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Comment by chamakits | Hacker News Reader

Is the target audience for teenage engineering products people that like extremely sleekly designed products that also have nice features; or do people in their industry hold them as highly regarded products that have unique features and perform well beyond their sleek design?

I'm asking without judgement and out of ignorance of the field of audio engineering. I absolutely believe that there is a market for sleekly designed products that also happen to function well; but I don't know if audio engineers (and other people this targets) also believe that teenage engineer products are worth the price beyond that.

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I don't personally understand why you would use their hardware for anything considering each of their devices have industry leading competitors that people like more.

I think you have to just want to buy their hardware. They're lifestyle devices.

These devices are ostensibly toys for rich people, but really more like advertisements for their product design services. You're supposed to see the TP-7 as a CEO of a hardware startup and want to hire Teenage Engineering to design the shell to go around your prototype.

What have they designed besides the Playdate?

The Ikea Frekvens line: https://www.ikea.com/us/en/newsroom/range-news/get-the-party...

Also the Nothing Ear (1). I don’t know if they’ve designed their phone too, but it at least follows their design language.

There's a whole page dedicated to it: https://teenage.engineering/designs/

Some notables:

  The Playdate (as mentioned)
  The Ikea Frevens series
  Impossible I-1 instant camera
  Mayku 3D printer

Oh man I'd buy that camera roll if it were Fuji Instax Wide or Square. Polaroids fim sucks so much these days but there aren't many good camera bodies for Fuji Wide/Square

To me, prioritizing technical specifications of equipment is no lesa lifestyle choice than prioritizing aesthetics or kinesthetics.

It is no less an expression of some cultural values and rejection of others.

The 128 Megaman brought me pure joy beyond the shelf price of $90. Those sounds are hard to just find in a patch bank.

With that being said, just about everything else, you're right.

I have the PO-128 and it's mediocre versus running LSDj or Nanoloop on a Game Boy if chiptune and programmability for self-expression is what you want.

They found a niche in selling aesthetically striking, slightly unwieldy products to people who have more money than sense. The OP-1 at least had a unique set of features (arguably, you're better off with an iPad), but these widgets they're cranking out are really just a tap into the luxury money firehose, and in a way, it's hard to knock them for it.

No one who's using Zoom field records (and that's mostly everybody who does field recordings) is going to buy this unless they've got nepo money - or tech & exec salaries, which is why I'm completely unsurprised by the appearance of this story here on HN.

Teenage Engineering - it looks cool

> arguably, you're better off with an iPad

Now that iPads have Logic Pro, you're almost certainly better off with an iPad.

The OP-1 (or the original, at least) has fans throughout the industry. You can find Thom Yorke performing with it, Tame Impala, can find Justin Vernon singing its praises. The rest of their lineup, not so much.

The marketing and fan hype is exactly same as for other lifestyle companies. Hence you buy these products so you can show and be seen having bought them and receive validation from your perceived peers.

Some people like being limited in features, and I guess small form factor is nice if you want to go make music in park or something

...that for OP-1/OP-Z which are synths/sequencers

This thing just records audio. It has no place in anything professional based on features, it's just sleek toy that happens to record audio. I'm sure some people will enjoy engineering with it but that's it, a toy for people with some spare spending money.

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