Zest T1

Another thing I have wondered : will they consider working with Canonical to bring Ubuntu phone to their devices?
 
ZestMobile said:
We will be posting tonight :) We will post on here too. Our founder and CEO, David Lindeque, will also be posting an open letter on this thread with regard to where Zest is and his thoughts etc.
Click to expand...

In what time zone? :P
 
Open Statement from Zest Mobile CEO, David Lindeque:

Good evening Zest clients

Well, the past few weeks have been manic! Upon launch we were met with massive demand and sold out of our allocated produced allotment in a handful of days. The first 1000 devices were sold in the first 17 minutes alone! Thank your for the incredible support, we appreciate it!

The purpose of this statement is to check in and give you all an update as to where we are as a company and address various issues. Firstly, we have been hard at work with the development of our next device. As various announcements and rumours have stated, this will be our "higher-end" device and will be called the Accelerate. We have managed to ensure the crisp 5" LCD display will be produced by LG, while Sony will provide the camera power with an incredible 16MP Sony Exmor R lens. There are many other features to mention but this will be done in due course.

There were a few niggles and issues with our launch devices. To be transparent, there was a 1,5% rate at which devices showed an issue. This is within industry standards but we are certainly not happy with this. The QC team was investigated and protocols altered to ensure all future production had a lower rate of problem. This was a tedious but necessary ordeal and we are confident you will notice the improvement in quality.

Thirdly, we have been working on our online store (going live soon) and other accessories and deals. As a young South African startup, it is vital we are constantly progressing, while monitoring cash flows to ensure such progression is viable and sustainable. The team has been hard and work and you will see this work ethic displayed in the quality of upcoming offerings and devices. We have been overwhelmed with the positive support from clients as well as media outlets such as MyBB, CNBC, Radio 702 and a variety of others who appreciate the value Zest is offering to the consumer.

Moving on to the negatives... We have not tried to hide any facts. We experienced a 1,5% issue rate with our first full scale production and this will be improved. We have noticed a few bugs in the firmware and have been working to fix them. We promised an OTA around a certain date and it was simply not ready in time. There were a variety of changes done on the part of Afrihost and Zest to enhance your experience and we did not want to release the OTA until it was stable and perfect.

One issue I would like to raise is the issue of unnecessary and irrelevant attacks on new startups, such as Zest. As young entrepreneurs, we come face to face with other startup founders in this country and it is extremely sad to see how a small minority of the South African public treats them. These companies are attacked on every feasible aspect and it is openly discussed in the startup community how it seems the public is afraid of anything new and homegrown. Zest has started to receive such negativity from an extremely small group of people. A handful of people have attacked the brand and company on every possible frontier, from the camera not being as good as a Samsung S5 (R1999 for the Zest with delivery, data etc. vs R8000+), being a "pathetic" company because we have not responded at 11pm on a Friday night on the Facebook page etc. We feel we need to address this imposing and growing issue. All we ask for is your understanding and support. Foreign firms don't face this kind of scrutiny and we, as South Africans, need to stand together and support local startups. No, we are not saying that we do not want to hear negative and valid feedback. However, we are stating that the irrelevant and malicious attacks towards Zest and other South African startups is simply unnecessary. As a small startup on tight financial standings, it is an extremely tough job managing any issues, improving Quality Control, ensuring production is running smoothly, planning OTA updates, developing our second device, etc. All we ask is to support us and grow with us. Be constructive instead of destructive. Grow with us and let us empower you. Every new startup has a few niggles upon launch and we are 100% committed to you, our fans, and to iron out any issues which present themselves.

Thank you.

Kind regards,
David Lindeque
 
@ZestMobile - Thanks for such a courteous professional response, David.

I was actually one of the users affected by the 'issue' (I'm assuming you're referring to the IMEI not being flashed to the phone in production). Took a few days to get an email response on addressing said issue (due to your hosting move) which was a bit frustrating; but to be fair, once I did get into contact the support was absolutely excellent. (I don't know of many SA companies that'd do a 11PM B2C remote-session support-call!).

