Dragon upgrade cost vs direct buy

[Christoffer Glans]

Help me out a little. I went through the numbers to see what it would cost to buy an Epic Dragon.
If I were to buy an Epic Dragon directly it would cost 29 000 USD, but if I were to buy a Scarlet, upgrade it to Epic, then upgrade that to Dragon it would only cost 27 000?
To add to that, if I were to buy the light weight package and Scarlet, then upgrade to Epic and then to Dragon it would be a 35 960 to 42 360 difference between the packages (even though the Epic gunner package has a few more things).

Am I right in assuming that you would gain by buying the Scarlet and going through two upgrades compared to buying the Dragon directly? Confused.

 

[Mikael Lubtchansky]

At 29,000 the premium you pay for will give you :

- A Dragon camera before they start upgrading Epics
- A machined Dragon (Epic M instead of an X)
- Don't have the details at hand but I'm sure the warranty is longer on a brand new Dragon vs an upgrade (check FAQ on RED.com it's all in there)

HTH

 

[Björn Benckert]

I guess the difference between the two paths are as mentioned above... Time. If you go trough and trade in a scarlet you probably have it next summer or so (my guess) if you buy an Dragon M, then you have it quite soon. The rentals missed in the meantime will make up the difference and more. At least thats how I look at it.

 

[Marcos Montenegro]

Christoffer:

I've investigated this a lot and there is a big difference:

If you buy an Epic-Dragon M new at 29K you can add RED ARMOR to the body at the time of purchase ($2850) giving you 4 years of coverage.

If you trade in a Scarlet-X to an Epic-X, which I'm doing by the way, for $9500 you get a brand new Epic-X camera BUT you only get 1 year of warranty instead of the normal 2 years that come with a brand new body purchase, and you cannot add RED ARMOR. If you then upgrade the sensor of the Epic-X to an Epic-Dragon for NOTHER $9500, you will have an Epic-Dragon X (No M) and get a 90-day sensor warranty, and again, you CANNOT ADD RED ARMOR TO IT.

This is important to me, so I intend to sell my Epic-X whenever I'm ready to purchase an Epic-Dragon X (these will be in the store by next summer I would think for $24K). This way I can add RED ARMOR to it; piece of mind for a purchase this big.