve probably already spent more man hours on this run, than any other 10,000 one.
The pic of the back of the case if probably the worst. Look where the top of the lid meets the bottom of the lid. Another odd thin is, it seems they didn’t coat the area’s around holes on the keymat area. Zoom in and around every hold is an area looking like it has no finish or something.
You mean the gap? That’s probably just because MWeston didn’t feel like snapping it together around air.
The cray may be from poor packing.
so… two more months?
The cases are already perfect in the eyes of the ones who made them. That means that they indirectly admitted that they are unable to make better ones. No finite number of months will make them produce cases that are more than perfect. This is the limit of cheap Chinese MP4-Player-case factories.
No idea what I’m looking at, looks fine to me. So I’ll trust the OP team to do the right thing.
In a word, f*ck. I’m finding myself looking longingly at the bandwagon onto which all the doubters are jumping.
I really have had total trust in OP and this entire process from the beginning, but I’m absolutely shocked that another problem of this magnitude could arise at a time like this. This level of misfortune is not at all acceptable in a business context, and I feel like in any other case, a refund would have been asked for and the business taken elsewhere.
…But, in another sense, it’s not entirely unbelievable. I’m under the understanding that in China, it’s routine practice to “lie” in order to save face, which is basically the most important concern. It’s not to say I don’t trust the factory, but I’m now thinking that OP should have had enough experience dealing with this that they would stop assuming they can take what the factory says at face value, among other things.
——————–
So, it seems either way I look at it, I’m heading over to the side of those who believe they have been ripped off. I won’t ask to be convinced otherwise, because that would convince me more. Instead, I’ll just have to take the inevitable delay as time to cool off, and return to a state of passivity.
What I really hate about OP is that they raised the price of the second batch. Now we can’t just cancel our preorders and wait for the second batch because we would have to pay the difference as a punishment fine for being doubtful.
I have to admit, I was kind of hoping for the green light myself.
Without wanting to add more fuel to the naysayers’ fire, is there any way impatient customers (namely, myself) knowingly choose to accept the less-than-perfect cases? I would be willing to do this, and while I understand that it offends the OP team’s sensibilities (and let’s be honest, there’s a lot of pride in craftsmanship, I get that), I’m kind of anxious to get cracking on some game ideas here.
FWIW, I have a GP2X-F100 (saying it has imperfections is a bit too generous -and- the matte plastic has already worn down to a shine around some buttons -and- centre-click broke) and, despite the flaws I still find it quite enjoyable to use, I’d expect the same to happen with an imperfectly-cased Pandora.
You’re not alone there. There is a very long thread in the forums where this idea is being discussed, and many people are keen for the same thing. But it’s just an idea at this stage.
The first step for OP Ltd is to find out exactly what happened (translation: kick some arse and take some names). Fatih’s translator friend is ready to lock horns, they just have to wait until Monday to do so.
Craig & co have indicated that they’re still keen to push for production before CNY. Stay tuned – it’s not a red light yet.
It’d be suicidal to green light it without another sample run. There is a missing element in the hinge (according to MWeston) on this one, final surface treatment and the long awaited matte finish haven’t been seen, and they didn’t prove competency with the silkscreening as directly requested. A bulk run now could end up as landfill.
I thought he said this case is like “ugly girlfriend”: ugly but does all what it should do?
http://www.gp32x.com/board/index.php?/topic/51815-here-is-what-will-be-happening/page__view__findpost__p__808624
As OP team demonstrated many times before, they are not going to kick anyone’s ass. The simply don’t have any bargaining power nor did they ever had any, since they handed over the money in the beginning.
They will simply have to accept anything Chinese will tell/send them.
FFS, go to china already
Dear MWeston, with all respect I think none of us can believe that next iteration will be okay. (Cause from the your post it seems there is a next one.) Looks that for the required quality several iterations with quick test runs are needed. Weeks between test results is something I would consider a big loss on the business. Loosing face, customers, brand, etc.
