Just bought netbook from e-bay. Help!

[arabpress]

Hi I had just bought a netbook from ezgallery over e-bay when I read this thread. Wish I had read it before! :( I have not yet paid anything for it but have read through e-bay rules and there doesn't seem to be anything to cover this situation - once you have bought you are meant to pay. I have written to e-bay and ezgallery requesting clarification about the misdescriptions you outlined. From other posts some people seem to be satisfied with their netbooks but all have substantial netbook experience whereas I am a newbie. Has anyone got any advice?




This topic moved to a thread of its own, as it's a slightly different subject from the thread where it was originally posted.

[Clatoo]

Hi all,

I am EXACTLY in the same situation.
Should I pay or should I go nooowwww (famous tune).

Sorry for that - Bought it from Ebay US though.

[netBookBabe]

Firstly, if you haven't already paid for the netBook and wish to pull out of the deal, then no-one can make you pay. I think the worst that can happen is a negative feedback - it depends whether you can live with that, but to me you do have a justifiable reason to back out, and you have a right to respond to feedback left about you. In your position, I think I would do a little stalling for a day or two, and see if anything transpires regarding this seller. I once had a similar instance - I withheld payment on an item once it appeared that the seller might by "dodgy" - within a week the seller's account had been terminated and all bids were off.

I'm not saying that's what will happen in this case, I suspect probably not, but you never know.

If you decide to go through with it, then please don't be too downhearted! As you will have read, some purchasers are more than happy with their bargain, and the limitations for most people are going to be few. There's not going to be anything about this machine that makes it more difficult to operate than any other netBook and I'm sure you can see that there is plenty of assistance for you here, no matter what "breed" you own!

On balance I rather hope you go ahead with the purchase and enjoy owning and using your netBook. :)

Feel free to post any further questions if you think it will help you to decide.

Julie

(Written to arabpress, now also applying to Clatoo!)

[Clatoo]

Thanks Julie,

The most important thing to me is to know what I will get.

I know the content of the box.
I hear that it is grey (presumably instead of black ?)

What are the differences between this one and the official one ?
Upgradability is not a problem if it runs the latest OS.

I have been looking on ebay for a year for one of these beauty.
In fact, since I saw Psion 7 going for £250 in a Duty free in UK and thinking "this can't be right" and walked my way !

I also saw german netbooks going now for 998 Euros, around £650. This is today and is the real thing, so a Netbook for $500?
Why not ?

[netBookBabe]

Originally posted by Clatoo
I hear that it is grey (presumably instead of black ?)I think you might be getting confused with our use of the term "grey import", meaning an item which has been imported into a country it was not originally intended for. As far as I know these machines are "standard" netBook colour, which is dark grey casing with black leather insert.

I could try to summarise the differences for you, but as the owner of a "regular" netBook, I'm rather hoping someone who already has a Malaysian Project one will step in here, as they will know best of all.

It's clear from what the spokesman from Psion has said that these machines will not be warrantied or supported by them. It's also clear that it is not the absolute latest version of the OS, although it is an early version of the current build, so not that far out of date.

Can someone else please supplement this information?

Julie

[arabpress]

Thanks Julie
Good advice. I have contacted ezgallery for some clarification and will wait and see.

[GaryTheHat]

Just to follow on from what's the difference. I too have bought an Ebay netbook and they are basically the same as the "true" netbooks. The OS supplied with these machines are fixed and cannot be upgraded and they have a ONE-ED.COM wallpaper instead of a normal Psion one. It seems they support wireless but you would have to check to see compatilbility levels.

I have been using mine for a few days and have found they work ok with no problems found so far in the software I'm using.

The problem begins when you want to upgrade the OS, or if the machines breaks i.e the screen. Psion will not honour a warrenty so this will be a very expensive purchase. It's a small "IF" if the netbook breaks down but as I work as an external Sales person and will be using mine 8-10 hours a day there's a chance.

I'm trying to get a refund from EZgallery and have also contacted Square Trade. I feel I have been misled in buying this machine. If I do get a refund then I will buy a new netbook as I've found them to be a great piece of hardware to use. I expect a lot of people will weigh up the price v's the OS and still feel they have a good deal, which in a way you have.


Gary

[charlie.stross]

Calm down, people!

I've bought one of the Malaysian gray import netbooks. Unlike you guys, I didn't realise there were problems until I'd sent my money -- so I sat back and waited.

What I've got is a machine I'm satisfied with -- with qualifications. The lack of warranty support sucks, as does the inability to upgrade the OS in future. However, having said that, it *works*. Last weekend I managed to get my Netgear MA401 WLAN card (a release 1 MA401, with the supported Hermes chipset) working; the problems I've been having at home seem to relate to my access point rather than the Netbook. I *will* note that the Malaysian machines come with Opera 3.7 rather than the 5.x release in the latest version of EPOC, but I imagine if that bothers you it should be possible to obtain an upgrade via Operasoft.

Basically, if you're thinking about buying a netbook from this source on ebay, you should consider it to be a second-hand purchase of an OEM machine from a reputable seller, with one quirk -- lack of future upgradeability. (The fact that the machine had evidently never been used before I got it notwithstanding -- if it's not under warrant cover, evaluate it as you would any other s/h machine.)

I'd have to say that in my opinion, for anything under 400 quid, the price is probably right. It's not a free lunch, folks, it's a second-hand netbook. End of story.

