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Comment by capableweb | Hacker News Reader

The pricing is surprisingly low ($299) for being Teenage Engineering, wonder if they got tired of people complaining about their pricing? I guessed somewhere around $1000 before seeing the price.

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From the Verge article[0] on this device, it was designed from the ground up to a) only need parts that they could actually get during the pandemic, and b) sell for less than $300.

I think this looks really cool and I want my in-laws to gift it to me for the holidays.

[0] https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/22/23965528/teenage-enginee...

Wow, that article is great -- some cool details on TE's internal processes.

Their pocket operator series were inexpensive, at $60-100 per model, but were very basic with essentially a bare PCB and most of the electronics protected by being placed under the screen. I believe that much of the cost of their expensive products is due to a lot of custom parts like CNC machined aluminum enclosures. This product seems designed to hit a price point between the pocket operators (~$100) and their plastic OP-Z (~$500).

I'll put my comment about price here. I saw "teenage engineering" and immediately thought "no way I'd afford that", but I clicked anyway. Sort of like how I'd look at a Lamborghini poster as a kid.

It looks like it's made of plastic. Some of their other outrageously priced products are made of aluminium. Maybe that accounts for a chunk of the difference.

Pocket operators which this is a big cousin of didn't even have a case at all. I sort of think this looks as good as 3 pocket operators. For TE it's pretty good.

My op-z is one of my favorite sequencers/grooveboxes but the case is poorly designed and prone to double inputs due to how flexible it is and the keyboard is plastic soldered to the case so not really repairable. For the money this looks like a better physical design, and unlike pocket operators can use midi for sync.

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