I know it's OT, but when I'm shopping, often for something electronic, I am amazed at how badly reviewed some products are. Maybe I'm getting old and curmudgeonly, but it seems some kinds of products fail all the time or fail enough to infuriate consumers. On top of that others have terrible customer service and shoddy warranties. Others seem downright dangerous. I keep reading these reviews where someone mentioned an electronic device caught on fire. For instance, I was trying to find a backup battery for my modem and a medical alert system for a relative, and both seem replete with bad reviews. Both of those products especially a medical alert system seem like important enough products to people's lives you figure some company would make a really good reliable and affordable one, but I don't see that at all. Or is it just the age we live in where everyone is complaining online? Is there any one product that drives you nuts and you've never bought a good one that lasted for a long time? How often do you buy something that just breaks? Or did you ever have something catch on fire?
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First, let me say people will often voice a review when they have had a problem with it. Someone who really loves the product might also do it. For most others, they have other things to do than review.
What I do is read the top 5 bad and top 5 good reviews to guage if the person knows WTF he is talking about. Some 5* reviews are like "the product looks so cool. A++". That's a worthless endorsement. Some 1* reviews are not about how the product is at all. They simply say something like "Horrible customer service. Stay away!". Not very helpful other than you might begin to suspect issues in the company back office. While it is easy to be "social" people seldom want to say "thank you" but will always look to "curse" you.
Regarding, how many times do things just break. They tend to be the "heavy" items. Refrigerator, HVAC, Microwave. Things that you NEED. Otherwise it is a subjective issue. When your fridge breaks down or microwave breaks down, they no longer try to fix it. They will simply replace the circuit board in its entirety either because diagnosis is not worth it, or it costs them next to nothing (though they charge you and arm and a leg when you purchase it), and more often than not, they have no freakin' clue.
You would think a medical device whose malfunction can be catastrophic would have better quality control. Then again, electronics these days is sort of monolithic. Doubt how much quality control is done on each of the 200 chips on a circuit board. They probably just do QC on the board itself. In the olden days each component had to be quality tested. Things lasted "forever". My MIL owns a General Electric Fridge. It went by ship from Philadelphia to England in 1965 after being in use for 2 years. Then it came again (I dunno whether by plane or ship) back to the states in 1995. It still works.
Remember, if things don't go bad, you will never need to buy again. That warranty you see on the back of your device - if it lasts longer than that, count your blessings. I stopped buying extended warranties long time back figured it was not worth it and given I rediscovered what I learnt during my undergrad and can fix most things that go bad from my microwave to my wireless router. One thing I do is buy Costco always which doubles your manufacturer warranty.
PS - My Nick is an honest admission. When my friends were learning to do bullshit (i.e., getting MBAs and practicing it, i.e. playing Golf) I returned to my hobby of buying, fixing, selling Vintage audio. It used to be my escape for a decade. Then after I got a bad electric shock (forgot to discharge a humongous capacitor before touching), my wife laid down the law. So now I fix laptops.
PPS - Never overpay for Electronics and you will not go wrong. Learn to live without them when you can and you will never overpay. While it is hard to admit, ask yourself whether you NEED something or WANT something and you will never be upset when electronics goes bad.
PPPPPPPS - Dust. Be Anal about Dust. Dust = Heat. Clean. Then electronics will last so long, you will be upset you can't simply buy new because its against your religion to throw something that still works.
And ongoing --- a new one will drop her electric bill enormously.
The rest of your points: it depends. Some things are well-made and tightly QCed these days. Audio included. And do you recall how often you had to fix cars in the 1970s? Compared with today? Cleaner emissions aside.
Roger about dust, for sure.
You paid good money for something in olden days, then it WAS good. It was built to last. That's how companies made their reputation. Who looked for manufacturer warranty when you purchased anything? Today they SELL you extended warranty. Why? Today things are built to fail. Reputation? Who gives a flying f***? THAT is my point.
