It looks like I am ready to go hunting for a DJI AIR2S. My question is do DJI effectively price cap their drones because I only every see it for £1169.00 (for the Fly More combo). If this is the case then I am free to preference the seller over searching for a better price.
Anyone seen it for a better price than the “standard price”?
I got the air2s flymo for £630 on ebay it’s mint less the 1km flytime ,battery count 1 on each off the 3 batteries ,added refresh via the upload video method, plenty of bargains on eBay
I’m always very cautious about spending this kind of money on eBay, just in case something goes wrong. Having said that, I find it hard to pass up on a saving of £169 - the seller has 100% satisfaction, so I may wait till Monday and look at that one again. It’s brand new and still sealed.
When I was younger and dirt poor everything was second hand, from the clothes I wore to the xmas presents the parents bought me. Now Im older and finacially secure I have an abhorrent dislike of buying electronic items second hand. I feel that todays electronic gadgets have a very short lifespan and to buy second hand I am getting robbed of some of that lifespan.
My psychologist tells me to free my mind as he charges me £120 to cry my tales of woe on his couch!
LOL, yup I hear you. For me it’s the blatant profiteering that makes me mad. I absolutely happy to pay a reasonable price for an item if I believe that I am getting value for money, but it makes my blood boil when I see something that is overpriced just because the seller can.
I ride a BMW motorbike and the blatant profiteering that takes place on spare parts and accessories turns my stomach. I can go online and find an equivalent for a fraction of the cost that will serve just as well.
Like you, and probably many here, I went through years where money was very tight. That feeling of “is this worth that kinda of money” never really goes away, even when you are on a more stable financial footing.
The lifespan of electronic items is artificially short. Every electronic component has a mean time before failure rating, and if anything that rating has improved over the years. But now the complexity of electronic circuitry and the skills required have increased to the point that if a repair can’t be done by simply replacing a complete board assembly, the time and effort required to find the fault at component level is deemed no longer financially viable and the item ends up as landfill.
The majority of my drone collection has come via eBay as “spares or repairs”. One example was a near new (many items still sealed) Parrot Anafi Extended package that was described as “completely dead”. The cause of death was a loose ribbon cable. Another was a Blade Chroma package. The owner said it had been sent to Horizon Hobby for repair but HH claimed the flight controller had failed and they would require £400 to replace it. The actual cause of its erratic flight performance was due to dirt in one of the controller’s gimbals. A quick squirt of switch cleaner and all was good again.
A bonafide (sp) repair service is considered non-profitable to companies these days. This is why expensive extended warranties (usually with a multitude of clauses that exclude the repair) are now enthusiastically offered. If you’re fortunate enough to be successful making a claim then you’ll most likely receive a replacement rather than your original item as the required repair is most likely beyond the skill level of the companies service department.
I completely get that, in fact I have been horrified in the past when I have watched videos where someone is replacing, say and arm, on a Mavic Pro. They open the case to expose the motor connections on the main board and the factory soldering on these thousand pound + drones is something I would reject as being not up to standard. It’s horrifying to look at.
That’s what I mean about “value for money”.
If I may, here’s another story about built in “time to fail” shenanigans.
Many, Many years ago I worked in an automotive exhaust factory in Oxford. They specialized in exhausts, radiators and oil coolers for the big Jaguars and Rovers of the time. My Wife has just reminded my that this was 45+ years ago, before I even knew her.
Anyway, I was working either on the welding line or the heavy metal bending and wrapping machines. Loosing a finger to one of these things was the least of your problems if you got it wrong. My shift was working the metal folding machines on exhaust silencer boxes and I thought that they were going through the machine upside down. I mentioned this to the supervisor and the nice chap used some colorful language to encourage me back to work and to stop asking questions.
It was only later on (I was astonishingly naive in those days ) that I realized that this was done on purpose so that, once fully assembled, the silencer seam would face up towards the underside of the car. That way when it went through a puddle the water would pool in the seam and, over time, rot the seam until it burst. Built in lifespan of about two years.
It was all about guaranteeing a future revenue stream.
This nonsense has been going on for a very long time
Sorry for the extended story telling, feel free to blame @Nidge for triggering me
Not always, purchased software from Wowcher, software download would not work, contacted Wowcher contacted vender, no reply, raised a claim with PayPal but had no luck with them, they stated that the item I received was the item advertised, so could not accept the claim, cheers Len
Money? I still think in £.s.d! drives the wife mad especially when I whine that a bread roll costs the equivalent of 6 old shillings
(I remember when they cost me as a kid in school an old halfpenny…if I had a halfpenny)…Times was 'ard son…
Re soldering. Some years ago a mention in a model aircraft mag recommended opening the rear cover of an RC tranny turn tranny upside down give it a shake …true enough bits of solder and wire ends fell out…QC? I think not on a lot of stuff…
Just get aload of this nonsense, I taught my kids to solder better than this (incidentally, I screen capped this from a repair video - It’s not my work).
It used to be the case, particularly from China, that you would see alot of dry solders and that was the most common reason for a failure (damned things just came loose), these days it can be just about anything.
My purchase should arrive tomorrow so I am hoping it doesn’t turn out to be a photo of an AIR2S inside the box. It definitely has buyer protection so I would go after that first and slaughter them with a negative review while I was waiting.