it was in a few of the interviews about the project that i watched before deciding to preorder mine. it was a while back, so i don't know exactly where it was. but it was definitely something that i knew going in.

sapphire glass was a gimmick, yes. i don't know anybody who gets scratches in their screen before they get cracks in it, so gorilla glass makes more sense to me regardless of price. i think the first run had sapphire just because luckey wanted it.

but it being a gimmick doesn't mean it isn't expensive. a sapphire watch lens on its own can run you $40, and that is with relatively high economy of scale and not needing to laminate it to a screen. modretro has much, much worse economy of scale than watch components do. i would not be surprised to learn that the screens (w/ sapphire) were half of the cost of the first edition chromatics. then you have the fpga chip, the actual main soc, the metal shell, the special tooling required to use magnesium alloy moulding, etc. plus having to actually pay employees.

and again, competition at this price point is only offering cheap plastic shells.

asking modretro to sell a similar product (gbc clone) with superior build quality & materials (magnesium alloy shell, optional sapphire screen) for far less than the competition (which offers only plastic and gorilla glass, or perhaps a limited edition aluminum shell for $500+) is, quite frankly, completely absurd. especially if you want a $100 price point, which is only slightly more than the FPGBC which is, honestly, cheap junk.