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Has the Quality of Consumer Electronics Declined?
NewtonsLaw asks: "With Christmas coming up I dare say that lots of people are going to spend big bucks on consumer electronics in the next few weeks. This column asks an interesting question -- are consumer electronics manufacturers sacrificing quality and reliability for an endless list of features? If you're like me, you've probably got a TV, VCR or other appliance you bought over 5 years ago which is still going strong -- but much of the stuff you've bought in the past 2-3 years is already giving trouble. What's more, it seems to be the big-name manufacturers such as Sony who are most affected by this decline in standards. I'd love to hear the experiences of other Slashdot readers in an effort to get as many data-points as possible. Are you better off buying a $49 DVD player on the expectation that it will only last a year or so -- or do lay out two or three times that amount something made by a big-name manufacturer in the (possibly vain) hope it will provide superior performance and last longer?"
In America at least, I think the struggling economy is mostly to blame. Manufacturers are just trying to cut costs to bring their profit margins up, and one of the easiest ways of cutting costs is cutting quality.
This seems to be a disturbing and all to common trend, but hopefully they (manufacturers) will get bit in the ass by customer support and replacement costs, causing them to rethink their strategy!
I find that most often I end up learning from necessity, rather than for enjoyment.
The quality has declined across the board, but high quality parts are still available. As demand from retailers like M$, Wal-Mart, Best Buy and others increases for discounted electronics, the supply likewise increases.
However, as more and more people become "Tech Savvy" there are more manufacturers willing to produce the high quality, awesome electronics that modern geeks will shell out the cash to buy.
So has overall quality declined, maybe...but the good stuff is still there to be had. Just don't go cheap on everything you buy.
I would say that overall, Sony equipment is made to last. It's not the most feature-rich for the dollar, but it tends to work for a long time. I had a Sony boombox during the entire 80s. Never missed a note. Their car audio is ugly and underpowered, but also works forever. Samsung is on the opposite end of the spectrum. Sure I can play Nuon games on my DVD player, but what good is that if it freezes right before the $$$-shot in my favorite pr0n?
If you fall off a building, go real limp, because maybe you'll look like a dummy and people will be like hey, free dummy
Actually, I'm a big fan of 20 year old hardware, where it can be used. I find solid state electronics from the 1970's to be absoutely reliable. But I tend to agree, consumer level electronics, by and large, are garbage unless you're willing to shop somewhere other than Circuit Shitty or Worst Buy.
As far as computer components go, they've been garbage for years. Everything past the old IBM XT's have been plastic disposable junk, btu for good reason. Most people upgrade so quickly, there's no reason to make good, lasting components. As far as computer stuff, I buy the cheapest I can find, and just throw it out every so often.
---- El diablo esta en mis pantalones! Mire, mire!
We, as consumers, by buying the cheapest, lowest-quality stuff out there, are responsible for this. The old adage is true: You get what you pay for. As more and more companies keep cutting costs to satisfy out demands for cheap products by using low-cost parts and low-cost labor(China), this is just going to get worse and worse.
I swear the quality of these has declined over the past 10 years. There used to be a time when I could reliably transfer a file between machines on these. Now I open a new packet and 4/10 won't work.
--
0x00
I wonder what role, if any, those play into this? Would manufacturers, as a whole, be more inclined to produce lower quality goods with the justification that consumer protection plans are out there? Or would retailers balk at this... or push up the price on those... or use quality as a major selling point for these plans?
I think though, in almost all goods, there is the perception that older is more reliable. This isn't anything new, but is it really becoming true right now?
Long, long ago, there used to be umbrella repair shops. Eventually umbrellas became so cheap that you just throw them away when they break (which happens pretty fast) and just buy new ones.
It's much the same with consumer electronics. For example, VCR/TV repair places in my town are either struggling or have already gone out of business. Things are so cheap these days that you might as well buy a new one when the old one breaks.
So, basically quality has indeed gone down, but prices have dropped accordingly.
We live in a disposable society. Disposable cell phones seem like a huge waste to me, but they're cheap.
The "good" stuff is still good. We just got more "cheap" stuff that does the basic stuff only the "good" stuff used to do.
