Originally Posted by
eepok
According to my spreadsheet (all my bike purchases are mulled over in spreadsheets...
), I'm looking at a Shutter Precision PD-8 as it has fairly comparable performance to the Schmidt SON28 at 50-60% the price.
The big difference is bearing life, with bearing replacement on both requiring spoke removal with a front wheel rebuild. If you don't build your own wheels you could spend twice as much for the SP in the first year or two.
Shutter Precision claims a 20,000km bearing life, and people report failures in 10,000 miles.
Schmidt claims 50,000km and people get more.
Those savings will likely go towards the purchase of a B&M Luxos U so as to negate the need for an external USB charger.
Whatever you buy, import it directly from Germany with starbike.com and bike-discount.de good sources.
When I bought my setup this year (SON28 / Edelux ii / B&M Line Plus / USB-Werk) the Luxos U was $103 from starbike versus $219 from Peter White.