I did still need to send the device in; and this was handled really fast as well: pickup was same-day, return was less than 2 workdays later. Once again, rather impressive.

I did query the driver about the number of pickups he'd done, and he mentioned he'd spent the last two full days doing them ('is there something not right with this phone?', he asked me...); but I guess 1.5% of a large number of sales might still be a considerable number.

I think the frustration around here comes partly from a few rather obvious oversights that seem to indicate a lack of testing in other regards, though.
For instance, the odd partition sizing is a pretty basic 'fail' in Android-land :)
If I'm honest, a few days of proper use of the device should've probably revealed this to your team... same with the Wifi dropping out (and it's crashed my router a few times as well!); or the shortcuts disappearing after rebooting; or the incorrect battery read-outs.

The other source of frustration is not adhering to timelines: the holy-grail OTA update was promised several days ago; then delayed to this evening; then delayed again until further notice.
There's certainly nothing wrong with needing time to iron out bugs; but the deadlines need to be semi-accurate. One thing I've learned in the software world is that you're better-off over-estimating the amount of time a release will take and then - in best case - delivering early; or (in worst case) delivering 'on time'.
That kind of customer experience is what Afrihost clients seem to be used to.

On that subject, you're at a bit of a disadvantage here, too: Afrihost's last hardware 'deal' was the smash-hit Huawei portable hotspot; which worked almost flawlessly right out of the box (with a very, very low failure rate) and was such good value that I'm sorry I didn't buy a second one.
Of course Huawei is a massive, established company and don't face the challenges your team do - so this comparison isn't fair: but you see my point :)


Regardless, a few of my colleagues have the T1 and are very, very satisfied - so there's no doubt that it's an awesome product.
I can also say I'm relatively satisfied; and that when the few minor software niggles are resolved (I'm willing to wait!), then I'd be ecstatic about it.
And of course, the price-point is very, very good - it certainly does represent good value for money; no doubt.


Best of luck to you and your team, David. And thank you for plugging a gap in our local market: my money says you'll go far.
 
Wahlburg said:
@ZestMobile - Thanks for such a courteous professional response, David.

I was actually one of the users affected by the 'issue' (I'm assuming you're referring to the IMEI not being flashed to the phone in production). Took a few days to get an email response on addressing said issue (due to your hosting move) which was a bit frustrating; but to be fair, once I did get into contact the support was absolutely excellent. (I don't know of many SA companies that'd do a 11PM B2C remote-session support-call!).

I did still need to send the device in; and this was handled really fast as well: pickup was same-day, return was less than 2 workdays later. Once again, rather impressive.

I did query the driver about the number of pickups he'd done, and he mentioned he'd spent the last two full days doing them ('is there something not right with this phone?', he asked me...); but I guess 1.5% of a large number of sales might still be a considerable number.

I think the frustration around here comes partly from a few rather obvious oversights that seem to indicate a lack of testing in other regards, though.
For instance, the odd partition sizing is a pretty basic 'fail' in Android-land :)
If I'm honest, a few days of proper use of the device should've probably revealed this to your team... same with the Wifi dropping out (and it's crashed my router a few times as well!); or the shortcuts disappearing after rebooting; or the incorrect battery read-outs.

The other source of frustration is not adhering to timelines: the holy-grail OTA update was promised several days ago; then delayed to this evening; then delayed again until further notice.
There's certainly nothing wrong with needing time to iron out bugs; but the deadlines need to be semi-accurate. One thing I've learned in the software world is that you're better-off over-estimating the amount of time a release will take and then - in best case - delivering early; or (in worst case) delivering 'on time'.
That kind of customer experience is what Afrihost clients seem to be used to.

On that subject, you're at a bit of a disadvantage here, too: Afrihost's last hardware 'deal' was the smash-hit Huawei portable hotspot; which worked almost flawlessly right out of the box (with a very, very low failure rate) and was such good value that I'm sorry I didn't buy a second one.
Of course Huawei is a massive, established company and don't face the challenges your team do - so this comparison isn't fair: but you see my point :)


Regardless, a few of my colleagues have the T1 and are very, very satisfied - so there's no doubt that it's an awesome product.
I can also say I'm relatively satisfied; and that when the few minor software niggles are resolved (I'm willing to wait!), then I'd be ecstatic about it.
And of course, the price-point is very, very good - it certainly does represent good value for money; no doubt.


