1200 euros for such a small laptop is too much though, that's the price range of frame work and other similar laptops. You can get a large sized laptop from hp or dell with better hardware for roughly half that price. 700 euros should be the max price for the size and specs.
The US price starts at $999, but you get hit with VAT when ordering from Europe. The VAT situation will be a bit different once we can offer these in our own (EU based) shop in a few weeks.
Keep in mind we're hand assembling these in Berlin, Germany, and the first batch size was below 1000 units.
I understand your perspective for costs, and the economics of a low batch like that are rough as well.
I hope you target larger batches and cheaper labor in the US (even to ship it back to EU) , or if you're paranoid about that, there are places that will help you with the assembly part in Mexico or plenty of other countries. I'm hoping a larger funding round on crowdsupply might help you target larger batches (and gauge interest).
The problem with the current price point is, I might get it for myself out of curiosity but I can't really recommend it to others unless they show strong interest in small and portable laptops.
I can replace everything with frame work (it is designed to be long term maintainable and replaceable), and I wouldn't dare discriminate on the people who are earning a living assembling laptops on the basis of the continent they reside in.
I know hardware developed in asia that is not from sweatshops. It is more expensive though. It is fact that most mass produced hardware comes from mass assembly line low wage staff in asia under questionable circumstances. How is that discrimination?
The frame work is more expensive than what the person I responded to said, but it is an example of how it should be. It wont be cheaper though.
framework is expensive but for hardware specs it isn't crazy expensive, it's in the macbook range. I can't think of any other laptop that comes close to mnt's price range for the specs/size.
I don't really understand what your problem with low wage staff is, I suspect we have a different understand of this. In my view, even having employment at all is a big deal in those regions and matters of local labor law should be dealt with by the local population. Ingesting cash into their country's economy is usually a good thing unless there are ethical concerns like slavery or forced labor which isn't the case here. Western labor laws were dismal at some point as well, child labor was rampant even in the US not even a hundred years ago, I hope other countries make progress at their own pace.
That's another way of looking at it, but because we used to do it (we killed people over religion, involuntary lobotomies etc), doesn't mean we should support or condone it in other places. It's a difficult problem and I don't mean to take the food out of the mouths of people; the point is however that THIS particular MNT laptop is more expensive because you cannot really live in Germany painstakingly assembling one device at a time vs mass production in low wage regions. So this was more a remark on 'why is this so expensive?'.
Also, if people would buy repairable stuff it can become the norm; I guess govs are starting to demand it; either the prices go up or they find a way to make it happen ; both are good ; people need to learn to repair stuff instead of 'just get a new one, it costs nothing anyway'.
Yeah, if you compare with the prices set by large manufacturers you are right, of course. But note the company behind this machine is like a two persons shop. They lack the economy of scale. And from a large hardware manufacturer you do not get "open source" hardware for which circuit diagrams are available to you for all major parts. If you do not care about that then this thing is not for you.
The price of anything is how much people are willing to pay for it. if consumers were willing to pay more, the big manufacturers will also charge more.
Agreed. And for even cheaper you can get an Android tablet (or even an iPad) and an external keyboard, if you think trading openness for their app ecosystems is a benefit.
