Over the previous several weeks, Ratta – the company behind the Supernote E-ink tablet brand – has been having difficulties with the timely shipping of orders that customers have placed.
This appears to be a result of a small manufacturing defect (that they wanted to correct) and limited availability of manufacturing components.
They have contacted customers to let them know the situation (reproduced below):
Dear valued customer,
We regret to inform you that due to some challenges in the early production of the Supernote Nomad device, we have had to refine some of our production processes and even re-mold the device to meet high volume deliveries and address the identified defects. (For example, a small number of white models had back covers that squeaked when pressed, which we have rectified in recent deliveries.)
Difficulties arose not only from the manufacturing process but also from the supply of raw materials. The special material from Japan (with transparency and yellowing resistance far beyond that of ordinary PC) needed for the crystal model’s case was out of stock in February and has just been replenished this month. We do not want to compromise the special significance given to the name of Crystal by using low-quality materials instead.
We are ashamed of this situation and apologize for the delay.
We invested a lot of effort in attempting to design a meaningful and unique product. However, we were not adequately prepared to consistently and reliably deliver it. This is our issue.
Based on the latest information, shipping expectations are as follows:
White Edition: Orders placed in March are expected to ship in April. Orders from April onwards are expected to ship in May. The exact shipping date cannot be determined at this time.
Crystal Edition: Orders placed before February 25 are expected to ship in April. Orders placed after February 25 are expected to ship in May. The exact shipping date cannot be determined at this time.
We are actively working on this and hoping for the best. We will keep you updated on the progress.
Despite the challenges, we firmly believe that the Supernote Nomad is an exceptional product. We are honored that you chose the Supernote Nomad, and now that we have encountered a setback, the Ratta Supernote team needs your support and forgiveness to persevere. We kindly ask you to hold on your orders to support us through this difficult time. However, we do have a bottom line.
Orders pending for more than three months will be refunded without request, or you can feel free to contact us at service@supernote.com to cancel your order and receive a refund without any conditions.
Sincerely,
The Ratta Supernote Team
It seems to me that Ratta have ‘owned‘ the situation, apologised and are doing their best to rectify it as quickly as they can but for many recent customers, this has resulted in longer-than-expected delivery times.
One such customer is Andrew (who first made me aware of the issue – cheers, mate). He placed an order on the 14th March and has yet to be given a delivery date (although the boilerplate response above suggests that it will arrive this month or next).
Some concerns have also been voiced on the Supernote subreddit. And this megathread gives an insight into when customers made their orders, their expected delivery date, and (in some cases) when the product arrived.
It seems that the biggest gripe from Ratta customers has not been with the delay itself, but in the communication of expected delivery dates. As Andrew points out:
Waiting isn’t an issue if you are aware of it upfront and if you get charged for your device on dispatch but right now Ratta are being vague about delivery and are charging on order, which isn’t great.
Andrew
Hopefully, this is something that Ratta can learn from, and put systems in place to mitigate similar situations in the future.
NOTE FROM DAN: I’ve been quite vocal in my love of the Supernote range of products (it is the e-ink tablet that I, personally, use the most). And I continue to stand by the quality of the product.
I also really like the Supernote brand – there are not many companies that would hold their hands up and be transparent about the challenges and difficulties they are facing. I truly admire their honesty in this regard.
However, for the integrity of both myself and eWritable, I feel that it is important to highlight both the positive and negative aspects of all e-ink tablet brands in a fair and objective manner. And, in this instance, it appears that some Ratta customers feel let down.
About the author
Dan Dutton is passionate about E-ink writing tablets, which bring together the pleasure of writing on paper with the power of digital technology. When he bought his first tablet, he realised that there wasn't a lot of unbiased information available for people that were considering buying an E-ink tablet, and so he built eWritable.
Good article,
Good to see that your trust in the brand proving itself. The “negative” things seem more like oversight than anything that could be construed as corporate “tricks”.
I meant to comment on some other articles, but my comments were not going through- that was on my NA3 C, I am on my laptop right now For some reason the reCAPTCHA was not going through, and then what I attempted to post was deleted.
I could not find your Q&A for awhile, and just today I saw it. Maintenance and overhaul at some point?
Hey Martin,
There was a spam issue with the qa. Unfortunately this coincided with a month of several coinciding catastrophes in my personal life which took priority. So I just shut it down until I had a bit of time to fix it. This is also the reason that the ewritable blog has not been updated as much in recent weeks.
Catastrophes don’t come one at a time, do they? I hope all of these are at least starting to settle down for you.
Take care,