09-11-2020, 10:16 AM
(09-11-2020, 09:57 AM)patrickmollohan Wrote: Thinking purely as a consumer, though, I could not justify spending $300 on the PinePhone as it is currently. I'd really only spend $250 for the Librem 5 as it is, which has better specs and more convenience with the kill switches. More than that, it's not a good value for me. Purism needs to understand that now, and so should Pine64 if they did try going above where they are at. Phones with similar specs can be purchased new for $40 here, which means the manufacturing costs are less. If Pine64 isn't making that much on these phones, there are inefficiencies in manufacturing that need to be focused on. In order to make that $300 price point work, it would have to absolutely blow consumers away, and unfortunately, nothing about the PinePhone/Librem 5 is going to do that. I hate to be that blunt, but it isn't realistic to assume the average Joe is going to spend that much money on an underpowered phone, have to switch away from the apps, branding, and ecosystem they are used to, and learn Linux in order to have a phone like this.
The big asterisk here is I don’t think that was ever Pine’s expectation. This will likely never be for average Joes. Right now they are most certainly not the target audience. If it stays a hardware only purchase, I also don’t think it will ever be their target audience. All those people asking “can I replace my iPhone/Samsung with this yet?” are not the target. This phone does not compete with those phones. It competes with the Librem 5 and potentially the Jolla supported devices and that new Ubuntu Touch phone that I’ve forgotten the name of. Totally different market.