Best of luck to you and your team, David. And thank you for plugging a gap in our local market: my money says you'll go far.
Click to expand...

Hi Wahlburg. Thank you for the response. While we acknowledge, appreciate and respect some of your views, others are misguided. "Two full days of pickups"... 1,5% of thousands of phones means many actual physical trips by a courier. In addition, people need to put things into perspective. The price paid, not even taking into account the free data, delivery, RICA, sim converters, screen protector etc., is simply unmatched. However, people take this device and hold it to the same or even higher scrutiny as the like of an Apple iPhone or Samsung Galaxy S4/S5. We designed an affordable and still powerful device. We are thankful that the large majority of users are satisfied and love receiving their fan mail.
 
A lot happened while I was in la-la land, and I'd like to address these points (I've removed some parts of the that responses I'm not addressing):

ZestMobile said:
One issue I would like to raise is the issue of unnecessary and irrelevant attacks on new startups, such as Zest. As young entrepreneurs, we come face to face with other startup founders in this country and it is extremely sad to see how a small minority of the South African public treats them. These companies are attacked on every feasible aspect and it is openly discussed in the startup community how it seems the public is afraid of anything new and homegrown. Zest has started to receive such negativity from an extremely small group of people. A handful of people have attacked the brand and company on every possible frontier, from the camera not being as good as a Samsung S5 (R1999 for the Zest with delivery, data etc. vs R8000+), being a "pathetic" company because we have not responded at 11pm on a Friday night on the Facebook page etc. We feel we need to address this imposing and growing issue. All we ask for is your understanding and support. Foreign firms don't face this kind of scrutiny and we, as South Africans, need to stand together and support local startups. No, we are not saying that we do not want to hear negative and valid feedback. However, we are stating that the irrelevant and malicious attacks towards Zest and other South African startups is simply unnecessary. As a small startup on tight financial standings, it is an extremely tough job managing any issues, improving Quality Control, ensuring production is running smoothly, planning OTA updates, developing our second device, etc. All we ask is to support us and grow with us. Be constructive instead of destructive. Grow with us and let us empower you. Every new startup has a few niggles upon launch and we are 100% committed to you, our fans, and to iron out any issues which present themselves.
Click to expand...

When you say the small minority are you referring to this forum/thread, where you do not have the power of post editing when an individual expresses an opinion? I certainly hope not- I've seen a few comments one here that can be construed as negative- doesn't mean there is no place for them. Now having said that, I feel the below response echoes a lot of my feelings on the matter, most of these issues may even have been avoided. Also, being promised an update for some time and not receiving it is really frustrating- I think a lot of negativity is based towards this, rather than the actual problems themselves, my opinion on the matter.

Wahlburg said:
@ZestMobile - Thanks for such a courteous professional response, David.

I think the frustration around here comes partly from a few rather obvious oversights that seem to indicate a lack of testing in other regards, though.
For instance, the odd partition sizing is a pretty basic 'fail' in Android-land :)
If I'm honest, a few days of proper use of the device should've probably revealed this to your team... same with the Wifi dropping out (and it's crashed my router a few times as well!); or the shortcuts disappearing after rebooting; or the incorrect battery read-outs.

The other source of frustration is not adhering to timelines: the holy-grail OTA update was promised several days ago; then delayed to this evening; then delayed again until further notice.
There's certainly nothing wrong with needing time to iron out bugs; but the deadlines need to be semi-accurate. One thing I've learned in the software world is that you're better-off over-estimating the amount of time a release will take and then - in best case - delivering early; or (in worst case) delivering 'on time'.
That kind of customer experience is what Afrihost clients seem to be used to.