Flying to China and delegate somedoby with quick testing capability on proto cases could solve the issue within 2-3 weeks. There must be a point in time when money spent on testing is simply balancing out the cons on faster release of the console. I hope you will go in this direction. This process with such visibility starts to look really-really unprofessional. Sorry.
Get someone on a plane out to the factory, so they can be over the shoulder of the manufacturer
I would be afraid to let them tweak the mold any more. It seems that the more they touch the inside of the mold the worse it will get. I say let this be the last change. Just confirm that the production will have a better finish (an emails should do it) and shoot that molten plastic 4k times before they ruin the mold.
Wooden cases.
I really don’t understand how they could have taken such a huge step backwards from the rev 2 cases.
No chance am i accepting a pandora with a case like that i’d be Embarrassed to show anyone who knows ive been waiting this long for it,I’ll wait till monday and see if they get any feedback from chinese before deciding on getting my money back before it all goes tits up.
+1 – after all this wait and hype – people will just laugh at us – no one will care whats under the case if the case looks shitty.
If the 3rd rev is lookin like this, I have no hope for that Chinese factory.
In the meantime i’m healing my pain/sorrow with my vaio p and sapphire hd5970
Here’s what we should do
- ask who wants one as they are now, and go for a production run to meet that number, and get those shipped out
- those who want to wait for a perfect one, don’t get one straight away, and promise to STFU until a perfect one is done, which might mean getting them done somewhere else (on the basis that if Pandora wants a long term future, these Chinese guys have to be out of the equation)
That _may_ happen, it is being discussed at length. Or it may not need to happen at all. They’ll be able to decide on a course of action once they speak to the factory on Monday.
Just bare in mind what is the time in China while making this phone call.
And still the Chinese factory might be tired of listening to your endless requests for revisions, and say they did use recycled stuff, and had no time to apply the finish… regardless of what they actually did.
ps
I am taking pandora in this case or nothing
ps2
This will be know as: “pandora form the rough batch”
I know this sounds naive as hell, and probably discussed ad nauseam/infinitum but, couldn’t the factory make a final one with finish and silkscreen, then photograph them from all angles at the actual factory, THEN email them to MWeston..??//??
+1
Instead of this whole shipping bullshit? No way.
More importantly, why can’t the factory just say. No this case sucks lets make another.
Now THAT is naive.
Hardly.
Ok, we’ve been working on this mould for weeks, it’s still not perfect. But we’re going to send it off anyway, maybe we’ll get some free time while we wait for it to arrive.
They have the specification, they know how it should look, why do they insist on sending back something that’s wrong.
They could be stalling the Pandora case production, to get the more lucrative projects finished. This would explain the delays, and all the double talk with no certainties on what they’ve actually done.
Buy a chinese-english dictionary and send it to that chinese factory. This revision is a bad joke. No silk screen, no matte finish, and the worst of all, the case looks like crap (Each time I look to the second photo, I seriously consider to request a refund).
Pandora may be cutting edge, but that case looks a lot worse than the one of the “Neo Double Games” (cheap NDS Clone).
Please, calling a “neo double games” a DS clone is diluting the word clone past usability. It’s a popstation for crying out loud – worse than any game&watch, and the case design is purely to defraud gullible people who don’t recognize the devices they want. A clone actually imitates functionality, sometimes running an emulator but often down to using the original cartridges.
By the way – this case (second photo)
really looks like it was “Made in China”
[Alfred smashes a prototype cowl with a baseball bat]
Alfred Pennyworth: It’s a problem with the graphite, sir. The next 10,000 will be up to specifications.
Bruce Wayne: At least they gave us a discount.
Alfred Pennyworth: Quite. In the, uh, meantime, Sir, may I suggest you try to avoid landing on your head?
Did I hear discount?
