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Leaked Pics of CrunchPad Elicit Progress Update
TechCrunch has released a few more technical details, pictures, and general comments about their CrunchPad project as a recent accidental leak saw a new round of images posted to the web. It seems that the tablet has continued to grow and evolve with the help of an Intel Atom chip (as opposed to the Via chip previously used), new software from Fusion Garage, and a bottom-up Linux install. "I wanted something I couldn't buy, and found people who said it could be built for a lot less than I imagined. The goal — a very thin and light touch screen computer, sans physical keyboard, that has no hard drive and boots directly to a browser to surf the web. The operating system exists solely to handle the hardware drivers and run the browser and associated applications. That's it."
http://www.chumby.com/
I like the philosophy behind the Chumby, but if the CrunchPad is cheaper, I'd get that.
It is by my will alone my thoughts acquire motion; it is by the juice of the coffee bean that the thoughts acquire speed
So far, they remain quite sucessful.
I seem to remember there being such things in the first web bubble... net appliances they were called, souped-down computers used for just browsing the web.
I seem to recall the hackers and linux users working hard to get them to be MORE than just browsers and work more like a real computer. I also recall them failing miserably in the market.
Sometimes I begin to think that people just don't know what they want.
This space available.
Wait a few more years. Fill the time by getting a life. Have a nice day.
-=Bang Bang=-
last I checked, 10 * $50 is $500 and $500 is > $250 (or $200, depending on how you account for it).
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
It's too big. Cut the size in half and add mobile broadband options in addition to wifi. Otherwise it should be good.
It's essentially a PADD from Star Trek, and once someone figures out that copying that design will result in huge profits, we'll see some really cool gear.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
they should try thinning out the form factor a bit, at least something on the scale of an iphone or or better, with a screen the size of a piece of a4 with no more than 3mm case border.
Arash Partow's Philosophy: Be a person who knows what they don't know, and not a person who doesn't know.
If a machine is returned, unless something is broken, they can refurbish and resell it.
But even if the returned machine is a complete loss (and I wonder why you'd refund someone who broke it), its cost of 250$ divided by 50$ profit per unit is five units, not ten.
But yeah, that's not much profit. If it costs 250$, sell it for nearly 500$.
I think you're neglecting economy of scale. If it cost $250 to build from scratch, prices will go down once component can be bought in bulk.
If you post it, they will read.
His math is a little off but the returned item still has a cost of 250 to the business plus the new one they send out for 250. So you have a maximum of a $500 cost for a return. The components dont cost that much but assuming you are making 50 per unit, every return costs a maximum of $400(old parts + new parts). So you need to sell 8(400/50) for every 1 that gets returned. Your margins now suck if more than 1 out of 30 get returned.
Err maybe my math is wrong, I dunno why I thought the retail price was 250.
If 1/30 of your units is irreparably faulty, you've got some serious problems with your manufacturing process that should preclude you selling anything in the first place (cure Red Ring of Death comments).
Elicit? Nice. I guess it's a refreshing change from the usual lose/loose etc.
For years I've been trying to find a fairly small (10-13" monitor) tablet which would essentially be a Wacom Cintiq with a built-in computer just fast enough to run apps like Sketchbook Pro, Painter or other "creative" applications, but apparently there are no machines like this.
There have been a few tablets with a good stylus but these have generally been sold as "high-end" machines meaning they've been expensive, overpowered and too big, I'm looking for what could be described as a digital sketchbook, any performance-intensive image editing could be done on a regular laptop or desktop.
I've tried to look for good tablets all over the place but apparently this particular kind of tablet isn't interesting in the eyes of manufacturers (even though I've seen way too many threads on various art/graphics/design forums where people have been looking for just this kind of machine).
Oh well, the more tablets that are on the market the bigger the chances of me eventually finding what I'm looking for.
/Mikael
Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
First of all, it would only take 5 machines to recoup. Second, you assume that the entire machine is lost.
Let's say you have to send a call tag and send another one out. Now you're out $25, and you have the broken unit back. Let's say that nearly half of it is broken, and it costs $100 in parts and labor to get it to a "refurb" state. You sell it on your website for $250. You're out $125, which is paid for in the sales of three more units.
As long as you keep your failure rate below 20%, you are breaking even. Do any volume, and your costs go down. Stay in business, and your costs will go down over time. Sell "extended" warranties for $49, which most users will never bother using. Manufacture a few accessories at a 50% margin, or just license it to third party manufacturers and collect the checks. You could probably forget about the profit and make plenty of money just from the fees.
A 17% net profit margin at launch? Christ. That's a wet dream for any real business owner.
I've tried using my Nokia 800 and my Pepper Pad 3. They both come close, but are clumsy at both higher resolutions and text entry (well, the PP3 handles text entry fine, really). If I could get something that does 1280x800 resolution with a decent virtual keyboard, as well as decent battery life, I'd be all over it.
iPad
Now wish me luck against Apple's attorneys.
Yes...let's ass u me that the stated $250 build cost doesn't include any of the actual manufacturing and sustainability costs.
We'll just blindly figure that the people actually building this have zero clue what they are doing, and are just yanking figures out of their ass.
If a machine is returned, unless something is broken, they can refurbish and resell it.
Let's say for a moment the device is refurbished. Not only have you lost money on the return, paid someone to fix the thing and get it ready for resale, AND offering it at a discount, does the cost of repairing make any sense at all?
I'm not saying "it's doomed" or an otherwise bad device. I'm saying the business end of the device will not work out well at all for the developers at $50 profit.
Yeah, the original math is bad. The corrected math in another post puts it at selling 8 units for every return. That's before anyone is on email support and the costs of shipping the devices back and forth is accounted.
Finally, the manufacturing costs would go down, but it does so in big quantity steps. If there's no money for resellers or advertising how will volume ramp up?
BTW, if the volume *ever* did ramp up fantastically there would be a knockoff by MSI and their counterparts in just a few months time at 2/3 the retail price of this device.
I really would like one. Really. It's just that many things aren't as well thought out as the device itself.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Yes. An actual fold out/slideout keyboard. For instance, that's what the PSP needed from the start...a dedicated keyboard.
1 in 30 isn't all that uncommon in consumer electronics. The RRoD issue is more like 1 in 3.
Is it only me who is surprised (because of ignorance) that the s/w footprint stands at 100MB, when evidently they just want to control the h/w & for an application they want only a browser? Well, for practical uses, the browser would need flash plugins, etc. and most obviously would need addons if the browser supports it. When a Linux distro like DamnSmallLinux provides much more than a browser in just 50MB why do these guys need double of that?!
-- Prem
Aiming to tweet on a rice
Did you want something you couldn't buy, or was what you wanted not available to buy?
At the bottom of the
It doesn't matter if you sell at a loss, you can make up for it with volume.
At the bottom of the
Well?
What, exactly, is "a bottom-up Linux install"?
Forgive me for thinking it sounds like giving a piece of hardware an enema.
Where's the Kaboom?
There's supposed to be an Earth-shattering Kaboom.