BackerKit Survey FAQ (including Charging Adapters, Micro-B Cords, Refund Policy, and more...)
over 7 years ago – Thu, Sep 08, 2016 at 12:40:45 AM

Hi all, long time no update!

We at Team Andromium want to apologize for some of the more confusing questions in our BackerKit survey. We're here to address some of the most common concerns, and also keep you guys updated on our post-campaign progress!

Charging Adapters  

We mislabeled the chargers in the survey - we labeled our options as US/UK/Asia/Europe, but this is what we're actually offering:

• Type A ("US")
• Type C ("Europe")
• Type F ("Asia")
• Type G ("UK")

Yes, this list is not exhaustive, but if your country's plug is not on the list, DON'T PANIC! You can still charge your Superbook fairly easily!

Why? Because the Superbook charger is a USB cord, with one end (Micro-B, connects to the Superbook itself) and then another end (USB-A, connects to any USB charging adapter), the charger will work with any USB charging adapter you have lying around. 

A USB charging adapter looks something like this: 

You are most likely already in possession of a USB charging adapter compatible with the Plug type in your country! 

Micro-B Cords - what's the difference?

While it is true that all Micro-B cords work with every Micro-B port, every major phone manufacturer (Samsung, LG, HTC, etc.) has its own slight idiosyncrasies. We're trying to ensure that your phone is charged at the fastest rate when connected to the Superbook by accounting for these differences in the Superbook-to-smartphone cord that we send you. 

The more information you provide us about your phone manufacturer, the better - but if that's not possible (i.e. you don't know what phone you'll be upgrading to next), the generic Micro-USB B (all other non USB-C cord phones) cord option should suffice. 

Refund Policy

We've received a number of requests for refunds - and yes, we're offering both full and partial refunds! Whether you'd like to completely unback, or if you just overpledged by accident and want the extra money you pledged back, we've got you covered.

However, we are only refunding 92% of the amount you would like refunded due to Kickstarter processing fees - so if you request a refund of $100, we can only send you $92. 

Once we've issued you a refund, you should receive an email from Kickstarter for confirmation. Please allow a few days for the transaction to process. 

Add-on Shipping Fees

There's also been some discussion surrounding the shipping prices for the add-on items. While we regret neglecting to mention the shipping fee in our original update about offering add-on items, we still need to charge it, as the fee covers not only shipping costs, but also the handling/facilities costs associated with each item.  

If you originally included add-on prices in your overall pledge with the intention of ordering add-ons from us, but would prefer a refund instead of paying an extra shipping fee, we'd be happy to process the refund according to our refund guidelines as outlined above!

Referral Program - An Update

We're still crunching the numbers for our referral program! We'll contact you via email if your link yielded any conversions, and we'll add any awards that you earned directly into your BackerKit order.

If you haven't heard from us after 10 days, you can assume that your link didn't register any signups.

We're (still) hiring!

We're looking for the Android Developer and Hardware Engineer of our dreams! If you could let your friends and family know of the opportunity, we'd be forever grateful - and maybe even throw in a little extra something into your order ;)

Support & future updates

As you guys have probably been able to see already, we've scaled back our Kickstarter comment/message support significantly and are focusing more heavily on the actual production process of the Superbook. 

As we head further into this process, you and your fellow backers' willingness to help one another becomes all the more important. Thank you all (again and again) for helping and advising one another with answering the survey! Your collective actions speak volumes about the wonderful backer community surrounding the Superbook. We're so grateful to have you! 

As always, please send all BackerKit-related inquiries to [email protected]. For other general inquiries, email us at [email protected] and we'll respond as fast as we can. 

With undying love, and until next time,

❤︎ Team Andromium

BackerKit Survey being sent out now! (read this update carefully)
over 7 years ago – Thu, Sep 01, 2016 at 01:12:31 AM

Thank you for being patient - BackerKit emails are now being sent out!