On the other hand, a dust buildup is certainly going to increase the heating on the boards, and that surely isn't good.
Any thoughts? How about canned compressed air?
I can't stand stuff that isn't working well, so I know what products are bad. I have hot-rodded cars, modified computers, done plumbing, electrical, etc. I'm not afraid to take things apart and I can usually fix them. I've had success ordering electrical, plumbing, appliance and automotive parts online; there is just an amazing amount of DIY info that has made my life easier. I had never heard of an idle air control valve before buying an old Nissan 300ZX for a retirement project, but I have learned to service that part and lots more, all due to the generosity of an active online community.
Before you clean make sure you wait for item to cool down. If you see a wad of dust not coming out easily don't blow harder. I get all kinds of crap on what I fix. One time I actually washed a motherboard with water and let it dry for 3 days then cleaned it with 95% alchohol. It probably was used in a desert had so much gunk on it.
Prevention, then Maintenance, and hopefully no need to cure. It takes a little effort. For example your amplifier. Cover the vents when not in use. NOW, you need to make sure you uncover prior to use as well or you will cause it to heat up. Less dust, less clean up, less chance of messing up. Just an example.
You also have to know how to USE a device sometimes. You blast a speaker you will damage it. You have to know what you are doing. Or you open the back of an amplifier, dust springs into your nose, then you sneeze snot onto the circuit board you cannot see (sorry for the graphic image of you doing that). S*** happens.
Basically just like for everything else in life, you have to know what you are doing and what you don't you will suck at it. I'm good with Electronics. Some people are good at Golf. Some people are good at buying Stocks AND Selling them at right time. Then some people are good at posting links to every single article on MFO.
PS - Sunday Mornings are "Do Not Disturb" day for me. My wife goes to pray. I don't, since I am beyond help. I do things like pay my bills, hack into stuff, fix stuff, etc. I know someone who takes apart his bike every freakin' weekend and puts it back. My point - don't worry if your Electronics going bad. Other things in your life are not because you care about them and so take care about them. Those things Yours Truly pays for out his wazoo.
PPS - You didn't ask, but the number one complaint I hear from people is about their Wireless Routers dropping connections over time. It's dust and heat. Simple remedy is to keep the router face down with vents up or vertical if you have a stand. NOW, this means more dust so you have clean often, BUT it also means better heat dissipation. My WirelessN Router is 12 years old (purchased used for $20) and it still works like a champ (there is really no need to buy a wifi router faster than your incoming MBPS and pay a fortune doing it). I'm not trying to boast, just stating a fact.
Enjoy the weekend, Derf
And while Amazon’s Fire & Kindle tablets are pretty decent devices (more than decent actually) their customer phone support is horrible. You often get folks who barely speak English and act like they’re in a life and death race to drop your call and move on to the next unfortunate soul. Difference between Apple’s phone support and Amazon’s is night and day.
Here’s the list: (sorry this is more about service than product):
- Microsoft-based computers
- Amazon tablet devices (due to poor support)
- Silver Airways (a small regional carrier based in Ft. Lauderdale which also flies under the “United” banner between several Florida cities). If you don’t believe me, Google their complaints.
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>> You paid good money for something in olden days, then it WAS good. It was built to last. That's how companies made their reputation. Who looked for manufacturer warranty when you purchased anything? Today they SELL you extended warranty. Why? Today things are built to fail. Reputation? Who gives a flying f***? THAT is my point.
no small part of which is demonstrable bunk (and seems odd from someone who has done a lot of repairs --- have you been reading CU reports for decades, as I have?), seems in my viewpoint just 'get offa my lawn'. But obvs ymmv and de gustibus etc.
Also, I’ve noticed far more plastic parts with a tendency to break in most products today. I’ll give you an example. Three years ago I bought a Peugeot pepper mill. Aside from the company’s well known auto manufacturing, it is rather famous as one of the oldest makers of quality pepper mills and hand coffee grinders. So I thought it was a quality product only to discover inside of it were plastic parts that soon broke and the company has so far refused to honor its warranty. I believe the old fashioned kind of fine tool manufacturing on steel and metal parts is expensive and a lost art for many product today that are just considered disposable. In other words, I think VF has a point.
