3 ms·

And that is exactly my point. It's one thing to build a prototype, and another thing entirely to be able to mass produce a web tablet for $200. And no matter

by gstar 18y ago

And that is exactly my point. It's one thing to build a prototype, and another thing entirely to be able to mass produce a web tablet for $200. And no matter how good the EE, you can't do that stuff at a messy kitchen table - you need serious resources.

mechanical_fish 18y ago
Well, sure, but those serious manufacturing resources belong to OEMs in China. As a US-based designer, building a factory is not your problem -- there's no hope of doing that profitably at this rock-bottom $200 price point. Your problem is design -- figuring out which combinations of commodity parts will do what you want. After which you'll take various iterations of your prototype to meetings with OEMs like Foxconn, asking them to bid for the honor of manufacturing the product in bulk and sticking your company's label on it. Of course, there are lots of potential pitfalls in that process -- there are several middlemen who can mark the price up, there are lots of suppliers to coordinate and play against each other, and there's the constant risk that your design is lousy, or unmanufacturable (when the factory is half a world away, it's hard to establish a good design feedback loop), or that you'll cut so many corners trying to meet your budget that your brilliant design turns out lousy. This is presumably why there are so few decent $200 web tablets. Incidentally, though I used to be a product engineer in the cellular components industry, I'm no expert on the overall design/manufacturing process -- I was a tiny cog in the giant cellphone machine. For actual knowledge I recommend something like Bunnie Huang's blog posts about hiring folks to build the Chumby: http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?cat=6 http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?cat=6 UPDATE: I just surfed through my own link, and I have to say that Bunnie is a great blogger. His hints for getting quality designs out of Chinese factories (my capsule summary: "live in China, watching the assembly line, for as much time as you and your budget can stand") are in line with my own experience.
wmf 18y ago
Indeed. When I (briefly) worked on hardware, even the prototypes had to be contracted out because you can't make PCBs and solder BGA on your kitchen table. We were aiming substantially higher than a tablet, though, so maybe you can do a lot with an eval board and some sheet metal.

by gstar 18y ago

mechanical_fish 18y ago

Well, sure, but those serious manufacturing resources belong to OEMs in China. As a US-based designer, building a factory is not your problem -- there's no hope of doing that profitably at this rock-bottom $200 price point. Your problem is design -- figuring out which combinations of commodity parts will do what you want. After which you'll take various iterations of your prototype to meetings with OEMs like Foxconn, asking them to bid for the honor of manufacturing the product in bulk and sticking your company's label on it. Of course, there are lots of potential pitfalls in that process -- there are several middlemen who can mark the price up, there are lots of suppliers to coordinate and play against each other, and there's the constant risk that your design is lousy, or unmanufacturable (when the factory is half a world away, it's hard to establish a good design feedback loop), or that you'll cut so many corners trying to meet your budget that your brilliant design turns out lousy. This is presumably why there are so few decent $200 web tablets. Incidentally, though I used to be a product engineer in the cellular components industry, I'm no expert on the overall design/manufacturing process -- I was a tiny cog in the giant cellphone machine. For actual knowledge I recommend something like Bunnie Huang's blog posts about hiring folks to build the Chumby: http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?cat=6 http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?cat=6 UPDATE: I just surfed through my own link, and I have to say that Bunnie is a great blogger. His hints for getting quality designs out of Chinese factories (my capsule summary: "live in China, watching the assembly line, for as much time as you and your budget can stand") are in line with my own experience.

wmf 18y ago

Indeed. When I (briefly) worked on hardware, even the prototypes had to be contracted out because you can't make PCBs and solder BGA on your kitchen table. We were aiming substantially higher than a tablet, though, so maybe you can do a lot with an eval board and some sheet metal.