4 ms·

Call me negative, but I am certain it will either be vaporware (never be released) or a failure like the WeTab.

by aw3c2 16y ago

dejb 16y ago
Yep. Decent idea though.
- Tyrannosaurs 16y ago
  You don't think it's a bit niche? I can see a lot of geeks being into the idea but I can't see it being mass market. The question will be will the geeks be willing to pay the premium that would make this workable with a smaller customer base. I suspect not when there are perfectly good Android phones out there.
  - sprout 16y ago
    Initially, but if they can get enough volume to start differentiating price based on features, a substantial market will show up for people who like the idea of not paying for things they don't want.
    - Tyrannosaurs 16y ago
      Generally though economies of scale make it cheaper to buy something with extra features which has been mass produced, than a closer to custom made model without them. I've learned this trying to buy a simple mobile phone for my technophobe father and a VCR that just played stuff (no recording) for my aging grandmother.
      - Alexx 16y ago
        Couldn't have said it better myself. The main theme of the reddit topic on this seemed to be people excited about 'only paying for what they want', yet by doing so you remove the main advantage of mass production; lower per unit price.
        tekrand 16y ago
        I guess part of the consideration should be that while the final product may be custom all the components are mass produced. As such you're going to have to pay for the custom assembly but the cost for the components will be more reasonable.
        Alexx 16y ago
        While this is undoubtably true, it's important to consider the absolute razor thin margins that fierce competition and huge volume production creates. This interesting article on the manufacture of microSD gives a small glimpse; http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=918 http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=918 The second to last paragraph is particularly interesting. Once you remove standardization all kinds of hidden costs creep in, from not being able to order such large volumes of components right down to hardware testing.
      - sandGorgon 16y ago
        then why does Dell work ?
        Tyrannosaurs 16y ago
        Fair point. My guess would be because in the PC world it's expected - people demand a certain level of choice and configuration. Beyond a very basic level (capacity, colour), I'm not sure that demand exists for mobile devices. But looking at the site in more detail, it does seem price competitive (I made a phone spec-ed to the HTC Desire and it's pretty much bang on the same price), though obviously you can't get it on a contract. We'll see. One thing that does occur is that their phones will presumably ship with vanilla Android rather than a network / manufacturer modified version. I know people who'd pay extra for that. UPDATE: Just realised that the HTC price included tax, the custom build didn't. Wouldn't be huge but would make it maybe 10% more than the Desire,
      - deleted 16y ago
        [deleted]
  - dejb 16y ago
    > You don't think it's a bit niche? Maybe, but there could be lots of niches. Actually I'd like to see it taken a step further where you can buy your own peripherals from different manufacturers and attach them to your phone. The device might not even end up being or looking like a 'phone'. But why not use a modern mobile OS as a controller for other mobile peripherals?
NonOrthodox 16y ago
One day we couldn't customize computers, and now we can, I can't wait for the day I can customize my phone with the specs I choose, just like I did to my notebook. Maybe it won't be this company who will succeed at doing it, maybe there will be lots of companies doing it, but I can certainly see that someday we will have this kind of option. I just hope it happens sooner than later.
- runjake 16y ago
  Some day. Look, aw3c2 wasn't saying there weren't ever going to be custom phones, but this company's been doing an awful lot of press work, only having a Photoshop mockup and website to show for it. The picture of the circuit board isn't even a mobile phone circuit. The company's makes no mention of prototypes or any hardware engineering. I would expect to see this stuff for a company shipping Q1 2011.

Call me negative, but I am certain it will either be vaporware (never be released) or a failure like the WeTab.

by aw3c2 16y ago

Call me negative, but I am certain it will either be vaporware (never be released) or a failure like the WeTab.

dejb 16y ago

Yep. Decent idea though.

Tyrannosaurs 16y ago
You don't think it's a bit niche? I can see a lot of geeks being into the idea but I can't see it being mass market. The question will be will the geeks be willing to pay the premium that would make this workable with a smaller customer base. I suspect not when there are perfectly good Android phones out there.
- sprout 16y ago
  Initially, but if they can get enough volume to start differentiating price based on features, a substantial market will show up for people who like the idea of not paying for things they don't want.
  - Tyrannosaurs 16y ago
    Generally though economies of scale make it cheaper to buy something with extra features which has been mass produced, than a closer to custom made model without them. I've learned this trying to buy a simple mobile phone for my technophobe father and a VCR that just played stuff (no recording) for my aging grandmother.
    - Alexx 16y ago
      Couldn't have said it better myself. The main theme of the reddit topic on this seemed to be people excited about 'only paying for what they want', yet by doing so you remove the main advantage of mass production; lower per unit price.
      - tekrand 16y ago
        I guess part of the consideration should be that while the final product may be custom all the components are mass produced. As such you're going to have to pay for the custom assembly but the cost for the components will be more reasonable.
        Alexx 16y ago
        While this is undoubtably true, it's important to consider the absolute razor thin margins that fierce competition and huge volume production creates. This interesting article on the manufacture of microSD gives a small glimpse; http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=918 http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=918 The second to last paragraph is particularly interesting. Once you remove standardization all kinds of hidden costs creep in, from not being able to order such large volumes of components right down to hardware testing.
    - sandGorgon 16y ago
      then why does Dell work ?
      - Tyrannosaurs 16y ago
        Fair point. My guess would be because in the PC world it's expected - people demand a certain level of choice and configuration. Beyond a very basic level (capacity, colour), I'm not sure that demand exists for mobile devices. But looking at the site in more detail, it does seem price competitive (I made a phone spec-ed to the HTC Desire and it's pretty much bang on the same price), though obviously you can't get it on a contract. We'll see. One thing that does occur is that their phones will presumably ship with vanilla Android rather than a network / manufacturer modified version. I know people who'd pay extra for that. UPDATE: Just realised that the HTC price included tax, the custom build didn't. Wouldn't be huge but would make it maybe 10% more than the Desire,
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
- dejb 16y ago
  > You don't think it's a bit niche? Maybe, but there could be lots of niches. Actually I'd like to see it taken a step further where you can buy your own peripherals from different manufacturers and attach them to your phone. The device might not even end up being or looking like a 'phone'. But why not use a modern mobile OS as a controller for other mobile peripherals?

NonOrthodox 16y ago

One day we couldn't customize computers, and now we can, I can't wait for the day I can customize my phone with the specs I choose, just like I did to my notebook. Maybe it won't be this company who will succeed at doing it, maybe there will be lots of companies doing it, but I can certainly see that someday we will have this kind of option. I just hope it happens sooner than later.

runjake 16y ago
Some day. Look, aw3c2 wasn't saying there weren't ever going to be custom phones, but this company's been doing an awful lot of press work, only having a Photoshop mockup and website to show for it. The picture of the circuit board isn't even a mobile phone circuit. The company's makes no mention of prototypes or any hardware engineering. I would expect to see this stuff for a company shipping Q1 2011.