WOW! I WASNT EXPECTING IT TO BE QUITE THAT BAD, ITS A SHAME ABOUT THE DISCOLOURATION, SURE! BUT THE SHRINKAGE IS NASTY… PERHAPS THIS COMPANY USUALLY SPECIALISES IN PARTS THAT JUST DONT NEED TO BE PRETTY… LIKE INTERNAL PARTS FOR HOOVERS ETC. RATHER THAN PRETTY CASES FOR STUFF.
I WONDER WHAT PART OF THE COMUNICATION BROKE DOWN… ARE WE SURE OUR INTERPRETER SPEAKS CHINEESE AND NOT BELGIAN OR SOMETHING??? LOL
I HOPE THIS CAN BE RESOLVED VERY QUICKLY BECAUSE PEOPLES PATIENCE IS STRETCHED ALREADY… I HOPE IT DOESNT SNAP, I DONT WANT THIS TO FAIL, BUT I DONT WANT TO KEEP DOING THIS INDEFINATELY… SORRY IF THAT SOUNDS IMPATIENT.
CAPS LOCK, DESPITE POPULAR BELIEF, IS NOT THE ‘CRUISE CONTROL FOR AWESOME’! ;]
Haha! I started off shouting and forgot to stop!
Well, it would appear from the fact that there seems no support whatsoever for the “it’s all good” faction, that the Pandora customers have lost their patience with this news snippet.
The case is going backwards in quality and, frankly, it looks like it’s been moulded for the $2 odds & ends shop. You know, like the toy mobile phones you give three year olds… except we’re paying $400(+) for this depending on your exchange rate at time of purchase.
I don’t think the reaction could have been any worse had the Pandora team dropped off the grid for a week trying to get this resolved… except then they’d have the Chinese New Year thing breathing down their neck.
Quite frankly put, I’d be incredibly surprised if Craigix & Co don’t get a number of refund requests… For what I paid for this OVER A YEAR AGO, I’d be able to pick up an iPad. At least I’d know the quality of that device and when I pay for it, I’d get it within the #$%&ing week.
To be fair some are upset about the case.
Others feel really peeved off with Craigix saying that they will do a run of 500, and then get new cases for the rest.
Instead of biting the bullet and ordering the lot.
Posting this in both forums.
I think from this weekend’s set of posts, we’ve given Craig and Co. a clear sign that we’re getting impatient, and that we don’t like the images of the last set of pre-production cases. I think we’re all getting impatient to have our devices. We’ve been patient enough for quite some time now.
Hopefully Monday the factory will confirm that there is the mold grease on the cases, and that they don’t have the finish on them, and they were sent this way to try to meet the CNY deadline. At which point it’ll be up to Craig and Co to see if they want them to make a run before then.
If it were just a matter of finish, then I can live with the current cases, but there’s also the bit where there’s a hole that runs all the way through somewhere it’s not supposed to, and the cracks. Those to are structural, and not something I want to live with.
As much as it makes me cringe to say this, I think maybe it would be best to wait until after CNY for these things, even with re-assurances from the factory. The worst thing that could happen to the team would be to rush the cases out the door, probably disregarding a lot of things the Chinese might not pass up if they had more time – not that they haven’t had enough – before going on holiday. So they get their run off 500, 1000 – 10,000 ore whatever, and all the cases are a bit of a mess, not packaged right, etc. because of the rush before the holiday.
So there’s an even BIGGER delay sending the cases back and pointing out the bad, or just accepting the bad. For me, cosmetics don’t matter too much, but they will to a lot of people who’ve purchased and are considering purchasing, and they will matter to reviewers. The structural stuff DOES matter to me, I don’t want a weak or pre-weakened case.
After that I’d want to pressure the company to get the team the cases, and get them to the team right. Properly finished, packaged, and anything that didn’t come out of the mold properly tossed away or recycled or whatever they do with the rejects. I don’t know. I don’t like it, I’m sure the team doesn’t like it, I wouldn’t want to see MORE delays after this, but is rushing the Chinese at this late date, right before such a major holiday, a good idea? The team will decide, but I’m a bit nervous either way.
