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Hardware Is Dead — At Least Most Expensive Hardware Is
First time accepted submitter ze_jua writes "In this article, Jay Goldberg, a financial analyst who travels to Shenzhen several times a year, analyses the potential consequences of the very low cost of hardware he found there on the consumer electronic industry worldwide.
He wrote this piece of text after he found a very nice $45 Android 4 tablet. Are we so close to given-away tablets?"
This is retarded. Just like 99.99% of all the "news" on this site.
Expensive hardware has been dead for a while. That's why Apple had such disappointing preorders of the new iPhone and has been lagging behind Samsung in tablet sell-through.
Or, maybe not.
There will always be lemmings willing to pay for shiny bragging rights.
because somewhere, some poor bastard always pays the difference in terms of lowered wages, slavelike labour, oh and of course there are dollars to save by screwing up the environment by improper mining and waste disposal.
Gourmet food must also be dead because you can feed yourself off of cheap multivitamins and cheap microwaveable burritos and tap water.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
That's not quite the same. A car is a giant cost, $10-50k. That's a big difference from a $50-500 tablet computer. So it's absolutely rational to try to make a safe purchase decision, even if it costs more. Honda and Toyota have built up excellent reputations for reliability over several decades now; cheaper brands haven't. The American brands have built themselves terrible reputations for reliability, by contrast.
The problem is, the real quality factors have been changing over time. The American brands have gotten a lot better. The Korean brands have improved to an amazing degree since the early 90s Hyundai Excel. And Honda and Toyota have been having problems (like the Prius pedal problem a few years ago), and have fallen behind in other places too. The Honda Civic, which has been on Consumer Reports' top choice list for decades, has actually fallen off of it now, mainly because there's so many other choices that have surpassed it in value.
But it takes time for reputations to change. For cheaper items, people are much more willing to take a chance, since if a $50 tablet computer turns out to be a POS, they're only out $50 and they can buy another one. But if a $35000 car turns out to be a POS, then not only is that a huge financial loss (even if you turn around and re-sell it on the used market, you'll lose thousands), but there's a potential to lose time too, in missing work because your car broke down in the morning commute, having to deal with repairs and loaner or rental cars, etc. Reliable transportation has huge benefits aside from the purchase price.
The iPhone5 has no hdmi out, no usb ($30 adaptor), a battery that won't get through the day, a measly 4" screen, no swype style type keyboard, no sd card, no hd, and that's just off the top of my head. It's untested in regular use category, will it break as easily as the other iPhones? And not only is it and it's cables/adaptors overpriced,h, all my friends with iPhones tell me Siri doesn't work very well. So my question is, why WOULD you want an iPhone5?
There will always be a market for premium hardware. This is just abjectly idiotic.
Always is a long time. Try visiting your local hardware store and aking about the "premium" brand of nails, or copper wire.
My grandfather's blacksmith swore by Glasgow Metalworks nails, and would never buy that cheaper generic made-in-America crap.