Exactly. I canceled my pre-order for the same reason. I have some vaporizers that were very expensive new, and never lived up to the hype they received, so I never use them.
I'm not allowed to name names, but let's just say I've got a really beautiful, red paperweight, with an interesting glass window on the top. By far the most expensive paperweight I've ever had the misfortune to own.
On the other hand, I've got a Solo which is incredibly boring, but it sure works, and does everything I need it to do. Maybe it doesn't heat up as fast as I'd like, but I've realized that gaining a few seconds while I'm sitting at my desk browsing the web anyway is not worth risking $$ on something that may crap out on me eventually anyway. From the sound of it, the probability of that happening is just too high.
And if the company goes out of business, I'll have an expensive silver paperweight sitting on my desk next to my red one. Maybe, when that happens, some clever individual can make money selling replacement ink cartridges to fit the Grasshopper's body. At least then it will be useful for something.
Come to think of it, if I needed to pay for shipping every time the stupid thing started flashing red and blue, or smoking out the back, then it's still too much trouble to own one given how frequently that seems to happen to people around here.
And, finally, I frankly don't need that form factor. It's cute, but it seems like there is a high price to be paid for that cuteness. A lot of compromises and points of failure. Like a short vapor path (with a silicon condom to protect your lips), bits that need to screw on and off, potential high resistance to current flows, custom battery size (and short battery life), etc. etc. And for what? So you can have a little vaporizer that looks like a pen and fits in your pocket?
Cute, and some people really, honestly require that particular form factor. But for people (like me) who do not actually need a vaporizer that looks like something else, imagine how much better it could have been if they would have started with a completely blank page, and just designed the best possible vaporizer they could, regardless what it looked like?
It would probably be a lot more reliable. It would probably be a lot nicer to use, too. And, even if it didn't look like a friggen pen, there's no reason why it couldn't be beautiful in it's own way. There's an inherent beauty in form that perfectly follows function. Besides, I'm not after a fashion accessory that also happens to be a vaporizer: I just want the best designed, most functional, reliable vaporizer for my money.
Even if the Grasshopper worked perfectly, it clearly is NOT that.
But, hey, my hats off to all of the brave souls beta testing this product. As for me, I'll wait for one that is designed from the ground up to be a VAPORIZER, and not some cute, pen looking thing.
Sorry to tell you I canceled my pre-order, not cause the wait but cause the actual reliability/durability issues....
I own severals vaporizers and the first to be sold was the one who need repairs and since I live across the seas it's could be expensive for me.