Is or was Peugeot well-regarded for auto reliability? They may have made unwise decisions, but I bet no one there aimed for disposable product in grinders. Some other categories, maybe.
https://google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-europe-42615378
I rest my case about your unsophistication here. I am pretty surprised, I must say. I find you so savvy and self-correcting in your finance / investment articles and posts.
I worked for tech companies for 40y of a widely varied range, CE, security, software, hardware, mil, robotics, med devices, networking, and much more. From wee startups to Bell Labs, from small CE to BBN. I sure do agree and know that outsiders and journalists regularly assume the worst, not just cynicism but happy controlling paranoia. Business journalists like you are at the very top of self-gullibility, without having a clue about it either in self-awareness / self-skepticism or true engineering culture insights; everyone knows that as well, at least in the engineering depts. Not that there aren't evil grubby MBA types in marketing. But the zeal for lots of worthy things, reliability and performance and UX above all, all overwhelmingly customer- and business-driven, is dominant. Sorry, and extra-sorry this sounds pollyannaish. The Apple battery thing is a perfect example. Get to know some working engineers. They do get frustrated and overruled all the time as to cost-cutting and margins, but see how many have been ordered to design and build and spec as you claim. Engineering is one area in which we can still have a little faith, in my extensive experience.
Or perhaps this is just another instance of a business journalist full of “self gullibility?”: https://newyorker.com/business/currency/the-l-e-d-quandary-why-theres-no-such-thing-as-built-to-last
Seriously rude, man.
All of your other points are true but quite to the side. Did you think CDs was chiefly this plot to get us to buy our music collections a second or third time? Did you think hi-rez audio (which is bullshit, but was and is sincerely believed) was a plot to get us to do it a fourth or fifth time? Oh, those poor turntables in landfills. (Now being mined for the new idiot vinyl fad.)
I believe you have altogether missed the subtle point of the NYer piece.
Apologies for rudeness. As I say, your take, from you or any journalist like you, is very surprising to me. Your "by design" is dumbfounding to me. But I see where you are coming from. I know lots of wide-eyed supercynical journalists who think along these lines. They can hardly cover pharm, or tech, much less politics. "Har, the head person said common good, get serious, what a crock." You're not among them, seems to me. This is not imputing mustache-twirling to your vision.
And about the way they were --- I bet you have been CU reliability ratings since the 1960s.
And you overlooked what I said in my post about your lack of cynicism.
But here you are largely mistaken. I say, with reasoning. My substantiated opinion. That's all.
I remain puzzled that you think I did not read the NYer piece; yes about LEDs.
Your last sentence is yet another canard (I charge; you can disagree; please do not take personally again) which has proved not remotely true for Japanese auto companies. In fact more than one of them have built entire ad campaigns centered on 85% of all ____ ever made are still on the road. Etc. My owning of ancient Priuses, whose hoods I still have not opened anywhere near as often as my cars of adolescence, young adulthood, and middle age, has not hurt Toyota a whit, insofar as it has meant that I recommended my children and sibs buy the same (which they have). How oh how has Toyota done as well as it has?
Same with flatscreen TVs. Do you have any idea how insanely reliable they have proved?
Compare cars and TVs with the good old days.
There are many more examples.
TVs have dropped in price like a stone, and still they almost never break. People get new or better or the latest --- and almost always larger --- or are forced to switch from plasma (when it does break) to something other, since nobody makes plasma anymore.
If I had been editing that piece I would asked for some serious work on this aspect of the issue.
The solid waste problem is just huge, also all the packaging these goods come in, not to mention shipping distance (carbon footprint). How many hot summers till production revolution and shipping panics set in?
