UNBOXING THE AG3

Ok, so I picked up my QVC clearance AG3. I need to make it abundantly (ABUNDANTLY) clear that this was on clearance. I paid $45+shipping for something that would cost me $90+shipping from the Aerogarden website. That's half-off, people!
Financially, a no-brainer.
But there was a catch!
According to Uncle Ben, "With great power comes great responsibility!" A lesser known quote of his is, "With a great deal comes reduced choice!" How true.
I was provided two color options from QVC: An electric blue/white combo (kinda reminded me of the original iMac) and a pink and white unit. I tried to make myself tolerate the blue unit but failed. And so I bought this:

Yes... Pink and White. Laugh it up. My daughter did.

Anyway, I'll add some thoughts about the unit, some pics and a special note about a small mod I did on it immediately after opening it.

Ok, below are the typical unboxing shots. I am pretty impressed at how they designed the unit, above, to be packed into this little, cubey box.

How do they fit it in there?

That's How!

Pull those compressed paper "shelves" out, and you get:

Yep, all this fit in that box.

Assembly was literally a "snap". The piece on the left is the basin plus the electrical base. The white middle piece is the 3-pod grow deck and the right-most pink "bicycle helmet" is actually the dome. Thankfully it uses the same flat bulbs as my extra. The white vertical piece with the pink thing on top is the neck of the unit. Lift basin off of the base, snap the neck into the base, replace basin, place grow deck on top of basin and snap the hood onto the top of the neck. That pink thing is actually a release button that allows you to lift and lower the hood, as needed.

Ahh yes, the hood. Now, my Extra hood has three of the flat lights and a reflective under-surface to shine some of the up-shooting light, back onto the plants. My AG3 hood's underside was simple, white plastic.

A few questions to ponder:
Does white reflect as much as a dedicated reflective surface? No.
Will almost all of the bulb's topside light be absorbed by the plastic, much of which will be as heat? Oh, yes.
Will said plastic become yellowed and dingy as a result? Yes, again.
Will a yellowed underside of the hood absorb even more light as heat, than when it was white, thus exacerbating the problem. A final, "Yes."

So I decided to address both issues. Long-term, I have no idea if my hood mod will hold up. It was pretty spur of the moment, once I realized the hod was white underneath:

Super Hood! Now with the power of FOIL!

Yep, I glued some crudely cut-up foil to the bottom of the hood. I didn't bother to get 100% coverage so it will be interesting to see if/when the yellowing occurs, and by how much. I hope the glue hold up but it was only an Elmer's glue stick, so who knows. I said it was spur-of-the-moment.