X1000 Beta Test cost/discount

We know that those applying for to X1000 Beta Test Team will be given a "special discount" on the X1000, but we don't actually know how big a discount it will be. And those applying may not be allowed to disclose the discount they will be given (at least until the X1000's actual price is announced).

And to make matters more complicated, the X1000 Beta Testers will only be supplied with a Rev2 motherboard + RAM, so this makes it much harder to compare the price they are paying against whatever the final official price of a full X1000 system is.

So I thought it might be interesting & helpful to add-up the cost of the things which the X1000 Beta Testers will NOT be receiving. They may then be able to better judge what kind of discount they are really receiving...


* The X1000 customised *case*, which appears to be a modified Fractal Design Define R2 case. An unmodified one currently costs ?83 (so the real price will be higher).

* "ATI Radeon R700 graphics card". The oldest/cheapest such card is the Radeon HD 4300, but that may be discontinued (I don't follow ATI cards), so I picked the "Sapphire RADEON HD 4550 Graphics adapter" (512 MB) which costs ?36.

* "500GB Hard drive" (3.5inch SATA). I picked the cheapest one, which was (yuck) "Western Digital WD5000AAKS 500GB SATAII 7200RPM 16MB Cache - OEM Caviar Blue", which costs ?36.

* "22x DVD combo drive". I picked the "LiteOn IHAS124-19 24x DVD?RW DL & RAM SATA - OEM Black", which costs ?15.

* "customised ... keyboard and mouse". This is very hard to guess, since costs & quality vary so much, but I went for the cheapest ones. I picked the "Logitech Oem/deluxe 250 Keyboard Usb Black/us English", which costs ?7, and the "Logitech Wired Optical Mouse M100 Dark USB - Black", which costs ?8.

TOTAL COST = ?185

(All prices are from Ebuyer, and inc 17.5% VAT.)

In reality the customisation will add a bit of cost, and they may not go for the cheapest parts. On the other hand, A-Eon may get the parts cheaper direct, rather than going through a wholesaler. For the sake of argument lets assume these unknowns roughly balance out, so maybe the Beta Tester X1000 should cost ?200 less, before any discount.


And further for the sake of argument, if the X1000 does sell for about ?1500 (as I personally expect), then the Beta Testers should be paying less than ?1300 in total.

Some have reported that Beta Testers will be required to pay a 750 Euros (= ?623) up-front deposit, presumably followed by the remainder when the X1000 ships. Thus after the deposit, the remainder to pay should be ?677, before any discount. (Assuming the final full list price is ?1500.)

@ChrisH

Its all speculative my friend. I guess we shall find out soon.

@ChrisH

the Keyboard is already for sale at AmigaKit...

@ChrisH

I will say I still don't understand these considerations (or curiousity), things in the cpu world are so damn cheap... even these so called niche markets...

If people are genuinely worried about every cent they put where I have serious doubts that they actually get to enjoy life at all on any relaxed level at any rate...

used to have a few friends like that, thought it was great to spend $20 a night for 3 nights than spend $60 for one GOOD night...

The funny thing is I often saw one of them out in there later 30s totally wasted and exclaiming how great it was... LOL

If I was in a beta tester situation Id probably swap out my flex (unless it was essential to have a stable OS4.1 platform as a comparison) and then after all is said and done I'd simply buy the finished X1000 with all the bells and whistles (including max memory lol) and keep the first board as a keep sake Then put the flex MB back in!

@djrikki Quote:
No, we can actually say some things with a high degree of confidence. I picked the *cheapest* parts they could possibly use, so we know for "sure" (99%) that:

The parts the Beta Testers will be 'missing' must be worth >= ?185

Therefore, given a final full price of ?X for the X1000, we can say that the price ?B that the Beta Testers will pay *must* be:

?B < ?X - ?185

And after the 750 Euro (= ?623) deposit, at current exchange rates the remainder ?R they will pay *must* be:

?R < ?X - ?808

And from that they can find the maximum possible "special discount" ?D they could have been given:

?D <= ?X - ?808 - ?R


The only real speculation in what I had previously wrote was that ?X = ?1500.

@all
Something I may have overlooked is that Beta Testers are apparently NOT considered "end users". I haven't heard any clarification of what that means, but it *might* mean they don't own licensed copy of OS4 once the testing completes. In that case they will need to spend roughly ?100 on a copy of OS4, and so the ?185 in my previous calculations must be increased to about ?285.