Maybe we all should just pay 2000 bucks or so each and get an American company to do this. They can hopefully communicate in decent English and will probably do things 10 times faster and properly. And hey, shorter shipping! And “do it faster, we’re getting impatient” won’t mean “slack of until after new-year or we’ll nuke ya all into the next gigamillennia”
Too late. Do that with the upcoming Pandora Advance.
I read somewhere in the past that this chinese company does work for some big names and does quality works.
But frankly if a company sends out a third rev for final inspection that has cracks, discoloration and looks unfinished… then they don’t know what they are doing. They are better of making 50cent plastic toys.
Well well i come here every now and then.
Got Slaughtered because i was sceptical about what OP tells there customers (one of them is quit a good liar ore way to optimistic).And i got nastily put right by the language Nazi’s who think the whole world speaks and write English many seam to think that there is also one kind of characters with points and commas.(I know i got a bit cheeky to by annoying some people a bit sorry for that but i was just having some fun.)
I wonder if that OP person is recognizing that the Chinese company plays the same trick on him.
Like him they do not have a clue how long it takes or just does not tell the truth and come with over optimistic answers and estimates.
Having sad that i find the reading here lots of fun also the forum is a great source of laughter.
I smiled big time when i read there that OP must have been fullish to pay the full amount.
How much did you guys (the customers of Pandora)pay?
I wait just until it happens and then maybe i order one but Pandora is losing it’s edge.
Well looking to he case i do somehow have the feeling it is just a test run to see if the inside fits OK and if the functions are good now.
I recon that because of the lack of silkscreen and the pieces are not polished(no need for that if it is only a test run).It is surprising though that it looks like a big step back from the second test run.
Also is it possible that it was a Russ job to get just a few cases don.
To find out what it is it cost more patient until the questions are answered.
I recommend to ask the questions in a way that can not be answered with a yes.Asian people think that yes is most of the time the right answer even if they do not know the answer they say what you want to hear to not lose face (trust me on this one i know).
Let them explain do not show you know the answer ore not.
Ask a few question you know the answer on so you can check if they know but use a question you can not answer with yes.
One more thing when you talk to them tell them how extremely happy you are with the good pieces if they can keep this great quality then move to the bad pieces and tell the how puzzled you are by the lack of quality in those pieces.
You can also ask if they like the good pieces and then show them in the end the bad ones and ask them if it is he same quality.It is highly recommendable to do this in person and keep smiling.
If they agree it is good quality then at least you know where you stand with there honesty.
Good luck boy’s.I am looking forward to the progress ore even the lag of progress but i sincerely hope Pandora will prevail.
Have a nice day.
It’s looking more and more like that’s what happened. More information on this coming soon…
Well maybe at 50% but what about the crack, the rough edges and (I don’t even know how to call that) level variation on the shell then ?
Good, precise and clean presentation is half of the convincing work in such case.
Plus nobody cannot be sure that each Pandora wouldn’t get such random problems. What if someone get cracks all over the hinge or on the top ?
I have no use for a clamshell if it’s as fragile as any other tiny Netbook.
Maybe that’s why internal process shall stay closed to public view.
You are not going to convince me to stick with Pandora if you release that kind of stuff and say “Well, not perfect, but I guess we will have to go with them”.
I certainly can wait one or two more month and let you do better ! But don’t ever do that again or I may think that the hardware is a piece of shit but well, we will have to go with that.
“Chinaaaaa, you got some ’splainin to do!” ;D
100 comments gogogogogogo
+1
You can point your fingers at the Chinese all you like, but no-one has dared charge OP with starting the cases way too late in the Pandora development cycle. Waiting for months for cases while you have the electronics finished and literally waiting to start production is quite simply bad product development planning and management. Period.
