What absurd prices are these?
30 EUR for a 1mm TPU cover? 20/30 EUR for screen protector?
The phone itself isn’t priced too unreasonably, but this is crazy. Is it a mistake?
Not to be all negative as I am excited for the summer deadline for batch #2, but the price of what I consider essential accessories is a big turn-off.
Luckily for you, they are optional. You can source your own, or even make them yourself with a 3D-printer and laser- or diecutter.
In my opinion, safety isn’t optional for devices like this. Not having either of the types of machinery myself, the alternative is to wait for mass-produced alternatives, if that ever happens (luckily, IIRC the 3D model is already out). 50 EUR is a good 9~10% of the price, which is a lot less than replacing the entire device down the line, and it isn’t the end of the world, but with a lack of an explanation why, it feels like a tall ask.
Why this is absurd?
You need to pay 100€ to change a thin layer of glass on popular devices and I’m sure it costs cents to them since they make hundreds of millions of pieces.
Good cases also cost 30-60€ for mass market devices and good screen protectors 20-30€.
To be honest I’m very happy that Jolla kept the prices for these accessories way below 50€ at this day and age and given the small audience / production.
To date, I don’t remember having seen these accessories priced as highly as you described, unless it was manufactured by Apple or used premium materials, which don’t benefit safety. As for this specific case, was expensive machinery procured to mass-produce cases at the last moment? In that case, I would understand. But as I mentioned, no reason was provided.
I get it. I sound entitled given this particular case (pun not intended). All I wanted to say is that I feel the price isn’t right, especially since nobody else chimed in at that point. If manufacturing these accessories is expensive, so be it, but I would have been happier to know about it ahead of time.
Fairphone charges pretty much the same and sells a lot more phones and doesn’t have to cross finance a whole mobile OS. Apple charged not much less when when their silicon cases were still comparably simple.
Yes, 30 EUR are expensive but even Samsung charges 10 EUR at much larger economy of scale.
PS: 10k or so units are small scale mass production. Tooling will be a few EUR more per unit, so will be development costs. That has nothing to do with rushing it, it is economy of scale. There are many fix costs and they need to be distributed across all units sold.
Not really premium materials.
“Official” cases directly from the phone companies such as silicon/tpu usually cost 30 to 60€.
And screen protectors that fit perfectly, don’t have reflections, color distortion, proper oleophopic coating cost around 30€, plus or minus 10€.
I think you are comparing with Chinese case manufacturers that sell millions in volume and quality is questionable in some cases. You can’t compare production costs and margins with them unfortunately.
Ps. If I remember correctly, TOHs with j1 used to be 30€ as well. Half the volume and 3 times better economy than now 
Talking about the official ones ofc that were just colored covers with an ambiance.
Is it already? If so, where?
In my imagination. I just checked and it looks like I misremembered, sorry.
I would expect it to be released in due time as per the TOH announcement, though.
Darn, I hoped you’d knew more than me 
I am already eagerly awaiting it.
I do not think they are really under any strong obligation to explain the price in detail. I do agree with you in some respects, though. We do not fully know what kind of material quality we are dealing with, so you are right about that. The price may feel a bit expensive to you, but that also naturally changes from country to country depending on people’s income.
For example, Jolla had originally hoped to keep the phones somewhat affordable, but because of the RAM supply crisis in the later batches, they explained with actual figures why they could not maintain that price. I cannot say much about the cases, but the screen protectors do seem a little expensive.
Yes, you are right. We also have to keep in mind that this is not the same as Chinese mass production, because they are not producing millions of cases. That naturally makes the cost per unit higher. That is simply how business works: the lower the production volume, the more expensive each item becomes.
A TPU case costs the likes of 3€ and a set of 3 glass protectors about 4€ on Aliexpress, shipping included.
That’s exactly what I said.
Cheap Chinese mass production would be cheap like everything else.
Spigen that is still Chinese mass production but a known brand would charge 20-30€.
When was the last time you got an official case from a phone company that was 3€? I got an official HMD case for my skyline and it was 50€. HMD man, HMD 
A known brand would have them manufactured in China for tens of cents and sell them for tens of euros.
Known brands also include covers for free with their phones.
From my experience mostly budget devices do that, or some region specific Chinese brands.
But anyway, if you think it’s unreasonably expensive you can skip. I’m not buying a case as well because i don’t use cases (skyline is an exception because it is literally unusable without one).
Ps. Especially since I want to see interesting TOHs in the future, even if i was a fan of cases they would be pointless with another TOH.
Great, sounds like a perfect business model for you then to make cases, right? Get to work, start talking with suppliers, make sure you don’t get screwed, make sure the quality is consistent, make sure you can front-load the cost for the molds too! Oh then after all the iteration on the molds, enjoy fronting for the cost to make a ton of them. Oh they’re finally made? Be sure to think about shipping especially with the current costs. Oh it finally arrived at a port? Enjoy all the import duties. How about all the certifications, have you gotten those squared away too? Have a shipping partner? Have a store front? How much money are you putting into marketing? Since after all now you have all this stock that needs to sell because the warehousing costs are adding up! How are you handling returns, refunds? VAT? My case I just ordered from you has a defect, have you accounted in all the other costs to send me a new one? Okay I just got the new one but it turns out I didn’t actually like it. Or maybe I did but I suddenly need to money. Sorry, you gotta eat that cost too. Enjoy!
I’m an engineer. I work in the industry. I make devices. You don’t need to teach me about that. The Chinese manufacturer takes care of all that, just give specifications and they do the job. That’s what Jolla for sure did.
Even better for you in this case since Jolla will share the exact dimensions so you can make your own, right?
Shouldn’t be an issue for you at all.
That is all to be considered but the cost factor I would fear the most is customer support for people incapable of reading your email and asking for tax reduction with Bulgarian tax schemes, shipping to Antarctica and ddosing your support department with discussions about not exactly matching orange color shades after sun exposure and the missing variant with the picture of their cat on the inside.