Thanks for reminding me I needed to order some water decals for my Masterpiece figures. I’ve been meaning to order some from Uncle Billy’s for a while.

 

I shouldn't have to, you ALWAYS need more decals.  

 

Fastest of the bunch!

 

My Jabber arrived yesterday. Managed to transform him to car and back, but by Jove are the sides of the car fiddly. Will have another go sometime and see if I can get it any smoother.
Looks good, though.

 

Be sure to check the hinges that snap on the outside. Even though it works and doesn't immediately break I did find that mine had cracked almost the whole way through on both sides.

I put some superglue on the outside to try and strength it. Not transforming it again as far as i plan at the moment.

 

Has anyone received replacement leg hinges yet? I'm still waiting on mine. Do they go on ok with damaging themselves?

 

Ultimately you are going to have to pop out and reinsert pins, which if you aren’t well versed in doing you can damage the parts. There are sets you can buy to pop the pins out which I would recommend getting.

my replacement parts are on the way but I don’t plan on putting them on unless the existing parts break all the way.

 

Turn the head around backwards, then use it to press down on the tab. Should lock it in.

 

Nice tip! Now I really like him! I was getting very annoyed with that darn tab. Thanks!!

 

This didn't work for me. Almost like there is no tab lip at all. I even took the head off and pushed directly on the ball peg (to not damage the head) and that held all of 2 seconds...

 

In that case, you may have some flash in the slot, which is somewhat common. Check it, and if so, you can clean it out with a hobby knife.

 

Got this dude for my birthday, wife bought it for me and what a surprise as I didn't ask for it. Now I have to figure out how to sell it off without hurting her feeling as I don't want a purple Blurr.

 

Ouch

 

Just get divorced.

 

So, finally got a chance to fiddle with this guy today and have to agree with most of the posts about how fiddly he is. Managed to get him almost completely transformed without any instructions or guides, but for the life of me, could not get his nose to tab all the way into the side arms for the crotch plate to peg over them. Best as I can tell from a few other posts, I might have to do some minor trimming, because everything else lines up perfectly sans nose.

As an afterthought to anyone having issues getting his head to tab in to lock everything in place, have you guys made sure the flip-down tab in his back is down and in position to lock his whole torso in place? Mine came with it flat in the package, but once I locked it in place, the neck tab locked in easy without any issue.

 

I just received a payment notice from my TaoBao seller for Jabber. I originally pre-ordered but missed the "first-run" deadline. I guess this means either a second run is incoming or the later part of the first batch is still rolling our. Ironically I ended up picking up Jabber from another TaoBao retailer more than a week after release, who had several in stock, so I didn't even really need to pre-order!!
This will be my alt mode copy. Didn't bother transforming my first as I knew he'd be displayed in bot mode. Will be interested, though a little wary, of transforming #2 into alt mode. Hopefully no issues with mine.

I wish my second copy of Spoiler would also arrive. Exact same pre-order shenanigans happened with him, but I have yet to hear from the retailer anything about more stock coming in.

 

Congrats. Interested to hear on the price difference between pre order and your first purchase. I know it differs for everyone but for me, it's worth pre ordering and pocketing the savings

 

The preorder came in at 450 yuan. The in-stock purchase was 545 yuan. (neither price includes shipping)
So about an AUD $20 difference. That's pretty substantial but also pretty unusual for a TB Pre-order discount I think? Normally in the range of maybe $10. I was late to the game with my in-stock order due to Darkmount screwing me around so missed the better in-stock prices - they were around 500 yuan when Jabber was first released.
But it entailed an extra month or more of waiting, there was no certainty around when the product would actually arrive, and I had to pester the seller repeatedly. My Spoiler "pre-order" (from a different, equally annoying seller) may not arrive for another 2 or 3 months into next year according to the seller. Assuming that seller even honors my pre-order at all at that point.  

There's definitely a saving to be had from pre-ordering, but it also entails extra run-around to get the seller to fulfil, and TaoBao is really not well equipped to manage the pre-order process.
I have all the remaining up-and-coming FT products pre-ordered with Thor and Little Bee (because they are reliable and people I trust here have recommended them) but for any other companies figures, I don't think I'll usually bother to pre-order very often. Discounts are usually on the order of about $10 or less and the added hassle and drama is frustrating to me.

The savings from TaoBao are enough below other retailers that I will put up with a certain level of drama but once that drama starts to regularly impact my enjoyment of the process, I'll explore other options. For now, TaoBao is worth it. TaoBao pre-orders? ... well the juries still out on that.

I don't pre-order very often so Spoiler and Jabber were in the way of testing the waters. Neither filled me with confidence. If the Thor and Little Bee pre-orders run more smoothly, I may embrace the pre-order process a little more fully. Maybe.

 

From the few FT preorders I've tracked, $20 seems to be the general pre order saving. Your experience kinda confirms it. For others it seems to be much much less. Only saving maybe $5, here and there. Zeta, TE, X-Transbots seem to be in this space.

I guess though you learn from those purchases and you ask if the preorder is first or second batch. It's what I'll be doing going forward

 

@minstral @Starganderfish My observations are the same as yours. I believe the pre-order savings are driven by the fervour behind Fans Toys offerings. Take the two combiners being built at this moment: Fans Toys Menasor & MMC's Bruticus. The released Menasor bots are hardly in-stock, but MMC's bots are easy to find. Therefore Fans Toys in-stock prices are driven up by market demand. I'm also pretty sure some sellers place algorithms to automatically hike prices up based on the rate that stock moves off their inventory.