Some critical words about the beta-tester engagement

[bluesmanuk]

This sound less like a "public test" and more like a trade. Not that there was something inherently wrong with that, but the intentions need to be clear

There is that potential downside.

The first person to produce a full review of the R28 on youtube (all of 5 minutes worth) got their money back but didn't take part with any of the other testers in giving any real feedback.

[Haba]

please have a look at what was tried here for the Orion R24 :

http://promotion.geekbuying.com/promotion/tronsmart_rk3288_mini_pc_release

no gratis distribution, so testers need to pay first, but they receive the whole SDK and sources (to be checked); tester profile was either ROM dev or blogger.

Then when they submit custom rom, they get back all their money,
and also when they write complete reviews;
when the review is so so, they just get some coupons;

I do not know if the whole operation was successfull enough....
at least, no money was lost.

I think there is no miraculous solution.

For Beelink, I still am not confident their R89 will get very soon totally debugged firmware; we are not yet

May I propose that all the people who received their box send them back to Oman or to real ROM devs so that a new batch of testers can try to do better using other procedures and other ...motivation !

I think you may be on to something here. Since obviously some testers have failed Oman, changes need to be made in the future. You now have some established testers who are providing good testing and feedback who you can trust. You have some who have failed. Perhaps in the the future unknown testers who are serious and truthful should have no problem paying for the unit up front at a special price like Geekbuying. When the new testers fulfill Oman's requirements for amount of testing, posting and being engaged in the process they get a full refund and will have established themselves.

Oman please do not be discouraged by the results to date, this is a learning process and I still think you will end up with a great device in the end by using this community based approach. Fine tuning the process, getting to know who is engaged and who is not is already being established for the future. I have seen this community based approach done with other products to make what became the most desirable product on the market. I will say that you need very good, knowledgeable testers and posters with feedback to make this work. Quality is better than quantity when it comes to the testers.

[sync]

Well i can only speak for myself, im testing stability and log power consumption, currently my device is idle, I need a new SD card and I need a new HDD that I can format to ntfs so i can powercharge my xbmc libary, I'm looking forward to install owncloud and I am working on some other things around the r89, my life is also a little busy right now. I read this forum regularly, don't worry if you didn't hear from me now... Like someone already said, the r89 is working very well for me, no issues yet, a detailed report takes time....

[bluesmanuk]

I think you may be on to something here. Since obviously some testers have failed Oman, changes need to be made in the future. You now have some established testers who are providing good testing and feedback who you can trust. You have some who have failed. Perhaps in the the future unknown testers who are serious and truthful should have no problem paying for the unit up front at a special price like Geekbuying. When the new testers fulfill Oman's requirements for amount of testing, posting and being engaged in the process they get a full refund and will have established themselves.

Oman please do not be discouraged by the results to date, this is a learning process and I still think you will end up with a great device in the end by using this community based approach. Fine tuning the process, getting to know who is engaged and who is not is already being established for the future. I have seen this community based approach done with other products to make what became the most desirable product on the market. I will say that you need very good, knowledgeable testers and posters with feedback to make this work. Quality is better than quantity when it comes to the testers.

Likes.

[scooter2014]

What needs to be tested. have 3288 boards now so can start checking. think most are similar (no box sent to me either ) my opinion doesnt matter but my 2 cents only freaktab rom developers for testing. everyone else can buy thier own and test. That way only proven rom developers get the box to test and help and others that buy it can report issues as they come up. (kinda sorta has worked fine to date. )

anit broke dont fix it.

[NikAmi]

I'm sorry that I haven't been around in a while, but I had a medical school board exam and it had to take precedent over testing this box as it dictates the course of my life from here on out, no joke. Anyways, when I went to test it today, I found out that it was DOA. After spending a few hours troubleshooting it I discovered that the power adapter is broken and so I need to repair it before I can test it further. My apologies to Oman and the rest of the community for taking so long to start testing.