The reason is that the black one goes through a process to change the color (anodizing the aluminum). This is what, on average, adds 2 months for the black based on the post I linked.
I ordered mine on Feb 1st so will update on this thread when I get shipping.
I looked on reddit and some people ordered from Ali express they say that they recieved a genuine uConsole from clockworkpi.
The black or grey are both delivered in two weeks. Wifi only is just ā¬60 more then orderering from clockwork them self.
Personally, I think that, while the device is superb and cool and a lot of funā¦ you shouldnāt pay twice as much for it.
If you really really really need one in a short time and you donāt mind taking the risk, then I guess you can go for one of the AliExpress listings, but buying from those sellers (in my opinion) only worsens things for the people who buys directly from ClockWorkPI because youāre sustaining the AliExpress sellerās business, youāre making them order another 100 - 200 or whatever to resell and make things worse for the next ClockworkPI customers.
I canāt justify paying scalpers. I want the device, I donāt need it.
Maybe clockworkPi should just limit how many you can buy. If they really want to stop that behavior.
Easy said then done though. They may need the cash flow of large sales like that.
Yes, but maybe if they do that it will affect production more as they will get less ordersā¦
What they realistically should do is try to look for a more massive way to stock/sell this device. I mean it does have lots of people interested and I think that 99% of people who want to buy it simply dont do it to not wait 3-12 monthsā¦ If this has more stock available and you only need to wait for delivery it will sell like hot cakes
This is a small company, they probably dont have enough money to stock a lot.
Yeah, and like many small companies, they probably take orders and start manufacturing when a certain number of sales is reached. Itās not cost effective for small companies to send monthly batches of (12, 100, 48, 123, 4) devices. They need volume to keep it cost effective.
Scalpers probably help in that regard, but I believe that if 100 people buy from CWP directly instead of scalpers, then CWP will keep the production costs in check, and the users will have their devices earlier.
Also, I feel like the no-core version should be the version to sell and just remove the core version. 4GB CM4 is out of stock everywhere (or at least you canāt find it when you use the RBPi site to search for it), so that hits shipping times heavily.
Let the buyers get their own CM4 and remove the black version (or add a note that black versions always ship a lot late because the company that does the anodization only accepts batches of X amount and if that number is not reached within N months, your device will be raw)
I am not sure if this would improve sales, but it would improve customer feedback for sure.
agh, the thread topic has derailed. I think it would be better if we keep the conversarion in a new thread.