On the pre-production status

[EvilDragon 164]

EvilDragon chiming in (yep, I'm the one running the DragonBox Shop).

PLEASE KEEP IN MIND:
Apart from selling the device, I am in no way affiliated with FXTec. So this is just a guesswork, my own opinion based on experiences.
There can be other reasons, but that's my guess on the situation.

I can understand the frustration you have - but there probably are reasons and I doubt this all is intentional.

If I can say anything about producing such devices is: It ALWAYS takes longer than expected and there will always be issues.
Unless you're Samsung, Sony or a similar company which can simply throw money at it to speed things up.

It's in incredible achievement to finish such a device at all.

I was involved in the OpenPandora development (talk about delays...) and I am now working on the Pyra (where I didn't even give a release date, given the experience), and I was also a backer of the Moto Mod (as a new phone with a keyboard was more than overdue).

My guess on this is:
FXTec probably was pretty sure they would be able to deliver the preordered units in October - or at least November.
All that was left was waiting for the produced units from the factory, after all.

They also didn't want to miss out on christmas sales. Developing such a device is extremely expensive (they even raised the retail price because of that) and there are monthly costs to run the company and pay the wages as well. So the longer it takes, the more urgent everything is.

That was also the reason the OpenPandora nearly died: The guy running the main company behind it decided to close his shop in order to only sell Pandoras. Due to the delays, he eventually ran out of money. Without investors, it wouldn't have been possible to save the Pandora at all.

But still, I am pretty sure their intention was to first deliver their preorders and then deliver it to the retailers in time for christmas.
Production probably took too long. Shortly before delivering the units to me they asked whether I am okay to receive them directly from the factory as this would be faster.
This sure sound like the original plan was to deliver all the units to them and from there to the retailers.

But that would've probably been TOO close to christmas - so it could be some retailers would've cancelled their order. I'm only a small retailer, but imagine a retailer who ordered hundreds of units would've cancelled and asked for a refund... yeah, that could lead to quite some problems.

Due to the units being shipped directly from the factory to the retailer, FXTec wouldn't have production units before - so they couldn't start to ship out preorders before any retailer could.

However, they should now also have production units, so I guess they should ship soon.

So yeah, I can understand you're frustrated, but please keep in mind that this is no multi-billion dollar company. They produced a device no multi-billion dollar company would produce. And it's worth it.

They have to pack, ship, handle the production, answer to emails, try to keep distributors and users happy, try to stay within budget, etc.

So think about that. I don't think their plan was to intentionally betray you, on the contrary. But it probably didn't work out as they planned.

As mentioned: I have no clue what happened. But I know how complicated things can be when handling stuff like this.
So please don't be too harsh with them. I'm sure they're trying their best :)

 

[OliverTypes 152]

Uhhh, my order not states "status: completed". Is this a good sign?

[Zamasu 258]

@EvilDragon So if I'm understanding correctly, this wasn't a case where you just normally ordered a bunch of devices and paid earlier than all the other pre-orderers?

[EvilDragon 164]

2 minutes ago, Zamasu said:

@EvilDragon So if I'm understanding correctly, this wasn't a case where you just normally ordered a bunch of devices and paid earlier than all the other pre-orderers?

Well, I had to pay upfront for them, so technically it was a preorder as well. But these are the normal retail units, and coming directly from the factory means that FXTec should also have received the units for the normal preorderers as well.

[Zamasu 258]

25 minutes ago, EvilDragon said:

Well, I had to pay upfront for them, so technically it was a preorder as well. But these are the normal retail units, and coming directly from the factory means that FXTec should also have received the units for the normal preorderers as well.

There are definitely people receiving phones from F(x)tec, it's just that the amount is pretty small, and people think retailers cut in line and snagged phones from people that technically paid earlier. And the promise was that the earlier you paid, the earlier you got the phone. It seems unfair to customers directly from F(x)tec.

[Craig 1,435]

1 hour ago, OliverTypes said:

Uhhh, my order not states "status: completed". Is this a good sign?

