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Originally Posted by Last_of_the_PEs
It's just that the parts used to build the PEs may have been leftovers from odd lots. Or maybe all the parts were uniform and just fine, and the odd parts were left on the production line. It just seemed odd that some vendors seemed to be scrounging to fill orders, while Woot obviously got hold of more than 2,500 of the things, at a blowout price. It could be that other vendors didn't want to hold more than a few at a time lest they be stuck with them. Obviously I'm hoping the Woot PEs are the best they ever built since I bought one.
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Based on what I know about manufacturing in China, if there were a part quality issue on the PE, we would have heard about it by now. The only part problems I've heard of were power connector related and I think that was on the EE. If there is a quality issue, it will most likely be assembly related and associated with a particular production run.
Given that Entourage is still pretty much a start-up, I imagine they had to finance multiple iterations of assembly line time with each production run being shipped before manufacturing on a subsequent run began. This was not a line created solely for Entourage, but contracted for a specific period of time and number of units with some ODM (Original Design Manufacturer). There wouldn't be anything left to carry over to a later production run since any number of items with different part requirements would have been manufactured in between production runs. It's even possible Entourage may have used different ODMs for different runs depending on line availability and delivery requirements. Unit SNs may provide a clue as to whether this was the case or not.
Based on the tear-down pics, I think the only parts unique to the PE are the PCBs and outer case. The screens, speakers, webcam, and PSU are most likely generic of the shelf components. I think there was probably an initial production run, part of which was sold through HSN, and a subsequent run, part of which was just sold through Woot.
I agree on keeping an eye out for the next Woot-Off.