The best example is the stand-alone $49 DVD player. To somebody that is not a total video freak, the $49 does the same job as a $200 unit. My first DVD player cost me $300, a Toshiba that worked for over 2 yrs without any problem. My second DVD player was for my PC and cost me $80. My third one was a stand alone that came as part of a Teac receiver combo and cost $150 with 5.1 speakers plus FM radio (no, they don't sound like Bose, but dammit, that's $150 for a 5.1 home theater). I bought another combo like that one for $130. My wife buys $49 DVD players for my little kid so if they break out of warranty we are out of just $50 (a cheap VCR costs more).
Each and every DVD player I have bought looks exactly the same on my piece of crap TV. Every one. The original Toshiba was the only one with a decent remote, that is the only thing I have to say on its defense. Each of the $49 DVD players we have bought can read VCD and MP3 CDRs and CDRWs. The last one she got is smaller than our digital cable box, and weights maybe 1/3rd of what my xbox does.
Notice I said this only applies if you are not a video freak. To us normal Joes, a DVD plays the same regardless, and the only thing you can do to make it better is to get a better TV.
There are many more examples like this, but to me the most obvious is the cheapo DVD players.
Pedro
----
The Insomniac Coder
What difference does it make if quality is less? This has always been part of our capitalist economy: high-end, mid-grade and low-end. Cars, clothes, appliances, furniture, etc. all fall into this statement.
Is a $50 DVD player lower quality than a $300 unit? Who knows. Read Consumer Reports (or epinions, Consumer Reviews, etc.) and decide for yourself.
No one can make a blanket statement that says less expensive electronics mean less quality!
Look at the back of most current 25" TVs. Today you are lucky to see even an audio out on them. Of course, they are a fraction of the price at introduction.
Ultimately, the mfg has to optimize (reduce) everything to keep in the market place. That includes the features, mfg fall-out and even quality.
If you want quality, don't expect to get it at bargin basement prices. And don't expect to see a selection of quality at Wackmart. They care about price, not quality.
Planned Obsolesce.. that pretty much sums up the general decline in ALL products, not just consumer electronics.
They have realized that if people are happy with what they have, they are less inclined to buy the same product every year *just* beacuse its new and shiny..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I've had really good luck with Sony electronics. I have an 11 year old Sony receiver that still sounds good. Anectodal, true, but I'd take that kind of evidence any day over the so called research done by Consumer Reports. YMMV
XML causes global warming.
Robots are everywhere, and they eat old people's medicine for fuel.
Consumer electronics are what they've always been: for consumers. Reliability has always been the domain of professional products. There was never a time when Sony walkmans lasted more than a few months but no-one expected that reliability from a consumer product in the first place back in 1992. Consumer electronics are degraded in quality to reach the price point that consumers can attain. Recently, there has been such a demand for consumer electronics that people have begun to notice all the quality traits that differentiate consumer electronics from professional electronics. The price to get professional quality isn't 2 - 3 times but 10 times. If you want a reliable DVD player, consider a professional $1000 DVD player.
Yakovism 101
yeah, here let me critique you there. We are commenting on how Con Elec stuff fails on you, right?
In Soviet Russia "noun2" "verb" "noun1"
So, try this you fail on consumer electronics!
You've gotten lucky.
Then so have I, and pretty much everyone I know. The only Sony product I have ever owned that quit working was a pair of headphones when I was in high school, and that's because I slammed their cable in a car door.
OTOH, I've had an Onkyo tapedeck and CD player go bad, a Panasonic TV burn up while I was watching a video, and a JVC VCR (high-end consumer, at the time) that needed to be repaired every six months so it could play back tapes instead of just recording them.
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
The plural of 'anecdote is not:
'data'
Reading all of this "it was so much better x years ago", I am reminded of a book i read about the british ruling class. I'm sure they felt that things were so much better in Queen Victoria's time or in whoever was king in England in the 1700s time.
Me thinks you are all are 1) suffering from selective memory (ie, forgetting what things broke and only remembering the one thing that continued working) and 2) ignoring the fact that zillions more people, "normal" people, get the toys that we slashdot reading elite used to have all for themselves.