Yes.  Means its shipped to you.

[ravelo 11]

My order status was "Completed". I asked fxtec support and it told me that the status was wrong and it should have been "Processing".

[Craig 1,435]

I got an email from F(x)tec saying my order was completed and got tracking info the same day the status changed..  so @OliverTypes I'd check your email, and if not contact fxtec support to see if they made a mistake like with ravelo...

 

[OliverTypes 152]

Shot them a request already, thank you both.

[Thunderhaake 8]

I also got my tracking number. 😏

But not from Fxtec... instead from DragonBox-Shop. Tracking estimates delivery for friday.☺️

[Gon009 70]

Me too, but from Clove. Estimated delivery for Monday by DHL Express. I wrote an e-mail to Fxtec to put my order on hold until I'm sure that the phone will be delivered.

[divstar 164]

27 minutes ago, Gon009 said:

Me too, but from Clove. Estimated delivery for Monday by DHL Express. I wrote an e-mail to Fxtec to put my order on hold until I'm sure that the phone will be delivered.

Since I got my tracking number from the dragon shop and it turns out to be even cheaper than ordering (and waiting) from fxtec, I cancelled my order from fxtec. Just hope the money back from fxtec will ho smooth, because I hate to be a grinch and force my AMEX insurance onto them.

[Rob. S. 1,661]

For a short time I was actually tempted to order with DragonBox (thanks to @EvilDragon for chiming in here, by the way), but my F(x)tec order in September was substantially cheaper and I'm not that desperate that I couldn't wait another few weeks 😉 

I do not see any malevolence on F(x)tec's side, either. Except that things take (much) longer than they were supposed to, nothing so far suggests anything but honest business. 

[gfragkistas 9]

Unfortunately Clove is out of stock already. Next stock mid January. 

[Raksura 270]

4 minutes ago, gfragkistas said:

Unfortunately Clove is out of stock already. Next stock mid January. 

That's actually before F(x)tec's current ETA for new orders, though, isn't it?

[gfragkistas 9]

True. But the fact is that people purchased the phone from a retailer (we already know of at least two retailers having already sold units. Clove and Dragon. 

How should I feel about it? Having paid since August and now told I will wait till the end of January whilst at the same time it is available to the public. 

 

[PanicBrothers 66]

We can close this now.

All Numbers and Dates for Pre-Orders are not important anymore. You all can order at Shops you find with Devices in Stock.

Not "Function is the Key"

To "Get one ist the Key"

😄 😄 😄

[Wheeljack 212]

Well, they told us that they plan general street availability before Christmas. They just left out the part where they screw us over.

[Tsunero 215]

13 minutes ago, Wheeljack said:

They just left out the part where they screw us over.

Yeah, apparently all of this "pre-order" thing was disguised as a kick starter... We get screwed with waiting until the end of January while random people can just buy one now and get it before Christmas...

[gfragkistas 9]

Blatant display of total disrespect and dishonesty. Big scale liars too. It is only a couple of days ago that I got an email with all sorts of excuses telling me it might be to the end of January. 

[npatel1050 132]

Considering they last updated 12 days ago, I think it's time they give us new status. I don't care if nothing changed, update us

[VaZso 1,998]

I have just ordered a Pro1 at Dragonbox.
Despite I am an IGG backer, I see no chance of receiving my Pro1 prior Christmas and almost no chance to receive it between Christmas and the new year.

(I gave relatively high chance for the stock to disappear as I ate my dinner and waited a bit, but availability was still there and temptation was extremely high.)

As I will not work from this Friday to the second week in January, I will definitively have much more time spending with Pro1 (so moving to it) than in January which is the expected arrival of my Pro1 pre-order and also January (and maybe February) will be exceptionally busy month(s) for me at work, I will probably not have much time to set my new phone as a daily driver.
So that is in the background of my decision.