[diem]

Thanks for the post Charlie! The one remaining unanswered question was 'Does (wireless) ethernet work?' - you've answered both these questions :)

From here on in, I'll be recommending these netBooks, with the following qualifications:

- no warranty from Psion (big deal, the warranty doesn't cover the screen anyway).
- not upgradeable. I don't expect Psion to offer any new features for netBook, and therefore I don't expect them to offer another OS upgrade, so once again big deal.
- no NetStatRF or Opera 5.14. Big deal once more - both these are available as independent downloads from Teklogix.

Okay so the ad is misleading. It doesn't change the fact that these machines are a bargain if bought for less than half the price of a unit from Expansys or wherever..

[fladda]

Remember that the Netgear MA401 (earlier model using the PrismII chipset) will not work with WEP with the Netbook. Only the Lucent Orinoco (and similar) 802.11b cards will work for WEP.

Q. Do these Malaysian Netbooks have the same version of the 802.11b drivers as the current released operating system build from Teklogix (450). Is there any way of determining the 'internal' version of the 802.11b drivers ???

Ralph

[diem]

I think that the ethernet drivers were stable by build 281, so if they aren't identical, they will be functionally close.

AFAIK, we can't get at the software version numbers; the best we can do is go by the sizes of the files involved. I have a filelist of all files involved in ethernet that I'll gladly mail to anyone who has both OSes and wants to compare..

[mynetbook]

Hi Guys, Ive been following this forum for the past 6 months. I am from Malaysia and I too bought the Netbook. The diffrence between my unit and the one-ed ver is mine has the original rom (meaning mine can be flashed). I know where this units came from as I use to work with one of One-Ed's partners and I have been in their storeroom with about 2000 units of Netbooks!!. From my last count there were about 5 full boxes left the rest has no boxes and are lying around for dust to collect, what a waste...I didnt mention about the amount of gold cards I saw..its like a hill of modem cards. I was the lucky one to actually bought a new Netbook from them for RM500 (USD 131) full box with charger, sync cable and manuals would you believe it!! Recently in Malaysia I met one company which has no background in Psion selling the Netbook for RM880 at a trade show. So for a price of USD500 isnt that great after all. I had a chance to use the School book before and Yes it cant be upgraded as the os was made specially for School books only, I have no complains about it tho except the Opera crashes too often (caused by the old ver, it supports Orinocco and Cisco wifi cards btw). If I were to tell you who the partner is you will all be shocked...just a hint its an international company that is well known for their ...communication products.

:confused: :confused:

[ehasbrouck]

"mynetbook", I've sent you some questions by private message on this board.

[Artagra]

Hi ppl

maybe an option is to buy these "School Books" and then to upgrade them using an original netbook personality module (Rom (well, really flash mem)), ala 7Book? Btw, does anyone know who to contact for importing these machines? I could sell 100's here in South Africa at those prices.

Cheers
Paul J

[netBookBabe]

Originally posted by Artagra
maybe an option is to buy these "School Books" and then to upgrade them using an original netbook personality module It would be a good option, yes, but for the fact that it seems the source of personality modules has now dried up. It appears unlikely that further supplies will become readily available.

Julie

[docpark]

I jumped at bidding on one of these mis-advertised netbooks, hoping to get a backup to my second brain, and won on ebay from bestdealbiz. I paid my winning bid ($525), but perusing the boards, I immediately realized I didn't get what I was told. I contacte bestdealbiz, and the company readily agreed to its error, and offered to refund me. Unfortunately, it took over a week and only after repeated emails, starting the ebay fraud process, and posting negative feedback -these people immediately replied on feedback that I was an irresponsible and unreasonable person and that I had been refunded when no refund was paid at that time.

Eventually, I got my refund. Truth be told, maybe they would have refunded me without the agita, but I wasn't waiting to find out. They work out of Hong Kong/Malaysia/Singapore depending on the email address, and so there is a 12-14 hour delay from the eastern US. Most people appear to be happy with the service they get, but there is a 5% who have bad experiences with these folk mostly because of delays in refunding which really should only take 24 hours.

In retrospect, the Malay netbook probably would have met my needs, but I am glad I got out. I will continue to nurse mine along.

[Clatoo]

Hello,

As said previously, I won an auction for one of thos infamous malaysian Netbook but havn't paid anything so far.

Bestdealz, the seller, has already filled a "late payment" warning to ebay about me.

This of course is over two weeks after the auction ended and after I mailed him about the fact that his add was misleading.

I am no expert Ebay buyer.

Does anyone know how to avoid getting bad feedback and / or to explain myself to ebay ?

Is there a way to warn ebay about the way those Netbooks are wrongly advertised ?

Thanks for your help.

[fladda]

Ebay is a big business. Ebay care little about individual buyers and sellers.

IMHO it is not worth wasting your time trying to reason with Ebay. Depending upon your Ebay rating either :-

1. Take the hit on your username, explaining why you did not complete the transaction.

AND/OR

2. Create a new Ebay account. Create several accounts while you're at it.

Ralph

[Clatoo]

Thanks,

I will face the music and dance.
I will also point toward PDA street forums.

[netBookBabe]

Clatoo

Bestdealbiz (US) and ezgallery (UK) are now well aware that their advertising was unfortunate and misleading - they have withdrawn the "netBooks" from eBay at present.

I have a reasonable amount of experience of trading on eBay, both buying and selling, so if you need a bit of moral support feel free to PM or e-mail me via my profile on the forums here.

Julie