I remember my first TRS 80 computer, $400 red LED HP calucator, and my first tape deck (weighed 3 pounds). All expensive, over engineered garbage. Cut to today, I am typing this on a 512-meg ram, 1" thick laptop, with an 80 gig drive. I've dropped it, left it on in my briefcase on long flights, and have pounded on this for almost a year nonstop and it still works. Oh yeah, it cost 1/3 the price of the first computer I bought many years ago.
Two main points 1) cheaper prices allow more people to get access to goods and 2) no blanket "everything is crap" comments please My cheapie stuff works much better than heavy expensive stuff 15 years ago.
You know what those three words are?
.. You expected quality? Cost to manufacture? $.93 Cost to consumer in US? $100 Yeah, I know why there are there too. Cost more to ship the damn thing than it cost to make.
...That can be misleading. If the components inside are made in Indonesia, or China... Odds are they will fail quickly.
...
...And thank you General Electric. I'm sure I'll hear from their lawyers soon.
Made In China
Made In Indonesia
Made In Malaysia
Look...I have a Samsung wireless phone. The first three units I got all semi-worked but had some defect. Made In Indonesia is stamped on the back. What should be there? Made In Indonesia By Children As Young As 5 Years Old Living 30 To A Room Smaller Than My Bedroom Making A Combined Daily Salary Less Than The Cost Of A Combo Meal.
Your (insert item here) is a piece of crap? Look at the POM. If it's junk, odds are it comes from one of the three above. But in the age of global parts
This is what you get when you mix poor wages, illiteracy, bad working conditions, and sweat shops.
Welcome to the global marketplace. Corporations will chase cheap labor to make cheap products while exporting the jobs of those who used to make them somewhere else. It's a nice race to the bottom. Forget quality. Forget quality of life. Japan is just doing the same thing we did. Chase cheaper labor and export jobs to where they can get it. Their economy is in the crapper now? Gee, I wonder why!
You see it very dramatically in the guitar market. As soon as a country acquires the skill to finally make a decent product, they move the operation to where people will work for a dollar less. They haven't even hit the bottom of the pool yet. There are still places with cheaper labor, less environmental laws, and lower education
Enter corporate solution
Make you buy it twice.
How we going to pay for that new plant? Got to drive demand somehow. Making it fail is a good way to do that.
This isn't to say that corporations don't love to sell you the same stuff twice. General Electric (one of the most crooked US companies in history) does it all the time with light bulbs. Goddess help those who fly on planes with their engines. They can't even make a good cordless phone or a toaster that wont burn your house down. Of course, even avionics parts are being made in China now. Fasteners that fail and kill several hundred people. Yep. Made in China. Thanks for dying on United.
Just start that mantra...
Business knows best.
Free markets.
Deregulation.
Business knows best.
Free markets.
Deregulation.
Of course, even General Electric isn't as bad as Hewlett Packard. When HP switched from being technology focused to being "consumer focused" that's when we got things like print heads and ink carts that are programmed to fail at a certain date. Still half full of ink? No matter.
Still plenty of geeks here who work with embedded applications. Go look into it. Call it what you will..I call it corporate crime.
It wouldn't suprise me at all to see automobile manufactures start to incorporate this into their cars computers. Encyrpted of course --.
Business Knows Best.
Free Markets.
Deregulation.
Freedom is merely privilege extended unless enjoyed by one and all.
Planned obsolescence nearly destroyed the big 3 automakers in the 70s. Now the computer and home electronics industries are manufacturing garbage, so we will have to replace it frequently. I am a computer repair technician, and people ask me what brand of PC is good. I have to tell them that they all suck, unless you are willing to spend what Alienware charges. The most disturbing thing is that all this garbage is non-biodegradable, contains toxic chemicals and is bound for landfills.
The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
While the cheaper IBM laptops may have the same computing spec for less money, there are real differnces from the more expensive ones. The most glaring difference is the lid is plastic with a cheap hinge instead of metal with a solid hinge. The lid on an R-Series becomes floppy and is prone to cracking. OTOH, my 3 year old T-Series is still as solid as new, despite being pounded on 12 hours a day. Second, and this is the biggest difference, is that the cheaper ones come with a 1 year warranty vs. 3 years. So if you really depend on your computer, the more expensive one is probably a better buy. Basically, what you're paying for is that IBM will "keep you in computer" for 3 years instead of one.