If you've been itching to change payment information, shipping address, pledge tier, upgrade options, and anything else regarding your pledge, this is where you can do it! 

Please contact us via Kickstarter message if you haven't received the survey by the end of today, and we'll try to see what went wrong.

International Keyboard Decals (important for non-QWERTY backers)

You won't find an option on BackerKit to select the language for your International Keyboard Decals (our 150K Stretch Goal).

This is because we're providing ALL major languages on one (big) decal sheet that EVERYONE will receive by default.

This includes:

• Spanish
• Italian
• French
• Dutch
• Japanese
• Korean
• Arabic
• Hebrew
• and more!

You'll get one (1) of these sheets per Superbook in your order!

Add-On Superbooks (for Backers)

Good news - you can add on individual Superbooks to your existing pledge for the Kickstarter price of $99! 

However, there are a few important things to note:

• There are no shipping discounts. You'll pay full shipping price for each Superbook you add to your order.
• You don't get (some) Kickstarter Stretch Goals with the Add-On Superbook. You WILL get the decals, as well as all Stretch Goals that a part of the Superbook itself (upgraded battery, USB port). You won't get the Carbon Fiber Skin or Superbook Sleeve. 
• Gold only. Kickstarter Blue was a special treat for the live campaign only!

Pre-orders (for Non-Backers)

For the lovely folks who missed the boat, good news - you can still pre-order the Superbook Basic for a limited time at the price of $109!

Pre-order store is here!

Important limitations apply:

• You can only buy the Superbook Basic. The special bundles were for the live campaign only. 
• There are no shipping discounts. You'll pay full shipping price for each  Pre-Order Superbook Basic you add to your order. 
• You don't get (some) Kickstarter Stretch Goals with the Pre-Order Superbook Basic. You WILL get the decals, as well as all Stretch Goals that a part of the Superbook itself (upgraded battery, USB port). You won't get the Carbon Fiber Skin or Superbook Sleeve. 
• Gold only. Kickstarter Blue was a special treat for the live campaign only! 

Our apologies...

We apologize for the delay - the survey took significant time for us and the folks at BackerKit to refine, and we were also advised to wait longer than the original one week deadline we originally set for ourselves (so all pending backer payments could be collected and refunds could be issued). 

We're backed up on messages/email, but we're trying our best to address your concerns! If you feel your message has slipped through the cracks, feel free to message us again - but please allow at least 2-3 days for a response before doing so. 

We love you all! Thank you for waiting so patiently :)

❤ Team Andromium

And that's a wrap - important post-campaign information!
over 7 years ago – Sun, Aug 21, 2016 at 12:01:42 AM

It's finally over.

To all of our backers: thank you. 

As creators, there is no greater feeling than knowing that people are excited about we’re building. 

Having each and everyone of you be part of our journey has been incredibly rewarding. You've made the last 30 days an unforgettable experience for all of us here at Team Andromium - thank you for allowing us to share our dream with you, and thank you for helping us bring it to life.

Count 'em up...

And now, let's take a look at the final numbers (because, if you couldn't tell yet, we're a team that loves numbers): together, 16,732 of you pledged $2,952,508 to help bring our project to life. Wow.

What's more is, you've helped us make the Superbook:

• The 26th Most Funded Kickstarter Project (out of 300,000+ projects - we're in the top 1%! Woohoo!)
• The Top Most Funded Technology (Hardware) Kickstarter Project in HISTORY.

My friends, we have quite literally made history. Give yourself a round of applause!

Next steps...

The campaign is over now, but sit tight - there are important post-campaign steps that you will need to take to claim your reward. 

1. Over the next week or so, Kickstarter will collect your pledges. 

Please help us make that process easier by making sure your payment information is current. 

2. One week after the campaign ends, we’ll send out a survey via BackerKit to the email address associated with your Kickstarter account.

Backerkit is a post-campaign management platform that will help us organize all 16,000 of your orders! 