As a consumer I’m not particularly interested in what goes on between OP and the Chinese plastic factory. The delays have long gone past anything that can be considered as “unforeseen” or “untimely”. Sorry, but from my stand point, it is simply unsatisfactory. In fact, it’s down-right ludicrous at this point, and I don’t really see it changing for several months to come.
And to the naive who are calling to have the “current” cases produced and shipped – you’re kidding yourselves. That whole process is still going to take weeks, and will do nothing but add further delay and further cost to the “final” case.
And I’m sure you’re not going to be happy when the imperfect case slices into your LCD ribbon cable, or cracks a few solder joints when you’re plugging something into a mis-aligned connector while you’re waiting for the new case to arrive.
Plenty of companies have gone bust because of sub-standard parts, suppliers, manufacturers etc, and OP are in real danger of joining them. OP have to cop it sweet, and take some of the blame for what is happening. And jacking up everyone’s hopes before each case shipment doesn’t help matters either.
A final note – I have a friend with a business who deals regularly with the Chinese. Yes – it takes a certain amount of experience and skill to negotiate with them. They will tell you want they think you want to hear, no question. It’s obvious that whoever is currently dealing with them on behalf of OP is ill-equipped to do so. That they need a translator is a huge disadvantage in itself, for reason others than simple language barriers. This is going to be a long, drawn-out process.
You can point your fingers at the Chinese all you like, but no-one has dared charge OP with starting the cases way too late in the Pandora development cycle. Waiting for months for cases while you have the electronics finished and literally waiting to start production is quite simply bad product development planning and management. Period.
I agree in principle, but OP isn’t a normal company in a lot of ways.
html fail?
And why does that matter exactly?
The excuse that Pandora is being created by a “non-normal company” doesn’t change the fact that they are showing us incompetence & VERY shoddy workmanship…. oh, and the device we paid for is well over a year overdue!
Name me ONE other company given that kind of leeway?
There have been a view people who dared to point the finger to OP and say you made some mistakes/fuck-ups/having pink glasses on.The problem with that is that that person is going to be attract by the fan boys (great source of entertainment).Some of them even make fun of you on trivial parts.These fan boy’s can not handle any legit critic ore negative oppinion.The funny thing is now some of these fan boys make a 180 degree turn.Unfortuned it makes the sceptic go away.
PS attacking someone on there writing skills is weak not.Just for those fulls the whole world does not speak English.
When selecting the case manufacturer, was there a review of some demo product to see what quality they were capable of?
Maybe this particular company just can’t make the good stuff?
They were supposed to be the Best in the East(TM).
They worked for big name brands, brands far too big to be named, you know.
The hinge and LCD cable slot issues are troubling. Why would the factory send obviously imperfect samples and claim that they’re perfect?
The problem with OP sending out ANY before they are perfect is that they will get into the hands of reviewers. No amount of work after the fact can fix a bad review.
Releasing an unfinished product to the press is always suicide. You can’t undo bad press.
Just give refunds to the people who can’t wait, do it right, get good press, learn from these mistakes. I’m tired too, I’ll have had 40+ hours of flying time without my Pandora since I planned to have it but I knew what I was doing when I preordered. I gave my money to a project without a firm ship date to help a small and open business.
Who needs good reviews? I thought the Pandora was not meant to compete with other handhelds?
OP Ltd and their investors need good reviews. It’ll be a huge “I told you so” moment when the reviews hit (for good or bad).
Delaying delivery of a electronic device (not because of internal upgrades to improve the performance)can be suicidal too.
Yeah, Pandora’s vaporware-status has already made it quite infamous in lots of places.
You just need to nudge the right person and stuff will start working again. Just give them a push.. a hand in to a mold machine and showing them what happens if they don’t comply. *Evil*
Are you a chinese mafiozo:)
Cases won’t get any better, if the ones who made these called them perfect. The quality limit of that factory has been reached, and since they were supposed to be the best I guess that means that the quality limit of cheapness has been reached.
You could just do what google does and call it a “beta release” then you can get away with imperfections…
Oh shit back to the lab again >.>!