Remix Tablet: Kickstarter with a twist

[furbearingmammal]

Hey, if the market will bear $350 for this, then more power to them. For $300 I'd rather have a Stream 13 tablet from HP, though. Just sayin'.

 

[Jonny Kansas]

Not really sure how I got it. I hit enter in the search box for the millionth time and it popped up, so I clicked to back it right away instead of checking out the page. Typed my name as fast as I'd ever typed it before and had my wallet out as I finished that.

I'm pretty quick with the number keys without looking, so maybe that helped me? I typed fast.

Haha!

I almost thought I wasn't going to get it. I was stuck on a "verifying" page for a bit and I thought for sure it would return with a rejection message, but it said "WOO HOO!" and I got an email.

As I'm typing this, 3 people have pledged the $349 tier.

 

[Jonny Kansas]

Just hoping funding doesn't stall here around 60%. One more backer at the $349 tier. I suppose anything could happen in 29 days. For 5 grand, they'll fly you out to watch your be made.

 

[Jonny Kansas]

I was backer #329, but they said there would be 200 at that tier. I sure hope I actually get one if it's funded. I'm guessing the funding for this will go the same route as the andromium project.

 

[furbearingmammal]

If you look, they have to raise $100,000 to get their money. Which means they have to sell about 60 of the $349 tabs or sell some of those premium tiers in order to "succeed". THAT may prove difficult, but since it's only 2/day they might pull it off.

Still seems like they're trying to break even rather than putting a limited number of tabs in tester hands to see what needs improvement. And those high-end tiers, well, jeez. I realize, reach for the stars, but this whole thing just feels badly bungled for their stated purpose of getting some tabs into the hands of testers to improve it for the American market come release day.

 

[Jonny Kansas]

If you look, they have to raise $100,000 to get their money. Which means they have to sell about 60 of the $349 tabs or sell some of those premium tiers in order to "succeed". THAT may prove difficult, but since it's only 2/day they might pull it off.

Still seems like they're trying to break even rather than putting a limited number of tabs in tester hands to see what needs improvement. And those high-end tiers, well, jeez. I realize, reach for the stars, but this whole thing just feels badly bungled for their stated purpose of getting some tabs into the hands of testers to improve it for the American market come release day.

Agreed. If all you're really after is getting them in the hands of testers, why not build up the same kinda hype and then offer only a certain number of them at discounted price on Amazon or elsewhere?

Still, the $349 tier keeps creeping up a bit. They're almost to 71k now. Hopefully those orders will continue to trickle in. They may have shot themselves in the foot here though. I've already seen the numbers dip down for a bit and then rise back up. Give someone 29 days to really think about the fact that they just pledged $349 for something that they initially meant to spend a fraction of that on and more are likely to second-guess themselves and back out.

Will be interesting to watch. I won't get my hopes up and/or get excited about the prospect of actually getting to test-drive one of these tablets until we get down to the wire...unless they seriously over-shoot their goal, but I'm not seeing that happening with this project.

 

[furbearingmammal]

If they wanted 200 testers they should have only done 200 tablets and set a small goal. Yes, I realize Kickstarter take something like 30%, or maybe it's only 10 percent, but in that case offer some other low level perks or offer some reason to move up to the next level, you know? It shouldn't be simply because you couldn't get in at the $40 price tag. If they wanted to see how well these would sell at $350 plus $20 shipping and handling, then they should have actually set up a preorder storefront. I really think if they had just gone to the trouble of trolling some of the android forums and seen that there are some hardcore, dedicated users like ourselves who have obviously been in it for the long haul and are probably going to remain in it for the long haul, then I think they would have had a lot less ill will build up. And, let's face it, there is going to be a lot of ill will from people who did not get in at the $40 price tag.

The next question is who is this tablet actually ended? Is it standard users? They're very well served by current Android tablets. Power users? Again, they are very well served by their tablets. People looking to replace their laptop? Then why offer the keyboard cover? Content producers, maybe. but if that's the case, why offer tablets to the general public in such a first come first serve, vitriol inducing manner? No, this whole thing smacks of being bungled from the get-go. It was a good idea, and it generated a lot of buzz, but I don't think they're going to get the dedicated testers that they stated they wanted.