Note: DO NOT sign up individually for an account on BackerKit - it will confuse the system! We will make accounts for each and every one of you, and we promise you'll be notified - be patient. :)

3. Through Backerkit, you can fill out all the preferences for your order, including:

• Shipping Address
• Payment Information (if the charge didn't go through the first time)
• Color Choice(s)
• Charging Plug Choice(s)
• Upgrade Choice(s)
• Other Add-ons - including extra Superbook reward tiers!*
• Pledge Amount/Tier. If you miscalculated your pledge amount, left shipping out of the pledge total, forgot to upgrade, pledged for the #Freedom2Learn Superbook instead of the Superbook tier you wanted, etc. YOU WILL BE ABLE TO ADDRESS THAT HERE. Please wait for the survey to come out - we promise your issue will be resolved.

*NOTE: If you're adding on extra Superbooks to your order, you won't receive the shipping discounts originally calculated for the larger bundles. Instead, you'll have to pay full shipping for each additional Superbook. 

Missed the boat?

Want to pledge us even after our campaign has ended?  

Don't worry - it's not too late to pre-order with us! You'll be able to preorder with us, up to a limited time, on BackerKit (see above). We'll release the link to the survey in 7 days time on our original campaign page, so you can check back then to be redirected.

Are you a NONBACKER who wants to be on the reminder list? Opt in by emailing us at [email protected], and mention you want to be notified via email when the BackerKit survey comes out. Nonbackers only, please - we will by default notify all official backers.

Shoutouts!  

We want to especially spotlight our awesome backers JJ, John, and Robert (and countless others!) who kept the comments section alive and kicking during crunch time! 

 We always say we lucked out on the best backer community in the history of Kickstarter, and we aren't joking when we say this.

A final promise

One promise as our campaign ends is that we will keep you up to speed with regular updates and comment/email support. 

Here's what communication post-campaign will look like, and what you can expect:

• You’ll receive updates from us on the 1st of every month, and sometimes more frequently depending on circumstance. 
• We won't be very active on comments anymore (gotta make those Superbooks, y'know?), but if you have any questions or inquiries, you can always reach out to us at [email protected]. 
• As our website gets revamped, we will also be opening up a forum section so that our community of backers and supporters can interact - our team will regularly be apart of these discussions as well. 
• In the meantime, feel free to use the comments to communicate with each other, as you have been doing! 

From all of us at Team Andromium, thank you again from the bottom of our hearts. 

This is only the first step -  rest assured that we are hard at work to make sure we can deliver to you a quality product that you’ll be proud to call yourself a Founding Backer of. 

Our team will be off for the weekend (rightfully celebrating this momentous occasion). Regular communication will resume on Monday.

Pat yourself on the back for having made history!

With undying love, 

❤ Team Andromium

THE FINAL COUNTDOWN - 2.5M & Backlit Keys Unlocked!! (also Stretch Goal + we're hiring!)
over 7 years ago – Fri, Aug 19, 2016 at 01:02:04 AM

One day more...

We're rapidly approaching the end of our campaign - the countdown has begun!

As we count down the hours of our campaign, we'd also like to take this time to count up all the other numbers that we've generated together:

• A strong community of 15,000 backers
• A whopping 5,000 comments (half by Andrew, our sleep-deprived cofounder, and the other half by our awesome backer Robert Pravettone). Not all heroes wear capes, folks.
• 29 hectic days (and counting...) for Team Andromium  
• And now...$2.5M in total pledges! 

That's right, yet another stretch goal has been unlocked.

Backlit Keys + 1080p Screen Upgrade Unlocked!

You can now upgrade your Superbook to Backlit Keys + 1080p Screen for $55!

To upgrade: Update your pledge by adding $55 for each Superbook in your order that you want to upgrade. (1 Superbook =  add $55, 2 Superbooks = add $110).

Note: if you want Backlit Keys, you must also upgrade to the 1080p screen. 

Final Sleeve Design!

