I'm curious. I thought you already have a pre-order correct? So you won't be effected by any change.

While I can appreciate the concern for others possible being charge more than what was originally stated.

I do wonder and maybe this has been said already. But how much would you consider a fair price increase? Or maybe a better question is how much do you think this price increase will be?

Cheers

x

Thanks for that very informative answer!

I completely understand your concerns, and it sounds like you have already taken the right steps to stay with in your budget and buying requirements.

It is unfortunate that this project doesn't have a clear and set price, delivery date, and most of the spec we all want. But this is also part of the issue, many of us have different need/wants. Looking at the iPhones, pixel, even the new Note 10 ... they all leave something off that someone wanted ... and those are large companies. It's tough but I've find that fx has been very forward with most of their info (as far as I can tell), and in speaking to both Chen and Adrian they both seem to genuinely want to get devices out that are both well built and taking in as many of the concerns of the community (like putting the usb-c on a daughter board, amazing).

Who wants to spend lots of money ... I don't . But I have when a product or service meets or supersedes my expectations. For me that was the newton many years ago ... close too 1k! But the build, functionality made it last a longtime ... Steve Jobs killed it .

I really hope you find a device that fits your need and for the price you can afford/ fits your budget. Maybe this device or the next from fx .

We all here love these unique devices. And I sure many also hope for a future where they enjoy a stable market share even if small.

Cheers!

x

I have also checked it and now I see €649.20 plus €24.00 shipping fee to Hungary. I think the price is similar in the EU, not only Germany has "lower price".

Shaihkritzer, could you please acknowledge that you have read and understood that the screen improvements Chenliangchen has mentioned have nothing to do with screen protectors? He has mentioned improving the screen because of the light bleed observed on another phone using the same screen. I mean, he didn't even mention screen protectors in his post, I don't understand how you got that wrong.

Light bleed is not some insignificant detail that can be overlooked, people care about it and reviews mentioning light bleeds really can have a hit on sale numbers. You are waiting for reviews before perhaps committing for a purchase, so you know exactly what this kind of quality control means.

We are now multiple pages after this nonsense about the screen protector was started, and you kept talking about the uselessness of screen protectors (and thereby the uselessness of F(x)tec improvements on the display, go figure) even after someone already disambiguated this.

About the price, we seem to observe a 0.20€ increase in European countries (at least Hungary, France and Germany) due to unforeseeable reasons that may be out of F(x)tec's control, let alone your control. Yet, after all the fuzz in the past few weeks about the future increase, possibly a steep increase that you claimed was commercially silly and unjustified, you are now complaining because they did not make another announcement for those twenty cents, and you assume this small increase is limited to Germany and therefore is unequal?

I mean, come on. It is your right to disagree about F(x)tec's choices for their product, even though you seem interested enough about what they have to offer, but at least show a little respect and make sure there is ground for your anger, instead of accusing them of things without checking yourself first, ultimately spreading misinformation.

And no one uses screen protectors to protect their glass screens from breaking. Those who use screen protectors use them to prevent/delay scratches, and they change their screen protector when it is damaged.

The price change is so low I am actually not sure this is the increase that was announced earlier. Brace yourselves and get ready for another shitstorm in the next pages if it is not.

So I guess you won't acknowledge about the confusion.

$699 US is 636€, at today's rates. The price was 649€ in EU before, it is 649.2€ now. Also, the initial announcement said that the increase would be for non-EU customers (I guess it is a matter of taxes and regulations), so I do not really see why it would be outrageous if, indeed, reality did reflect the announcement with a steeper increase in non-EU countries.

Are you serious? It works like that for pretty much all manufacturers. Nothing makes EU customers special, they just happen to live in countries with common commercial agreements. Go in Norway and VAT is different, go in the US and there is no VAT. This reflects on retail prices.

Every time you see a price being exactly the same worldwide, that is because the manufacturer's margin is adjusted up or down to make for the variations in taxes and regulations. More often than not, it is adjusted upwards, meaning the manufacturer takes advantage of lower taxes to get more money from customers despite the same production cost. In many cases, the display price is the same but the currency is not, which means again that not all customers are paying the same, and this is not fair because the actual worth difference is arbitrary, with customers paying more or less depending on their official currency, instead of being set by taxes where they live.

If you are a European citizen and you buy something online out of the UE at the non-UE price, you usually pay less because you save VAT, until your parcel is intercepted at the customs and they ask you to pay what you owe your country. Aliexpress plays this game: they don't charge you at the EU price because VAT is not included in their price, and they know very well that your parcel is not likely to be intercepted at customs. So do you. Your purchase is not properly imported, which is not legal, but you save money and of course, you didn't pay Chinese taxes because you purchase never was subjected to them. F(x)tec is a European company (so far), they sell with VAT included unless you purchase from outside EU, and even in that case there may be other taxes or other costs associated with different logistics.

If F(x)tec sells the Pro1 at different rates in the US and in EU, it is most likely because their margin is fixed, which is as fair as it gets to the customer.

Also, again, $699 US is 636€ at today's rates. It might be 639€ tomorrow, 636€ in a week, or 650€ in a month. As of today, it's a 13€ difference. How close do you want it to be despite currency conversion rates changing every day?

The price change so far is so insignificant I'm not even sure what we see is the increase they announced. But I have no information, please do not conclude based on my post that another increase is waiting.

In any case, my point is there is not much to complain about at the moment, so I regret that you keep trying to see the bad sides in every circumstances. They initially didn't tell the pre-order price would be cheaper until a future price change has been announced; you complained about it and about the future price change. Now, you are going from "Oh noes an increase!" to "This increase was a joke!" to prove how bad their marketing strategy is.

I mean, if complaints can be flipped 180° like that, and in the end we might be talking about a few euros on a ~650 bill, then there really is nothing F(x)tec can do to earn your satisfaction. That is totally your right, but then there isn't much to discuss about, your opinion is already set and whatever they do will feed it.

At this stage, can we not just be happy that they're soon shipping a good HWKB device with an open bootloader (and commitment to help porting alternative OSes) that so far only collected very positive comments from those who tried it, at a price lower than an Apple or Android flagship?

I don't like him either, but he's entitled to an opinion just like the rest of us
It takes all kinds I suppose...
Just ignore his posts if they're that caustic

Legendary post here with pretty much everything in one place.
Can op add this link to the first post? Contains a lot of up to date information

I can confirm price is now 699. 10pm local time on 8/31. I thought they were going to change price on 9/1 but it looks like the flipped the switch early. Hopefully you got in if you wanted the lower price

Kinda bummed Chen didn't answer how many units in the first batch. I was one of the first preorders and paid within the first few hours, but I wonder who will have to wait and how long.
Site says shipping mid September which seems a bit misleading especially if you placed an order now and it doesn't ship the same time. Would like some clarity around all that.

And also, still waiting on a ship date...