However, I am not going to cancel my pre-order as I feel a second phone will have its own use case.
One way to use it is to be a spare phone if anything happen, but most importantly, I will not experiment on a phone which is my daily driver... but I would like to use Pro1 as my daily driver, so the second phone would be good to do some experiments, most importantly to try how Sailfish work on this device.
As it seems Android has very much restrictions around rooting and open bootloaders, also I hate it tries to restrict me, including that the system tries to restrict the user, forces to encrypt the file system but does not share the keys with the user for decryption (so on a hardware failure, one may not really able to decrypt the content of the flash)... so, Sailfish may be a much better option for me and it is much closer to my experience with N900.
...but without the support of some Android programs, I don't know if it is suitable for a daily driver for me (currently may be not, but later?) - I hope they will fully support the phone later but I will not have a chance to even try it if I not own a second Pro1.

(I have also applied for Beta testing back in time which may have been allowed me to help, however, they have not even heard me because of e-mail reception problem.)

So, I am not going to cancel my pre-order here, however, I feel really sad that I am being an IGG backer with a promise of getting my Pro1 before non-IGG pre-orders and general availability but also there are non-IGG pre-orderers and general customers which are currently able to order and receive a phone or have already received it before my pre-order with IGG coupon applied.
So having to order from general distributor in order to receive it earlier than my pre-order payed months ago is a bit strange.
This way I have a chance for it to arrive before Christmas and really high chance for it to arrive this year instead of having to wait for it till some day in January or February.

I really don't want to attack F(x)tec as they may have their reason doing this nor I want to cancel my pre-order and I really hope them a success and also the availability of successor(s) later, so I really hope they will be able to fulfill all pre-orders and sell several additional phones as general availability.
...just feel a bit sad...

[EskeRahn 5,460]

2 hours ago, gfragkistas said:

Blatant display of total disrespect and dishonesty. Big scale liars too. It is only a couple of days ago that I got an email with all sorts of excuses telling me it might be to the end of January. 

Have any of you accusers even considered the possibility that these stores might have ordered&paid them a very long time ago too? Just asking? They might even have been IGG backers for all we know....

[Val 75]

9 minutes ago, EskeRahn said:

They might even have been IGG backers for all we know....

Yeah, right. I'm #26 IGG backer, #40 IGG order ID. NO stock assigned as I write this. Do some basic counting. You're saying?

Have any of you (un)conditional fans even considered the possibility that it's just pure greed and they just want more money/orders/shops, without any consideration about the backers and/or early paid pre-orders?

I understood the tech or logistic delays, but I can't think of any reasonable explanation for this. Do you, based on the FACTS? Of course, you can also base your judgement on the fxtec stellar communication with us.

Some basic common sense, please. 

[EskeRahn 5,460]

8 minutes ago, Val said:

Yeah, right. I'm #26 IGG backer, #40 IGG order ID. NO stock assigned as I write this. Do some basic counting. You're saying?

Have any of you (un)conditional fans even considered the possibility that it's just pure greed and they just want more money/orders/shops, without any consideration about the backers and/or early paid pre-orders?

I understood the tech or logistic delays, but I can't think of any reasonable explanation for this. Do you, based on the FACTS? Of course, you can also base your judgement on the fxtec stellar communication with us.

Some basic common sense, please. 

You have heard the expression "Assumptions are the mother of all fuck ups" right?

Neither you or I know what is going on. And hence can not judge them either way. Sure it looks odd, but wait to hear their answers, before throwing all kind of allegations around.

And as you already know, if you read the slightest bit in this thread, it does not matter if you are IGG backer no 1 or 1653! But they told us that what matters is when FxTec received your payment. And they also told us that IGG backers would have priority. ALL the rest is just guess-work, as we do not know.

These shops are hardly altruistic, so they are very likely to have had the devices at a discount, and as FxTec can not produce the Pro1s as fast as they can sell them, any discounted sales seems in conflict with your alleged greed.... It sounds more like a long time strategy to have it sold through stores also.