It's not really fair to say it's a good idea to preorder from spondoolies regardless of their track record so far.
You're right, the comparison isn't fair. BFL, who is always late, vs. Spondoolies, who has never been late.
My point is that spondoolies has never taken preorders before the SP30. Who knows how many delays they had with their first gen.
I bet they will eventually sell sp30's BTO for the same price as a preorder (maybe less), but without all the risk.
Good evaluation.
However I had to risk it given the prices available 12 Th/s at $0.69USD per Gh/s was too tempting for me to pass up. Given the 1300 Hammer chips the WPC purchased and the support from sales and the STech team on that sale I am pretty confident they will deliver the SP30 on time. I might not like the price in August, that is the risk and gamble I am taking, but I pretty confident now that STech will be on time. And given they have bent over backwards to proactively support users, given discounts and some compensation even, I am sure that given any issues with the SP30 I will be made whole as well any other STech customers. The SP10s could be used to compensate us or have even their hosting could jump in to support me and other SP30 customers. There is coverage here unlike the BFL model.
Now what has BFL provided?
No immediate refunds or compensation.
No units.
No hosting.
Lies.
16 months of development.
Let us be fair we all know that at this point in time there are clear indicators that STech is not going to leave customers hanging. They are building relationships with customers. Have you seen anything remotely like that with BFL? No. Why? I suspect as many others do that BFL is nothing more than a long con and has been since day one. Let us see what discovery provides Wood Law... the stench at BFL goes deep.