Anybody Tempted By The Cheap C7xx Models On Ebay

[HoloVector]

I noticed some cheap c700, c750, c760 and c860s listed on eBay from Japan lately.  All under $50US.  Anybody got the Pokemon urge to "gotta catch them all"?  

[Varti]

There are a lot of them on the japanese Yahoo Auction site too, and they are indeed tempting  I just got hold of a 5500 and an 860, but I'd still love a 3100/3200 for my collection. Do sellers on ebay.jp usually ship overseas too? At least on Auction you can order via Buyee, so they take care of buying the items and sending them to you.

Varti

[HoloVector]

There are a lot of them on the japanese Yahoo Auction site too, and they are indeed tempting  I just got hold of a 5500 and an 860, but I'd still love a 3100/3200 for my collection. Do sellers on ebay.jp usually ship overseas too? At least on Auction you can order via Buyee, so they take care of buying the items and sending them to you.

Varti

Most Japanese will not ship outside of Japan.  You need to through an online broker like Rinkya, Mail Order Japan or Buyee.  The one used to use was Mail Order Japan.  First thing you do is create an account with them and PayPal them at least 50% of your max bid price.  They have an auto translation feature for Yahoo Auctions in Japan so it makes it easy to find what you looking for you then place your bid using the brokers yahoo japan auction account and wait for the auction to end.  If you win the broker will send you an invoice for the final amount and you transfer that over through PayPal.

[Varti]

Thanks for the explanation. I believe this is the best time to get a Zaurus at a good price, as they will eventually become more rare and prices will inevitably rise, so if you were thinking of getting one, do it now. Better still, please post here a link to the item you are bidding to, so that we don't end up bidding on the same item and raise the final selling price.

Varti

[HoloVector]

Thanks for the explanation. I believe this is the best time to get a Zaurus at a good price, as they will eventually become more rare and prices will inevitably rise, so if you were thinking of getting one, do it now. Better still, please post here a link to the item you are bidding to, so that we don't end up bidding on the same item and raise the final selling price.

Varti

Good point Varti!

I think it is already happening for Cxxxx.  There is a used C1000 on there that is going for almost the price as paid for mine new.  I'm tempted by the "broken C3000" so I can try to fix it then use it for distro shopping but I just got burned on an HP 100LX that I thought I could fix.  I fixed the first issue with power only to find it has a bad LCD.  

[Varti]

I'm tempted by the "broken C3000" so I can try to fix it then use it for distro shopping but I just got burned on an HP 100LX that I thought I could fix.  I fixed the first issue with power only to find it has a bad LCD.  

Sad to hear that, unfortunately most of the times there's no way to find out what needs to be fixed on any non-working hardware until you start working on it. Also, I wouldn't waste money on that C3000, even if you manage to buy it for next to nothing the shipping fees would still make it not worth risking, IMHO.

Varti

[HoloVector]

Well that didn't last long. Looks like the age of cheap Zaurii on eBay is over.  Look at this...

eBay Insanity

What the......  Neither one of them have batteries and the C700 runs at half speed compared to the rest of Cxxx line because it has a processor/hardware bug.  

[Varti]

I remember those two SL-C700 being advertised here: https://stingraze.wordpress.com/ And if that blog's post is correct, they could have been bought for half of the price with the Buy it now option. If you are willing to spend so much with that maximum bid price, then better to buy them immediately and not risk to have to spend that much, I guess the seller was very confident that the price won't rise that much. Still, great news for the seller.

And indeed, good luck with those PXA250 heh. I hope that auctions like that don't become a trend.

Varti

[HoloVector]

Varti, what search engine are you using?  It amazes me how find things like this.  

[Varti]

Varti, what search engine are you using?  It amazes me how find things like this.  

I have a bookmarked Google search page, which I run once a week to hunt any interesting news regarding Zaurus  It is set to search for

Code: [Select]

"sharp" "zaurus" -wikikeywordresearch -wikikeywordtoolwith the time set to "past week". I had to exclude those two wikikeyword keywords since I'm lately getting lots of results with those keywords, which are actually a copy of the Zaurus' Wikipedia entry, no idea what they are about.

Varti

[speculatrix]

I have two batteries for a C3xxx, when we were burgled they didn't steal the accessories. I think I have a CF bluetooth card too - the Zaurus was stolen with a CF wired network card installed. I'm happy to send the batteries to someone, no warranty, for the cost of postage because I have no idea if they're any good.

[Varti]

I have two batteries for a C3xxx, when we were burgled they didn't steal the accessories. I think I have a CF bluetooth card too - the Zaurus was stolen with a CF wired network card installed. I'm happy to send the batteries to someone, no warranty, for the cost of postage because I have no idea if they're any good.

I'm interested, PM sent.

Varti

[Varti]

@speculatrix: I have received all the goods - thanks again! The original Sharp battery works as expected, I'll check how long does it last when fully charged. I had no luck with the other battery though, my 860's charger led started blinking after I attempted to recharge it, I'll try again on my 1000 to see if it's a battery compatibility issue. The BT card is correctly recognised under the stock Sharp ROM, I'll try under Cacko to enable it. The CF 4M card also still works, despite it's age (it has been manufactured in 1995, apparently  ); it will be handy for flashing kexecboot on devices which support flashing only via the CF slot, such as the 5500.

 [ Invalid Attachment ]

Varti

[speculatrix]

I threw in the bluetooth card as a bonus, because I thought the batteries might be dead and wanted to make posting the parcel be useful. I thought the 4MB might just possibly be useful for something like flashing a kernel!
I figure the home made battery (which I bought from someone on this forum) is probably useful if you dismantle it to see how it was made, so you can make your own.

[Varti]

I figure the home made battery (which I bought from someone on this forum) is probably useful if you dismantle it to see how it was made, so you can make your own.

I believe it must have been built by this guy:

https://www.oesf.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=13084

He basically adapted a battery for Nokia phones, and added a thermistor to it for temperature control. It remains to be seen if there's any recently manufactured type of battery which could be adapted in a similar way. Cameron Sino used to produce Zaurus compatible batteries (there are still some old stocks of them on sale on ebay and similar sites), I was thinking to get in touch with them and ask them if they still produce new batches of them. I wonder also if there's anyone here interested in a newly manufactured battery, I'd be interested in getting two or three of them. Ironically, there's a note on their website indicating that they are closing their (only) office in Hong Kong on the 5th of October (which is today):

http://www.cameronsino.com

I wonder if that means that they're closing for good or if they're just moving location, they also have a factory in Shenzen: http://www.cameronsino.com/Contact.aspx

Otherwise, there's always the option of making new batteries by ourselves with a 3D printer, I have seen there is some info in older posts on the PCB and pins layout used in the Sharp's original batteries.

Varti