 

[akhenax]

I was in a meeting at 2pm, so I was unable to participate. Oh well. Good luck @Jonny Kansas

 

[Jonny Kansas]

From the facebook page, " Also, bear in mind we have some fantastic updates and surprise gifts for our highter tier backers in the coming days!!!"

Have to agree with fbm. If they were smart, they'd have these surprise gifts planned out and advertised when the KS campaign launched. Sure, I was sold on getting in on the cheap, but if I'd have missed the window, I might've been enticed to bump up a tier or two with the right perks.

I'm a bit worried though, knowing my backer number is over 300 and they promised only 200. Someone on Facebook says that means KS let in too many and those won't be honored, but I won't back out until I know for sure that I'm not gonna get one if they get to their goal. At this point, I definitely won't jump up to the $350 tier just to get one.

And fbm is also right about the ill-will. The comments on the facebook page are hilarious. People are really upset. Some of my favorites are the ones that say things like "I don't think I'm interested in ever buying one of these now."

 

[akhenax]

They should of had a timeframe where users could do the $39 dollar deal, and went up 10 dollars for each hour more. So if it started at 2pm, by 4pm, backers could pledge $59 and get one. It could have had a time limit as well.

Granted, this is just me feeling pissed that I wasn't able to sign up, given that I had this on my radar for a week.

 

[Jonny Kansas]

Could've been done a million different ways that wouldn't have upset so many potential customers. I love how many people in the facebook group apparently had no idea how KS works. A lot of them are only mad because of that. I'll be bummed if I don't get one because my number is higher than 200, but I'll live. There's always windows 10 to look forward to for free on my laptop. Haha

Sent from my Note 4 via Tapatalk

 

[furbearingmammal]

It's the attitude on Facebook that proves me right. Dangle a supposed $350 discount on a $400 item and people who will use it once and literally throw it away or give it to their 2 year-old will jump.

Heck, look at the daily deal sites. Half the time the stuff they advertise is available in the same condition on Ebay for 10-15% less with free shipping, or better warranties, or any combination of the above. I've seen deals on Woot (keeping in mind that Amazon bought woot -- the crew that developed woot now runs meh) that were above Amazon prices. But it's for a limited time, and they advertise MSRP, so even though you can walk into Walmart and buy this set of Nevr-Shar-Pen serrated steak knife, ballpoint, iPad-only stylus flashlights with simulated ivory grip in a collections-edition, genuine simulated-gnawgahyde vinl carrying case for $45/set of 10, the deal price of $40 (Plus $5 shipping and handling, please allow 1-2 weeks for items to ship) when the MSRP is $60 makes this a MUST HAVE!!!!!1!111!!11!11!11111!!!!!1!!11!1
!!
11!1
!

But I digress. The fact is they dangled a good deal in front of the unwashed masses of Facebook. That is not how you build a userbase. That's how you irritate a lot of very vocal people. Also:

They were working on a video NOBODY was going to watch today in the final minutes before the campaign went live. They KNEW nobody would be watching the video before the lower tiers were sold out. Yet they were STILL WORKING ON IT IN THE LAST HOUR BEFORE THEY STARTED THE CAMPAIGN when they were already a month late to the table since everything I saw from January said they were going to be having this campaign in Feburary. What does that tell you? Total lack of organization, that's what it tells me.

They're down to 355 of 200 $39-tier backers. That means at least one person has already backed out. On the other hand, they're already up to $82,800. That's a lot of interest, though I agree with what Jonny said about buying higher because they missed the intro tier.

And frankly, hyping it for months and promising everyone a tablet and then ONLY offering 200 at the entry level and jumping to 5x that amount with only 500 more? That's just disgusting, however much they'd lose on the deal. There should have been a $100 level for 500 and then another 1K at the $200 level.

 

[Jeffrey]

$349 is the lowest available now. They are at $83,553. Not sure if they will make it.

 

[furbearingmammal]

I honestly wonder how many of the people buying are going to commit to using the darn thing for 15 hours a week at all, let alone for two weeks (the minimum for them to collect feedback data) or a month, let alone the three months they probably want to hoover ideas from.

 

[Jeffrey]

They are at $92,000. Can't believe peeps are paying $349.