If you’ve been confused, frustrated or felt generally left out by the pricing structure for backers of Canonical’s Ubuntu Edge phone, you’re not the only one. A sliding scale of discounts which favoured early backers saw the effort to crowdfund a Linux superphone via Indiegogo get off to a blistering start, but run out of steam as the available packages got more expensive.

So if you were going to back Ubuntu Edge but got scared off by the $800+ price, there’s good news today. Canonical has removed all the different options from its campaign and fixed the purchase price for everyone at a sensible $695 (R7 000) plus $30 (R300) for shipping. If you’ve already pledged more, you’ll get the difference refunded after the campaign is over.

Will that be enough to raise the outstanding $23m in two weeks which Canonical needs to put the phone into production? Probably not – even with the help of yesterday’s news that Bloomberg put in an $80 000 order for 100 of the handsets.