@Slayer Quote:
I don't find ?1500 cheap, nor I think will many others. Therefore I think the potential discount given to Beta Testers will be of big importance to many people. You could even see the discount as being the "payment" that A-Eon are making to the Beta Testers, in exchange for their time & the small risk of buying a Rev2 board.

@ChrisH
You have way too much time for speculations

I can see your point but I think we should just wait and see what kind of information the betatesters receives.

-----> I also have to much time but that is unfortunately because of no work (since Thursday). This also means lack of money and no X1000 for me in the near future

@Troels Quote:
I've been meaning to do this calculation for 3 weeks! (i.e. since they announced the beta testing program)

Assuming I actually receive any info about the Beta discount, I would have needed to do these calculations anyway, to see what kind of discount is being offered. So I thought I might as well post my calculations, and save everyone else the bother.

I don't see any of this is "speculation", apart from the ?1500 figure

@ChrisH

will they get a free Tshirt? :P

@Swisso

:)) and cup, сap and of course boing-tatu on soft place :)

@ChrisH

Well, even if your concerns are valid from one point of view I don't find it troubling.

I would find it a personal honour to be part of this project and they wouldn't owe me anything (think about this, THIS is MY Joyride!)... The time during this deliberation would be completely priceless! I think most have forgotten the Spirit of the Amiga!

It's way too exciting to worry about the consequences and who should foot whatever bill or marvel at our decision to help and give us discounts (boggle) LETS JUST GO!!!

Yeah Hah!!!

btw, isn't ?1500 roughly 15 decent weekends out on the grog? Stay home for 15 weeks and own your own X1000!

I remember when I used to go out I'd spend 150 dollars a time easily (it wasn't uncommon for me to spend 300+ over a weekend, every weekend)... I remember one week I spashed out on a pair of earmuff radio headphones and a co-worker said to me they couldn't justify spending $350 on a pair of those and I said, how much do you spend on going out in the weekend, they told me, I said well, stay home two weekends and you've got your earmuffs, they replied, oh no, I couldn't do that, I NEED my weekend... so you see its all about what people want to provide for and what they don't want to give up... really very stupid...

Then you have other people that are SO tight etc with everything but quite happily shell out $200 a week for a bag of weed... again, very stupid...

That is why I have little time for people who moan about the price of todays cpus... the bloody things are too cheap if you ask me, every cat and there dog has one now and most people still can't use them! I say keep the riff raff out of the X1000! lol amen...

@ChrisH

I don't know whether it will be the same arrangement with the X1000 and OS4-1000 (or whatever version it is called), but in the early days of OS4 development (back in 2003) it was agreed that the betatesters would not have to pay for OS4, as payment for their testing work. Also, of course, they all received updates regularly (like every day) and they all had to be tested.

With the X1000, I would imagine that the "discount" (whatever that will be) represents an appreciation of the work that the testers will have to perform in order to be a good tester. In this case, however, the amount of software testing is much less, as the OS is much more stable. The hardware and the OS' support for it will comprise the majority of the testing.

I can tell you that it's not trivial - when you find what you think is a bug, you have to find a way to reproduce it, describe it exactly so that an overworked dev can reproduce and fix it, then follow it up later with a verification that it has been fixed. It all takes time and some "testers" can't be bothered after a while.

@tonyw

Quote:

It only makes sense that some form of allowance will be made (I do it myself in a managing position for encouragement and incentive) if not you might think twice about doing the same in the future, it only makes sense. The problem I find and I think is wrong is that many people expect this kind of thing and literally require a guarantee before embarking on anything... practical to some but spirit and good will killing I tell ya...

Quote:

This is obviously the way it has to be. If you're anything like me you just don't give up until you get the answer. I guess it's the journey not so much the result that keeps me going! I can't remember the last time I actually gave up getting to my goal because I couldn't make something work!

bump

@ChrisH

The beta test information packs are to be sent out any day now (if not already), and the information contained within it is private and confidential. It is not to be disclosed to anyone without implicit prior consent.

So bumping this thread will not reveal any information for you. If you want to know, sign up :)

Simon

@All

I'm still saving for the final version of AmigaOne X1000, so it shouldn't be too long now.



I hope many of you will consider to port Wolfenstein - Return To Castle and Enemy Territority to AmigaOS4,
especially now that a MorphOS-port is underway.

I'm closing this so to prevent anyone from accidentally (or not) breaching their NDA's.

And Rigo pointed out, all information needed by interested testers will be provided in due time.