On that subject, you're at a bit of a disadvantage here, too: Afrihost's last hardware 'deal' was the smash-hit Huawei portable hotspot; which worked almost flawlessly right out of the box (with a very, very low failure rate) and was such good value that I'm sorry I didn't buy a second one.
Of course Huawei is a massive, established company and don't face the challenges your team do - so this comparison isn't fair: but you see my point :)


Regardless, a few of my colleagues have the T1 and are very, very satisfied - so there's no doubt that it's an awesome product.
I can also say I'm relatively satisfied; and that when the few minor software niggles are resolved (I'm willing to wait!), then I'd be ecstatic about it.
And of course, the price-point is very, very good - it certainly does represent good value for money; no doubt.


Best of luck to you and your team, David. And thank you for plugging a gap in our local market: my money says you'll go far.
Click to expand...

ZestMobile said:
Hi Wahlburg. Thank you for the response. While we acknowledge, appreciate and respect some of your views, others are misguided. "Two full days of pickups"... 1,5% of thousands of phones means many actual physical trips by a courier. In addition, people need to put things into perspective. The price paid, not even taking into account the free data, delivery, RICA, sim converters, screen protector etc., is simply unmatched. However, people take this device and hold it to the same or even higher scrutiny as the like of an Apple iPhone or Samsung Galaxy S4/S5. We designed an affordable and still powerful device. We are thankful that the large majority of users are satisfied and love receiving their fan mail.
Click to expand...

Now, yes. We can all agree; this was your first device sold to the public. It is indeed a midrange (don't really want to say low end as it is rather decent) device. And yes, you are a startup company and there will be teething problems, as is in evidence. And yes, people are comparing your R2K device with a Galaxy S3/4/5. And no- this isn't going to change; not in my opinion anyway.
My view on the matter- you should be glad people are comparing your first device to those that effectively lead the industry. It actually says a lot. You may see the negativity in that- but there's a lot more going on than just negativity. You are facing scrutiny that other international companies such as Samsung or LG aren't facing- maybe unfairly so; this is true- but be glad for it. It will force you to step up and meet the challenge head-on. And you can only gain from it. My personal opinion.

I am looking forward to seeing what this promised update will bring to the T1 (I checked this morning first thing but was saddened to see no update waiting).
I'm also keen on the new phone you'll be launching. I'll be waiting for the long list of specs and a launch date to become available. I'll be honest- how the T1 OTA update is/will be handled probably will have an impact on my buying decision; it's going to be difficult buying a higher-spec phone when the current one I have is sitting with unresolved issues- for various reasons.
 
SykomantiS said:
A lot happened while I was in la-la land, and I'd like to address these points (I've removed some parts of the that responses I'm not addressing):



Now, yes. We can all agree; this was your first device sold to the public. It is indeed a midrange (don't really want to say low end as it is rather decent) device. And yes, you are a startup company and there will be teething problems, as is in evidence. And yes, people are comparing your R2K device with a Galaxy S3/4/5. And no- this isn't going to change; not in my opinion anyway.
My view on the matter- you should be glad people are comparing your first device to those that effectively lead the industry. It actually says a lot. You may see the negativity in that- but there's a lot more going on than just negativity. You are facing scrutiny that other international companies such as Samsung or LG aren't facing- maybe unfairly so; this is true- but be glad for it. It will force you to step up and meet the challenge head-on. And you can only gain from it. My personal opinion.

I am looking forward to seeing what this promised update will bring to the T1 (I checked this morning first thing but was saddened to see no update waiting).
I'm also keen on the new phone you'll be launching. I'll be waiting for the long list of specs and a launch date to become available. I'll be honest- how the T1 OTA update is/will be handled probably will have an impact on my buying decision; it's going to be difficult buying a higher-spec phone when the current one I have is sitting with unresolved issues- for various reasons.
Click to expand...

Hi there. Thank you for your response. We are subject to criticism and feedback such as what you have offered is constructive and helps us in the long term. However, others resort to malicious and irrelevant attacks, a common trend against many startups in the country. We acknowledge missing the deadline with the OTA, but have been working hard in the background to correct this and get out a working, niggle-free update.

We are pleased that individuals compare our device to the high-end smartphones that cost significantly more than our device.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X