Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Canonical adds a $625 and $675 UbuntuEdge reward level

indiegogo.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 153 posts

Re: Canonical adds a $625 and $675 UbuntuEdge reward level

#101

Post by ZeroGravitas »

dan1234 wrote: post #21
boothead wrote: post #13

Done. £419 for a phone that good, that I only need a screen and a keyboard for to turn into a mobile workstation. Fingers crossed that enough people find this as compelling as I do and sign up!

Slightly OT, but do you know where you stand from an import duty/VAT standpoint? A quick google suggests you could be liable for around £90 in duty & VAT[1] [1] http://www.dutycalculator.com/popular-import-items/import-du...

There appears to be some confusion on the matter:

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2013/07/ubuntu-edge-uk-tax-positi...

Note the comments where someone claims Canonical responded to a query by saying it includes VAT. Seems almost too good to be true though.

Re: Canonical adds a $625 and $675 UbuntuEdge reward level

#102

Post by [deleted] »

bdfh42 wrote: post #2

There is a lesson there - you cant sell a lot of kit (available at some future date) at a price that is over 30% more than a ton of other folks got it for. The reward price "spread" is an attempt to reproduce that initial enthusiastic sales surge but I wonder... Might come off but it feels like a marketing "cock-up" to me.

[deleted]

Re: Canonical adds a $625 and $675 UbuntuEdge reward level

#103

Post by option_greek »

ximeng wrote: post #67

625 is sold out already. Any idea what the likely BOM cost to Ubuntu would be for this? http://www.isuppli.com/Teardowns/News/Pages/Samsung-Galaxy-S... Suggests 400$ is achievable, which should leave them plenty of room for profit at 600 USD. Given the dropoff when the price goes up to 675 from 625 here: http://vertior.com:9000/ and the lack of marketing / distribution costs you'd think they'd do better just to leave…

With such low handset numbers (<50000), I would be surprised if they don't lose money.

Re: Canonical adds a $625 and $675 UbuntuEdge reward level

#104

Post by avar »

Is there any information on whether the drivers on the phone will be open source as well? I'm on the fence, but the main thing stopping me is that I'm not very keen on buying yet another phone powered by a bunch of proprietary binary blobs.

I'd like to hack on the software, build my own, try to install Debian on it instead etc. All that is going to be much harder if I have to use whatever kernel version their binary blobs target.

Re: Canonical adds a $625 and $675 UbuntuEdge reward level

#105

Post by reactor »

I'd say its a good move (even if it is a fluke). Think this way, people saw 600$ and 830$ initially. So in our subconscious mind, 830$ IS THE price, rest will be played by psychology, anything less than 830 would be at a discount and most probably I'll be TEMPTED to buy it.

Re: Canonical adds a $625 and $675 UbuntuEdge reward level

#106

Post by MisterBastahrd »

Tomdarkness wrote: post #37
jlebrech wrote: post #32

why not make founder $100 and give a discount on batch 2. the phone seems too high and the founder too low. I'd like it to happen but I would rather wait for a second batch.

There won't be a batch 2: "The Ubuntu Edge is an exclusive production run, available only through Indiegogo."

Yeah, it'll be the Ubuntu Edge 2, and they'll have worked a lot of the bugs out of the second one that they didn't anticipate in the first.

Re: Canonical adds a $625 and $675 UbuntuEdge reward level

#107

Post by singlow »

griffordson wrote: post #44
bobsy wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just wondering what scenarios you foresee you using the desktop feature in? If your travelling there won't be a screen available unless you lug one around. In which case you might as well carry a laptop. At home and work you probably have a computer. I think it is an interesting concept but I don't quite see the practical use. Unless it had like a stand and a projector or something.

I wonder the same thing. But I would be really interested in trying a small Mac Air sized screen/keyboard shell that had a port that I could slide such a phone in to. Sort of a portable docking station.

Asus has a TabFone product that is a tablet shell for a phone. It has an auxiliary battery but no keyboard.

Re: Canonical adds a $625 and $675 UbuntuEdge reward level

#108

Post by hugh4life »

I can't comment on their thing so I'll say something here hoping someone there reads it...

They really ought to make their $20 founder level a lottery.

And then after that was publicized, make two more tiers.

$20 - 1 ticket

$50 - 3 tickets

$100 - 8 tickets

And then throw in some of the $10,000 one of a kind prizes in the drawing.

Re: Canonical adds a $625 and $675 UbuntuEdge reward level

#109

Post by ciferkey »

kazagistar wrote: post #94
bobsy wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just wondering what scenarios you foresee you using the desktop feature in? If your travelling there won't be a screen available unless you lug one around. In which case you might as well carry a laptop. At home and work you probably have a computer. I think it is an interesting concept but I don't quite see the practical use. Unless it had like a stand and a projector or something.

I hear there is a cool device called the Oculus Rift...

Current Rift dev kit owner here, the device isn't really what you would expect. The screen connects to a box that then does either DVI or HDMI out as well as USB for the head tracking. This box also needs separate power from an outlet. So its not really ready for a mobile experience.

Additionally resolution just isn't there yet. They're currently testing better screens for the consumer version but its all a matter of what they can source (as with the dev kit they had to move from a 5in to 7in screen due to sourcing problems).

Finally, before I received mine I had thought about using it similarly to how you are. However I've come to realize that strapping a TV to you face changes up the interaction enough that you sometime have to rethink fundamental design concepts about the UI.

Random Rift tidbit: The people behind the [Minecrift](https://github.com/mabrowning/minecrift) are doing some awesome work and its development is a great example of people learning how to adapt a game to VR. Plus the ascetics of minecraft makes the pixelation of the Rift less noticeable.

Re: Canonical adds a $625 and $675 UbuntuEdge reward level

#110

Post by kazagistar »

ciferkey wrote: post #109
kazagistar wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear there is a cool device called the Oculus Rift...

Current Rift dev kit owner here, the device isn't really what you would expect. The screen connects to a box that then does either DVI or HDMI out as well as USB for the head tracking. This box also needs separate power from an outlet. So its not really ready for a mobile experience. Additionally resolution just isn't there yet. They're currently testing better screens for the consumer version but its all a matter of…

Thanks for the feedback. I guess the Edge/Rift might have to wait, oh well.
Post reply on HN