Why Are So Many Selling Their Pandora On Ebay


when looking at ebay http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250689027050

Makes me wonder why people are bidding like crazy now, when its 6 days left untuil it ends.
 
dflemstr said:
This is more worrying than one might expect. Statistics for other devices have shown that direct resells grow exponentially with time[sup][citation needed][/sup], and if we've already reached 1%...

It's not the same. Pandoras are on eBay because of the huge profit that can be made due to very limited supply. Think of how many PS2s were bought for the sole purpose of selling them on eBay. But PS2 did very well, didn't it?
 
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Asmo hit the nail on the head for me. I just didn't 'take to it' and it was destined for the drawer. Nothing has lived up to the GP32 for me, and I suspect nothing will.
 
eeekubuntu said:
when looking at ebay http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250689027050

Makes me wonder why people are bidding like crazy now, when its 6 days left untuil it ends.
Ebay is a crazy place sometimes, and you can never tell why somethings get high early. As more articles come out, and the buzz keeps up, any Pandora's on Ebay are bound to do well. Right now, this is the only one currently up, so the week should go very well for this seller.

@Exophase
Yeah, the PS2 was the greatest selling vg system of all time, until recently when the DS I believe took over the title.

Chris
 
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I was the one crazy enough to buy the Pandora offered on Aug 20th. I do not believe that all first batch units will be shipped this year and I do not want to wait until next year. I thought to myself, if I can spend so much money on an iPhone or an iPad why not on the Pandora?

In my opinion there have been suprisingly few Pandoras on ebay since they began to ship the units given the high price that can be achieved and the fact that opinions and needs change in the course of two years. So I take it as a good sign that the vast majority of Pandora owners keep their device.

My unit got out of customs on Saturday and I should receive it this week. So I can start my blog soon.
 
It's a disposable world isn't it. People are often raving about the latest and greatest gadget to hit, only to sell up weeks later. I think for the ones who are putting theirs on ebay, they just can't 'connect' with the Pandora. They thought it would be something it isn't.
For me, I considered putting my Pandora on ebay, but then decided not to as I always tend to buy things I never use much but hardly ever bother trying to sell on. For me it's just not worth the effort having to write an ad, find packaging, arranging delivery and insurance. Ok it's not that much of an effort, but for the sake of a few hundred notes I'll pass.
I'm thinking about buying an Exopc - it looks really cool, full Windows 7 OS, seems it will be better matched for what I want a portable device for. Having said that, the downside is a battery which will probably last no more than 5 hours. And if I buy and not happy with it, I'll just put it on the shelf together with all my other buys that would better be suited to a graveyard ;-)
 
I personally don't give a crap about the latest thing.

Well... unless it's genuinely exciting. But seriously, what is these days? Everything out there is essentially the same thing and smells sort of stale.

Maybe the 3DS will change this, but I'll wait and see. The software needs to be good, because frankly I found the DS somewhat of a letdown.

So no... I like to pick the greatest, most reliable, well designed and enjoyable examples of the recent or not so recent past. I do this because new technology takes a while to mature and become awesome. Being on the cutting edge is over-rated in my opinion.

I'm currently waiting on a friend modding my Game Boy with a backlight. While well into the 'retro zone', you just can't fault the old machine. They're still going after over twenty years, and I'll keep harping on about this for the next twenty, assuming they still work.
 
SomeGuy99 said:
I personally don't give a crap about the latest thing.
After I had so much fun with my GP2X, I was really excited about the Nokia 770.
Obviously it was a different kind of device, but I saw lots of potential for neat custom apps.
I realised shortly after I got it that community was much more important than the hardware itself.
And then they released the N800 and the few devs in the scene abandoned it completely.
I lost interest in the latest and greatest gadgets after that.

(I also couldn't use the GP2X because "fixed" the joystick cap with super-glue... )

Hopefully the Pandora will bring back what made the GP2X fun! :)
 
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I have a GP2X thanks to a nice donator here.

Apart from the annoying stick (Mk1) it's a really nice machine. Running on normal batteries gives me hope it will last for a long time, but you never really know.

When I get round to a D-Pad mod, it might become my favourite handheld for emulation (Pandora included).

As much as I the Pandora is great, having a device which does less, but in a better and more suited fashion is highly desirable.

But yeah... I bought a Pandora for the 'Do Everything' factor. It does more than a GP2X ever will.

I think the best fun I've had with my Pandora so far is Linux hacking and movie watching. Ginge might change that.
 
I'm actually surprise the amount sold on eBay isn't a lot higher.

First take the fact that a lot of people bought this device simply based on it's raw horsepower, and now two years later the technology's starting to show its age. Add to that the changing priorities Mr B mentioned, add to that the fact that someone who preordered had two years to hype this thing up in their mind, sometimes to the point that any real device would be a letdown. Then, on top of all that there's the fact that eBay resales are going for 2 or 3 times the original sale price (that alone is enough to tempt even someone who's perfectly happy with their purchase, especially since they can use part of the proceeds to buy a 2nd batcher and pocket the rest).

