Emails to remaining preorders.

[slenkar]

here is one of the most famous tech guys in America

http://leoville.com/

here is a guy who averages 18,000 views

https://www.youtube.com/user/lockergnome

and another

https://www.youtube.com/user/MobileTechReview

 

[Trezker]

Leo Laporte would be big if you can reach his TWIT network.

One thing to keep in mind is that Leo is against getting things to review for free since he wants to be completely unbiased.

But maybe he takes review units, especially if he has to return it after the review.

There's a whole bunch of shows that might bring up Pandora. So you have options. Might even get multiple exposures if you're lucky.

They also have ad spots where you get a discount on the product advertised but I kinda doubt Pandora is a big enough market to spend an ad spot on.

Shows that might be applicable:

FLOSS Weekly: Long queue to enter, but then you'd get a full hour interview about the software on the Pandora.

GizWiz: Leo review one random gadget per week, Dick DeBartolo talk about 4 gadgets of varying age. The general idea of the show is jokingly that everything is crap. So any negative will probably be made fun of.

Triangulation: I'm not sure what the criteria is for getting on this show, you might have to be someone more interesting. It's more about a person than about what they've done.

Before you buy: They make a review and give a recommendation, try, buy or don't buy. Don't know how they select the things to review.

This week in computer hardware: The Pandora is a unique piece of hardware. This show generally talks about graphics cards, processors and comparing the latest and greatest. The strength of your software will likely be ignored, if they're even interested in talking about the Pandora.

This week in enterprise tech: Might be interested in mentioning the Pandora as a tool for enterprise people. It would most likely just be a short sidenote. But a short mention can be better than a long negative review.

 

[rohezal]

Send this guy a pandora. He doubled our playercount in Savage 2 with his video. A lot of people (1300K) are watching his channel and a lot of them are gamers. He has a wikipedia page too: http://www.youtube.com/user/HouseholdHacker/

And maybe this teeny youtube star (600K subscribers in UK): http://www.youtube.com/user/nerimon/

 

[RobeeJay]

Craig's shop doesn't have any money to give and Craig isn't liable for that

Of course he is. Debts don't go away because you don't have money. They go away when they're paid. Going bankrupt is the exception, but to my knowledge GBAX has not declared bankruptcy (they won't have to, because many of us sent the money by wire, and are overseas, so the usual stuff -- small claims, debt collectors, buyer protection -- aren't options). Nobody should be expected to sit on their loss out of the kindness of their hearts, especially not based on the testimony of a guy who historically has played fast & loose with the truth.

Sorry, but you don't understand UK law. It doesn't matter if Craig is a millionaire, the company has the debts not Craig. Plenty of people completely fail to understand what a limited company means when it comes to liability.

If you took out an action in a small claims court for your refund in the UK, all that would happen is... you'd be £100 down (or whatever it costs to do it, I forget the exact amount) with a piece of paper in your hand that orders a company which doesn't have any money to give you money it doesn't have.

The ultimate result in any obsessive attempt to get the company to pay you the money which it doesn't have, is for it to be forced into administration, at which point its assets would be liquidated (good luck getting those boards from CC, I think that is probably their only assets left), then the administrators would be paid (again with no money because there is none), and then you would get your money back, only of course you wouldn't because it has none.

 

[RobeeJay]

Classic Game Room might be worth a Pandora, he has 240k subscribers and loves retro stuff:

https://www.youtube.com/user/InecomCompany

Also, if I ever get my Pandora (classic pre-order ) I'll review it on my site:

http://www.myreviewer.com/

 

[klapse]

I'm not upgrading, and I don't think it's an unreasonable position to take.


...


I remember thinking as much 2 years ago. But hey, maybe the 1000th time's the charm.

You mean 2nd time, not 1000th. And yes, it is the "charm" since upgrades ship from stock as soon as the money is received.


Preordering was a risk investment. Suppliers failed to come through. There is a current plan to clear preorders but it will take time. If you want a pandora now you can get one now by cross-upgrading. If you want to wait until your refund is funded by new sales, you can wait.


Nobody can undo the financial damages caused by the supplier screwups, so these are your options -- Clear enough?

 

[urjaman]

Maybe we could give tested.com a review unit.

 

[andmaz777]

I'm not upgrading, and I don't think it's an unreasonable position to take.


...


I remember thinking as much 2 years ago. But hey, maybe the 1000th time's the charm.

You mean 2nd time, not 1000th. And yes, it is the "charm" since upgrades ship from stock as soon as the money is received.


Preordering was a risk investment. Suppliers failed to come through. There is a current plan to clear preorders but it will take time. If you want a pandora now you can get one now by cross-upgrading. If you want to wait until your refund is funded by new sales, you can wait.


Nobody can undo the financial damages caused by the supplier screwups, so these are your options -- Clear enough?

Pre ordering was a risk investment which is why the original purchase price has been honoured.


So either sit tight and eventually classic pre orders may even get a 1ghz unit or upgrade now for delivery from stock.


It's well worth having but individuals have to decide if for them it is worth paying more to get it now

 

[Binary]

You should consider sending one to Retro Gamer magazine in the UK. It's been going strong for several years, has great distribution and is always a cracking read. I'm sure their readership would be hugely interested. I'm sure that many of them wouldn't be able to resist once they knew what it was capable of - the only drawback being the way that some publications tend to step carefully around the subject of emulation. You should sound them out.

 

[RobeeJay]

Speaking as someone who has run a review site for rather a long time, I thought it would be a good idea to add a key piece of information...

When something costs under £30, we generally expect whoever sends it not to ask for it back. In fact when it comes to DVDs and Blu-rays, when studios have been so "cheap" as to send us a screener and return it when we've finished, we often just return it straight away unreviewed. It's like, we are going to spend hours of our time on this, and you can't even foot that small bill of £5 or whatever it cost you to make that screener?

Once things get to the £40-80, we keep quiet about them but if the company that sent them asks for them to be returned after we've finished, we don't begrudge it too much, as long as we aren't paying for it. They'll arrange the courier and just ask us when we can be in for them to collect it.

Everything over that, nearly always gets asked for back! Which is fair enough.

I guess what I am basically saying, is you should be able to get a fair amount of coverage with just a small handful of loaner units. Just send them out to the people with the biggest readership first, making sure they agreed to review the "loan unit" before you send it, and offer to answer any questions and give any help they might need, then do so ASAP because there is nothing more annoying than asking a key question and having to wait a week for an answer when you are trying to review something.

The moment they put the review up, thank them very much for their time, regardless of how lukewarm or bad it is, because even a badly researched and written review takes time, then arrange to have a courier pick it up from them and either move it on to someone else or (probably better) return it to you so you can check its fine and repackage it all up with any bits that went missing.

If you do get an unfair review, don't get confrontational about it, take anything on board which is fair and just accept it, anything which is there as a result of inaccuracy you can diplomatically point out as unfair.

Good luck!