Planned Obsolescence. It's just a corperate plan to make shitty products, sell them at high prices, and then in a couple years, people have to come back and buy it again because the original broke!
Take audio electronics for instance... I have an awesome radio and tape system made by Technics from a long time ago. Sure, it's big and heavy, but it's made with real nice polished metal that has stood the test of time. It gets the best radio reception out of ANYTHING in my house... better than my car's too. The knobs are big and turn nice (with nice heavy momentum too so it feels like you're actually doing something), the LED's are bright and everything is perfect on it...
Sitting in my basement is a 2Disc CD system with 2 tape decks and a low-lit display. I feel like if i put a glass of water on top of the thing the plastic will give away and ruin it... The nobs are weightless and rough, the reception is like I'm in a cement tomb 500ft in the ground, and the CD/Tape players barely work... They spent so much time designing the thing with beveled edges and color contrasts everywhere that I can't even find any button to press to turn the damn thing on. I could barely see where to eject the CD... or even where the tray was because of the stupid "techno" and "futuristic" bull shit design they have...
Yes, consumer electronics has gone down over the years... mainly the fault of stupid consumers, but also the fault of the greedy corperate SOBs that are runnin the company and make the decisions to sell the crap...
Don't give me a hunk of cheap plastic crap that looks like a 3D ink blob test, just give me a simple, nice looking, reliable product and I'll be a loyal customer for the rest of my life...
I have not bought Bose so I am not speaking from first hand experience, just based on lots of research and reading. Just substitute any other manufacturer's name that you don't like if you like Bose.
Bose spends a great deal on their marketing and a lot of people believe that the quality is excellent. So they'll pay for the name and think they've got a great package. As long as it sounds close to what they thought it would, their happy. So another satisified customer.
Same goes for any major manufacturer. You set a pain threshold for how much someone is willing to pay based on features and brand name. Companies know they can sell based on their names to the majority of people. Flood the market with all sorts of different features just to have some differences, and you give consumers a wide range to stick with. Find a big box company like Best Buy to display as much of your line as possible, and you've got a good chance for a sale.
How much time does it take for you to do research so that you get the most for your buck? At what cost point is your minimum research. This boils down to cost benefit analysis. Who's willing to do that? If $50 for a specific item seems a lot of money to spend, you'll do some research before spending it. If $your pain threshold is much higher, then you won't do the research. If it breaks no big deal.
Anywho...
pain threshold = $0.02
Cost of opinion
I'm all for buying quality electronics, avoiding the cheap stuff altogether. Given recent market trends, long term use in consumer electronics is unfortunately probably a non-issue for most manufacturers as standards continuosly change. The CD player I bought five years ago will probably be out of date in 15 years. A newer, and supposedly better format will be out by then. I've invested a lot in CD's and I'll probably buy a really good quality player before the newer standards come out. Come to think of it, I probably sound like my parents holding onto the record players, 8-tracks... Of course w/ a new standard the cost of the older music will be inflated artificially.
To address just one point of the article: extended warranties....
Have any of you ever actually tried to USE one of these warranties? I'm not talking about the "no questions asked replacement unit" ones, which are usually quite expensive and often unavailable, but the repair warranties.
The are most often serviced (the warranty) by GE or some other large unit, which may or may not depot repair you stuff. The may send it to a local shop. Either way, you bring it back to you reatiler and it disappear for some time between two weeks and god only knows how long. There is an obvious and fundamental disconnect in information....you call the reatiler and ask for a staus, and they have no idea. They have to make a couple phone calls, which in turn kick of a few more sometimes. A day or so later you get blown off again.
Then the device comes back and it's either not fixed or something else is wrong with it. And you go through the whole thing again.
Do not fold, spindle or mutilate.
I re-read Brave New World the other day, and I have to say this topic reminds me of the hypnopaedia-induced principal central to their society that encourages people to throw away, rather than repair consumer goods, and the good are made to last a suitably short time. In that, it was (I assume) used as a control mechanism, to keep people enslaved to the machine, working hard to buy the latest. Sometimes I think a similar thing is happening here, but I think it is more a case of companies looking out for their bottom line, and moving off-shore to sweat shops.