After looking through a few samples for the sleeve design, we've finally decided on the following:

Pretty neat, huh? You'll get one of these for every Superbook in your order, FREE!

Superbook Skin Photos

We took some photos for those of you who have been asking us about how the Carbon Fiber skin looks like on the Superbook:

You'll get one of these for every Superbook in your order, FREE - along with the custom sleeve shown above!  

We're hiring...  

Love the Superbook and believe in our mission to make the smartphone the last computer you'll ever need? Consider joining our team! We're looking for strong Android developers and hardware engineers. 

We'd appreciate if you forwarded this opportunity to people in your network, too! ;)  

A final thank you. 

As our campaign draws to a close, we'd like to thank all of our backers for their constant support. The size of our campaign has grown beyond our wildest imagination, and we dearly appreciate every single one of you. Thank you for joining us in this journey!

As we move into production, we will continue to be transparent, honest, and vigilant in our communication and interactions with you all. We will deliver what we promised - without compromise or excuses. 

These last few hours of the campaign are crucial - we'd truly appreciate your support to get the word out about us!

Lastly - if you get the time in the next day or so, please double-check the payment information that you entered for your Kickstarter pledge - we'd hate for you to miss out due to a typo in your credit card number! :(

A sincere thank you from our team! See you on the other side.

❤️ Team Andromium

2M Stretch Goal Unlocked!! (also Demo Videos + Raspberry Pi?! + Blue Superbook)
over 7 years ago – Sat, Aug 13, 2016 at 12:34:37 AM

Hi. We're Andromium.

We're a small (but incredibly dedicated!) team working hard to build a future where the only computer you'll need is your smartphone.

And if you had told us before our campaign began that we'd be launching to over 12,000 backers -- and that we would eventually break $2M in pledges -- we're not so sure that we would've believed you.

2M? We're speechless.  

Wow - we've now crossed the 2M stretch goal! You will now receive a Carbon Fiber skin for each Superbook in your order. Here's a sample of what the skin looks like:

We'll have some photos of what it looks like on the Superbook later on in the week.

A massive thank you to our wonderful backer community for your constant support, and for spreading the word like wildfire - and special thanks to those of you who have helped us grow the community through our referral program.

There 7 days left. Let's get those backlit keys!

Wait. What? Raspberry Pi?!

Yep. That's right. The Superbook can plug into a Raspberry Pi. It took an afternoon of experimentation and filling in the holes in missing documentation, but we did it. We did it for you. Those of you who've been keeping a close watch of the comments have already seen this picture, but here it is:

We'll be including instructions on the Superbook website once the campaign ends. This now adds to the growing list of devices other than your Android smartphone that you can use your Superbook with:

• Raspberry Pi + Superbook: http://imgur.com/PViKxMD 
• Surface + Superbook: https://vimeo.com/176370847/ddd187ceab 
• Mac + Superbook: http://imgur.com/a/oZwwN 
• PC Stick + Superbook: http://imgur.com/a/eTbtm

The Blue Superbook

Many of you have been asking for better pictures of the Blue Superbook, exclusive to Kickstarter backers of the Superbook Special. Well, here it is!

Remember, this particular color is available only on Kickstarter, and we have no plans on offering it after. Want to get the Blue Superbook? Back the Superbook Special, Commuter Special, or Family Special tiers.

More demo videos

We'll pump out more of these as we go along, but here are a few early additional videos of the Superbook in action, both launching as well as running some full screen apps. A note that we're showing our prototypes here, so much of the interaction will be different in the final product (e.g. there won't be a screensaver while the Superbook is disconnected - that's just for our testing purposes):

• Using the Google Play Store + Youtube: https://vimeo.com/178542308
• Launching and detaching: https://vimeo.com/178537870

More to come!

And finally, we're excited to go into our last week with awesome momentum, even while our team is short staffed and traveling. Thanks again to all of you who are helping answer questions / comments, it means so much to us. And thank you all for making this possible!

❤︎ Team Andromium