14 or so out of about 700 doesn't seem like that many.
 
I got my Pandora from ebay a couple of days ago. I can see now why especially the non-gamer-guys sell their Pandora. If you think that the handheld works as well as a linux-netbook only being a lot smaller and lighter, you are going to be very disappointed. There isn't a lot of software available apart from games and emulators right now and the software that is available ist not optimized for a 800x480 resolution and the relatively slow handheld hardware (compared to common netbooks) and limited RAM. This may change in the future, but right now this is the reality. On the emulator front there are already some really good ones like PicoDrive and a number of decent ones mostly for 8 Bit systems. Check out my blog for an overview on what the software situation is.
 
I agree on the average-joe point, but I must say that, like Alerino, I also disagree on the netbook comment. I'm finding that for my purposes, my Pandora works much better than a netbook - I've owned three of those, all of them too impractical for me, and each increasingly difficult to get with Linux pre-installed (I don't believe that I should have to pay extra for Microsoft Windows, which I do not use, only to erase it and install what I wanted in the first place), and not one of them did the job I needed them to do as well as the Pandora does.

That is just me, of course, though. Your mileage may vary, and it greatly depends on what you use a netbook for. :)
 
Great blog info MiniSinisterMinister. There does appear to be some kinda of spyware, as I get a red flag visiting your site, but the info is good.

I'm no netbook user, and never really saw the point in'em myself, but if someone has no use in gaming, I would say get one. I personally think it's wonderful that the Pandora has the potential to do so many other things, but the current reality is gaming for the majority of users.

I'm sure that will change once all 4000 units have shipped, and many more end users, and programmers get fired up, and start the ball rolling. For anyone who has followed this project for more than a year should know what to expect, and that standard non gaming apps won't be available in a great supply out of the gate. I'm using mine strictly for some light web browsing, and gaming.

I've had my unit for several months now, and the more I use it, the less likely I feel that I would ever sell it. It is really a spectacular device and deserves high praises. For those out there who are into the gaming uses of the Padora, let me tell you this "The Pandora Kicks Much Ass"! :lol: Any publications can qoute me on that!

Chris
 
By the way, there is a Pandora on UK ebay which seems to be under the radar: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=280555371292

You need to include "foreign" auctions if you search, ebay will not care about the shipment options but in what local ebay they were added
 
I can imagine people being disappointed in the Pandora being not the one size fits all solution they were hoping for. Basically the hardware is just too limited and it is physically impossible to please everyone.

- For reading it is not the best solution. I like to use my 7" tablet for ebooks: 10 " like the iPad is too heavy and I like the pocket format.
- For listening to audiobooks I use my rockboxed Sansa E260.
- For watching video I use my desktop
- For doing productivity work I use my Asus EeePC t101mt
- For reading mail I use my Android Phone or desktop
- For answering mail I prefer to use my desktop

All of the above is possible on the Pandora, but I don't think the Pandora is particularly suited for any of these. It is nice to have the all-in-one solution in your pocket when you are on vacation, but when you have other options why should you use the tiny screen and small keyboard.

The best thing about the Pandora is its gaming capabilities, but IMO the software is still lacking and in some cases disappointing. Especially the UI for a lot of software.
I don't need a sophisticated GUI, the less G in the UI the better. Best example of how it should be done is Picodrive. Its UI is very basic, but fast and practical. The GP2X developers were often forced to make their own UI, that was not always a success (remember gnuboy?) but it was at least made for the small screen of the GP2X.
Now I see some ports of emulators (like Hatari) that are really depending on mouse gestures and graphical toolkits. This makes navigating and choosing the games slow and cumbersome.
Also fonts are way too small in some cases, look at the default fontsize of text in minimenu. The most fun I had on the Pandora is just playing with Ginge and the GP2X software library (would be awesome if i could also use Gmenu2X)

The overall use and feel of the Pandora would improve a lot if the devs go back to basics and avoid as much as possible the use of fancy graphical tools like gtk etc. I also think programs should make use of the high resolution of the Pandora only for graphics, not for text. If people wanted to read very small letters, books and newspapers would probably be printed that way.

To summarize, I understand when people sell their Pandora. Software is not mature enough. Just sell it, make a few bucks and buy a new one in a few months when the quality of the hardware is improved and hopefully software as well.
 
I totally agree with you b_o_b. People who received their Pandora already but are not enthusiasts like me probably find it very tempting to sell their Pandora on ebay because of the high profit margin and the immature software. If you do not want to develop for the sytem, it is more rational to sell it and buy another unit later. However, there probably aren't many non-enthusiasts who kept their preoder through the 1.5 years it took OP to release the first units. So most Pandoras stay in the hands of the original buyers.

I also agree with you that there is not a single device that is the best solution for everything. If you want to be productive the best device is 10" netbook or even a bigger machine. If you want to read ebooks, websites or look at photos a 7" tablet might be the sweetspot, if you want to read emails on the go or access the internet from eveywhere a smartphone is the best solution. The Pandora best suited for games and emulators. If you do not want to buy all kinds of devices, you will have to compromise.
 
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