Incidentally, I have a very nice (but not terribly expensive) 1993 NAD CD player and 1970's solid-state NAD amp, and they are excellently made, they haven't failed me once. The amp is build like a brick shithouse, wood and metal faceplate.. Contrast that with my experiences with modern TVs and VCRs crapping out on a regular basis, and I think I can agree that the quality has declined. Mind you, NAD are a higher-quality brand than Sony or LG etc.
Here's what I like to do (well, often like to do) ... purchase the oldest possible unit that will get the job done and contains the necessary features (by saying necessary, I really mean it!). By buying older pieces of equipment, you not only save money (well, unless you buy severely antique equipment!), but you can rest assured that since it has been around X years, it will probably survive quite a few more. A fine example of this is my amplifier purchase decision. I bought an Onkyo Integrated Amplifier from the 70s. It is tiny (unlike the massive beasts that litter the shelves today), sounds spectacular (I am a music student here in NYC, and my ears are as sensitive as can be), and cost me $47 shipped. I figured that since it has worked for the past 30 years, it will last me the next few years (until I move into a larger space and need a more powerful amplifier). The unit exterior is metal including the faceplate (read=quality, not cheap plastic), and has only the things I need (power switch, a few inputs, headphone output, volume control). I have no need here for surround sound (that may change, and thus a new amplifier may become necessary unfortunately), so purchasing a huge new receiver with radio (all of the stations I need are available online) and Dolby Digital is completely unnecessary. When I consider purchasing a new product, I really take the time to decide if the features that product offers are really necessary (wouldn't everyone?), and if I can get all of the features I really need in a proven piece of equipment, then I will purchase the older model. I have done this with timepieces and telephones as well (my pocketwatch is a hundred years old, and my phone is 60 years old, and both work beautifully and flawlessly). I certainly do not use my little plan on everything. For example, I do not feel the urge to daintily transport a portable phonograph with me on the DC-3 airplane. I went ahead and purchased an iPod as soon as they came out (due to their size, speed, and storage capacity), because of simple practicality. Regarding computers, I like purchasing technology that is not absolutely cutting-edge, but just shy of cutting-edge. I'm into post-modern design, so I choose to purchase mainly new decor/furniture/etc. > Overall, it is this blend of old and new that I have found a nice balance of quality, cost, and features.
I know this thread has died, but I have to speak up.
In college I sold bikes. Real bikes. I sold 200-2000 dollar solidly made bikes out of several stores in southern california. Countless people would go into the store, look at the cheapest bikes we had, and would leave to go to target to throw their money away on a $200 full - suspension garbage pile with the front fork on backwards, the brake levers sticking straight up, easily stripped everything, and no clause at all for maintenence. I'd say about %30 of our business was coming from people who had just thrown out a crumbled Costco / Target / KMart bike after 6 months of use. A large part of this problem is that consumers just don't have the attention span anymore. They want it, they want it now, and they don't need to know how it works. They buy from Target because it's easy, cheap, and safe... and nobody tries to explain anything to them. Who wants to know that unused cables have a breaking in period, and so to keep your bike in adjustment you have to bring it back after 3 months of use... or risk damaging it? Who cares that plastic brake handles bend instead transmitting the force of your arm? And we were in the lucky position that we could explain all of these things to the consumer, because it was all visible if you knew what was going on. The only thing you can judge DVD players on is the look of the box it comes in and the reported failure rates... the latter of which is very difficult to come by, even for employees.
Perhaps we should have mandatory lifespan markings like the FDA markings on soup? I could tell a customer (if they asked) that I have VistaLites that are over 15 years old and have been swimming, skiing, have had the case melted, and have been dropped from the third floor and still work, and that CatEyes generally crap out in a very short period of time... but wouldn't it be easier for people if that was just on the box?
If the Cue Cat was linked to epinions, it could have been a very empowering tool. In my case, many people learned their lesson. Sadly, a sucker is always born to replace them. And many people didn't, leading to the treadmil replacement cycle. I was nearly run over last year by someone on a brand new Target bike whose builder hadn't bothered to put the nuts on the front wheel.
This has got to have a cost to society.
-C
This Sig is a mnemonic device designed to allow you to recognize this author in the future.