I would have to say that I’m surprised based on the finer points of the Polyend build, from what I can see. Having built a hardware product and sourced parts, I’m surprised by a few things (please keep in mind that these details are fuzzy and I’m not being extremely precise, just giving some two thoughts)
First the screen of the Zoia is a pretty affordable and low cost OLED screen. It’s rather standard for its type and you can find them for really cheap online. As a bulk price, it’s very cheap.
The Zoia is (I believe, but could be wrong) built off of a Raspberry Pi CM, which takes much of the CPU/processing trouble out of the development. This can be EXTREMELY expensive and time consuming. It appears from interviews that Polyend basically built their own OS to support this project, which as you can see from something like the norns or OP-1 is no small feat.
The mechanical keys are a design of Polyend, which is expensive. The wheel has haptic feedback and there are a few other expensive parts (such as the FM radio which continuously baffles me why that’s included).
If anything, the biggest method of saving for Polyend are the single in/out ports and the midi being only the TRS/usb and not having the 5-pin in the shell. Also, the USB-C protocol is a tough one to implement as well. More added cost.
The biggest cost savings in the single in port though. Out is one thing, Digital to Analogue conversion is a given in this world. Analog to Digital is a bit more tricky and absolutely non-trivial. While it pains me that there’s only one port, it’s the name of the game.
Now, some ways that costs get cut are the cost of labor/living in Poland as opposed to other areas of the world, Polyend’s assumptions about their sales numbers (hence an economy of scale in production) and finally, that they have developed a few products who’s general technology can be appropriated for the Tracker.
For example, they have history of grid based UI’s with the Seq, the Medusa and their eurorack stuff. They have a ton of experience with Midi thanks to the Poly 2, and they have synth and wave table experience due to the Medusa. They can bring a lot of that precious work (granted in simplified form) in to this product, drastically bringing down development cost.
All of this is to say, there’s MAJOR differences in HOW the Zoia and the Tracker are built, what they’re built of and how they all function together. They’re not at all compatible in design, use or price. And all things considered, this is a very competitive and frankly shocking price point. I was worried (for my wallet’s sake) it would be around $1100, since it’s recently dawned on me that Trackers are my favorite way to compose and this hits all my buttons (pun intended!). Only thing I really wish for would be an easy method to transfer tracks from the Polyend Tracker to Renoise, but who knows! Someone in the Renoise community might take the initiative and be my hero!
Anyway, I’m rambling. Just some thoughts about these things and how your comparison wasn’t really apples to apples, as they say
