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Durabook Laptop Marketing Claims 'Destroyed'

jkwdoc writes "The crew at [H] Consumer got a hold of a Durabook sample from Twinhead and got the green light to hold Twinhead to their word about what kind of abuse the unit can withstand. Twinhead originally claimed that their unit could survive 26 drops from 29 inches. A cracked LCD and busted hard drive later, they changed their tune. Complete with video!"

8 of 100 comments (clear)

  1. Marketing nonsense by udderly · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Twinhead originally claimed that their unit could survive 26 drops from 29 inches. A cracked LCD and busted hard drive later, they changed their tune.

    Seriously, did anyone really think that *any* notebook could take that?

    1. Re:Marketing nonsense by Herkum01 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yeah, but you know, if you don't expose their lies for what they are they will keep telling the same lie over and over.

    2. Re:Marketing nonsense by Erwos · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Doesn't matter. _They_ claimed it could, thus THEY need to make it happen. Or change the claim, which is what happened.

      There are indeed some systems that could probably take that sort of punishment, though.

      --
      Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
    3. Re:Marketing nonsense by fluffy99 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Panasonic Toughbooks supposedly meet the milspec. We've got a few at work and they are ruggedly heavy and have that nasty rubberized keyboard. Haven't drop tested any though.

  2. Still not so bad... by Danimoth · · Score: 5, Insightful

    While it certaintly looks like it didn't live up to the full expectations, the damage taken was gradual. For the most part it was "optical drive came out, system still works." I wouldn't want to see what happens to my macbook pro in the same circumstance.

    --
    No smoking sigs indoors.
  3. Re:Accckkkkk too many pageviews by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 5, Insightful

    These hardware review sites are awful, forcing you to tab through ten freaking pages just to get to the bottom line. Do they still get paid by the ad view rather than the click?

    I'll let you in on a little secret: when you read a review like this, jump to the last page: you'll find the conclusion there, which is usually about the only thing interesting in the article. And in the case of this article, videos as well, which is even better.

    --
    "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
  4. Mean time to failure by Pretzalzz · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Surely a reasonable person would expect the 26 drop number to be a mean time to failure sort of number. Otherwise you are left to think: "Oh, 26 drops is no problem, but that 27th is the real doosy".

  5. Re:Accckkkkk too many pageviews by Babbster · · Score: 2, Insightful

    IMHO, this complaint has become tiresome. The people generating these sites are trying to make money off doing so. Instead of trying to get people to pay subscription fees (and thus turn interested people away), they do so with ads, and they probably make some money off of views of the ads and can rotate different ads per load. Having to go to more than one (or 10) pages for an article with actual information generated by actual people getting paid for their work doesn't seem like a very high price to pay.

    Personally, I find the layout of most [H]ardOCP articles to be pretty well done - for example, when they're reviewing hardware gaming performance, unless they're comparing several pieces of hardware, they don't give each game/test an individual page; their conclusions are typically on a single page; and the introduction, explaining what they're doing, is usually on a single page.

    In other words, I can typically look at 3-4 pages of each review and get the information about which I'm most concerned. In this particular case, you can get the relevant information off about 4 pages - considering the amount of data, pictures and videos they offer, it seems perfectly reasonable to me.

    I would also note that some people (like me) don't want to spend a lot of time scrolling down one or two very long pages. Dividing the pages actually helps me quite a bit since I often read articles such as this over a few viewings instead of sitting down and reading it all in one shot.

    It's funny. I was arguing on this site with someone who felt that people shouldn't complain if they don't like something about World of Warcraft - my take was that paying money for the service absolutely entitles one to complain if there's something they don't like. On this, I'd take the other side and tell you to stop griping about free stuff. Even if it is just a money-grab for [H]ardOCP, they're not grabbing that money from you, and clicking a few extra times shouldn't be that taxing.