Eve V has not only brought attention from the English speaking media, but also the Chinese media.
News articles about Eve V launch had over 220 comments on one of the bigger Chinese IT website ithome.com.
I won’t translate the news article as you can understand most of it just by google translate the webpage.
But for the comments section, people normally use a lot informal language so I will translate some here.
The top comment (over 180 upvote):
"The only way to defeat Surface Pro is to have comparable design and spec, and a much lower price at the same time. You (Eve V) are charging 6800 CNY (999 USD) is suicidal. "
Third top comment (ignore the second one, it was a trolling article about a different company and product…)
“This device belong to those selling price starting at 999USD but can’t actually sell any out, and then has to offer a 50% off type of device.”
You get the idea here, when media reports Eve V they will include what price not only the current price on IGG but also the MSRP suggested in the IGG campaign page. And since Eve did not specify how long the “discount” will last, people will assume by the time official sale starts the price will be the MSRP. Also MSRP is what people normally use to compare price of two different products.
I assume Eve V is gonna be sell at the “discounted price” even after the official sale begins as the “How V Comapres?” graph on IGG use the “discount” 1399USD as the price. But clearly the MSRP can confuse some people and drive them away from this amazing products.
On a different note, the second link I include in this post is from CnBeta, a news collection website heavily viewed by IT personnel. In one of the comment a person claimed to be a hardware engineer who used to work on this case (Eve V) in Shenzhen, China. When asked to reason of leaving the case he explained he quite because of personal reason and said the case is actually quite good. Somehow this gives me more confidence about Eve V…
As a Chinese I think I have a different idea. The comments you listed are referencing current price instead of MSRP. In another word, they are not confused as you said, they just simply don’t trust any brand that is not well known.
According to my experience, you can ignore almost all comments on the ITweb.com or CNBeta.com because most comments are worthless. As a fan I would rather to discuss the hardware spec, build quality, warranty in this situation but the writers of the comments can only see the price because this is the only thing they can discuss.
Not really…Every one think they destoryed the Thinkpad brand by making the E series and other changes. And as Xiao_Han said, the price of Lenovo products is always more expensive in China compare to US even factor in the tax…
You know what’s interesting? Lenovo is cheaper in Lithuania than in the US! While other brands are up to 50% more expensive, Lenovos are somehow cheaper!
It is a good example of why it’s not sensible to read such comments.
“The only way to defeat Surface Pro” - this isn’t Pokemon, there isn’t a desire to defeat the Surface Pro, it’s not some manifest evil - not least because MS is involved in the project. Eve offers something different, but there is room for both
“comparable design and spec, and a much lower price at the same time” This is something you see all over the internet about any product anywhere. Translates to the universal language of “Give me me more stuff because I’m special”
“You (Eve V) are charging 6800 CNY (999 USD) is suicidal” I am going to guess they didn’t offer a breakdown of prices and marketing data to back this up. What they mean is, I’d like to be cheaper, but that’s a bit lame, so I’ll pretend I’m concerned about the future of this company I’ve just heard of.
That said, there is some value in the third point. Personally, I don’t like products that are always offered at a discount to an artificially high MSRP; it makes them seem a bit nasty.
It’s not too artificial. Even at those MSRP, given similar specs, Surface Pro 4s are still a little more expensive. It was not that attractive but still rational, assuming Eve V is competing against the SP4s. I wasn’t aware that the MSRP was a bloated until someone from Eve implied that the price may be adjusted.
Agreed, but the MSRP is entirely made up by the manufacturer. I don’t doubt the Eve MSRP is a decent and competitive price compared to other manufacturea, but we have two scenarios:
For Eve to make some money and pay Mike and the team some salaries, Eve need to sell at X
They can either set an MSRP at X
or
Set and MSRP at X+25%, and often have 25% discount sales
Personally, I don’t much like companies who do the second option, and would say that it goes against the no corporate BS and no middlemen ethos.
Everything you said makes a lot of sense as you are well informed by all the discussion going on here in the forum. However, people outside this community did not participate in any of the Eve V design process. It is very sensible for them to ask for good spec and design with a lower price from a almost unheard of manufacturer. Just like how most non-tech savvy people (which is most people) think the price of Apple product is justifiable, brand names bring value to the product.
I guess what I am trying to say here is that if Eve wants to approach the more general population, certain things that work with us tech-savvy might need to change as they dont necessary work with them.
Yes it is absolutely artificial. Let’s look at Surface MSRP: it’s a completely new product category, so millions of dollars went into R&D. Eve just took existing technologies and put them together into a product. Surface brand has a massive marketing campaign behind it, while Eve’s marketing consists of this community and some Reddit posts. And lastly, Surface’s MSRP is bullshit. I can’t justify that high of a price even taking all that I mentioned above into consideration. It’s just too high.
So, Eve V MSRP should not come close to Surface’s at all.
to me $1500 is far above psychological barrier disregarding of how lower it is than others competitors. I do understand that the project aims at quality above all segment, alas I’m just not able to give that money for a tablet. And anything below i7 just doesn’t fit my reqs.
So yes, I was expecting an i7 gear of comparable to ASUS Trio price but with higher quality and lower crap prepackaged. but even IGG price just doesn’t fit it.
Ok, but what is that 1k based on? I mean sure, I’d love not to have to spend more than 1k on a device, but sadly thts just not really feasible if you want an actual High End device
It’s based on the fact that I don’t value benefits which good gear can provide to me higher than that, it’s still for fun, my company provides me everything necessary to work, so the tablet is for personal needs like hobby(development) leisure (surfing) and pleasure (casual gaming). At the same time it should be protable enough so I can carry it to allow these personal needs anytime (not just at home).