I am waiting to hear how glass bottles shipped round the world get outlawed. For inexpensive wines (Aussie and LA bulk, e.g.) the bottle at your local store would cost the same if it contained water or air. I remember learning >30y ago working in CE that a given audio component coming to Mass. (where it had been designed) from Japan OEM would have the same ~$80 landed cost and then CGS if our nifty circuitry had not been inside and the can were mostly empty.
@LewisBraham: That concept became "inoperative" when Bell Labs and Western Electric were broken up.
I come to the same conclusion with hank that Apple products are well designed and built with quality parts. My MacPro laptop and iMac are over 6 years old, but they are running perfectly fine. Whereas my Windows workstation at work went through 2 refresh cycles with either hard drive failure or virus infection in less than 4 years. I pretty much gave up on my Windows 10 PC at home and now run it under Linux OS. The initial cost for the Apple's hardware is higher and the user experience is priceless.
Cars are well built today providing that you keep up with the maintance, thus a ten years period of ownership is reasonable. We gravitated toward Toyota and Honda since the college days and have had excellent experience. The youngest model was made in 2011 (7 years old Odyssey) and the oother made in 1991 (27 years old Civic). One of our kid in college is driving a 5 years old Civic.
Perhaps luck has a lot to do with electrical devices and cars.
@Sven, roger re maintenance, but the other thing about cars is they now need so little, or so much less frequently. Wild. Tolerances, man. It's not that you never have to buy another one with cars, but as I age it's easy to see that the next new one might well be the last.
I have had good luck w W10 at home, but a lot of memory helps. HD failures I have had all had enough time warnings and flaky behaviors to stay ahead of them. We replaced an old GE fridge (which is what started this thread, I think), which was a workhorse indeed, with a fancy new LG from Costco, and some performance areas are improved, but boy is the energy usage lower and cheaper. Wow.
What happened? The “Japanese invasion” of high quality autos taught Americans that they didn’t have to put up with such nonsense. The Japanese imports began to take a bigger and bigger slice out of the U.S. markets. It wasn’t just that they were designed better, but that the U.S. makers had begun turning out real junk.
When the U.S. makers finally got the idea they began investing in better designs and adding quality. But they had a long way to go. American autos eventually improved dramatically. I first noticed the improvement with a new ‘09 Ford Fusion I owned. This new launch was a collaborative effort between Ford and Mazda. (And boy did Ford need Mazda’s design engineers.) I was told that there was virtually no difference between the Fusion and its Mazda counterpart in the early years. So that’s the birth of the Fusion, one of the better cars Ford ever produced. Quiet, solid, nicely appointed, etc. Eventually the two partners parted ways and Ford continued on its own to refine the Fusion. Haven’t driven one in at least 5 years, but the last one I drove seemed as good or better than the earlier models.
Electronics? Everything I’ve bought for the past 10-20 years has been very durable. The only TV that had an issue was struck by lightening. And it still partially functioned. I’ve had about a dozen tablet devices (ipads, Kindles, Amazon Fires) and have never worn one out. Generally it’s the unplanned obsolescence that catches you now. They just become outdated. I did have one lithium ion battery swell up in an iphone (a known issue and potential fire hazard).One call to Apple and they agreed to a free exchange - even though it was out of warranty. And I “tested” an old Ipad by repeatedly smashing with a heavy sledge hammer on a cement drive. I was unable to break it. Strong as steel.
Our family like Apple products dur to their reliability and ease of use. So far we have no virus issue unlike the Windows computers we had. It seems that each generation of Windows OS have gotten bigger and so does the hardware, especially the amount of RAM memory. At work I had mine workstation max out at 128 GB and that is silly whereas my iMac can do the same task with half of the RAM. Battery is an area that plagues the electronic industry including Apple. Think about the lithium ion battery in Samsung Notes 7 phones that caught on fire! Despite all these issues, I think we are spoil for how good these devices are. Today theses tablet computers and smartphones can do so much comparing to the desktop computers in 10 years ago.