Does anyone here design the functional parts of the modern el-cheapo consumer electronics here? My telephone just broke today and I sure as heck blaming economization at cost of quality. I am suspecting the failure was related to use of sub-standard RF components.
Anyways if you do design:
Do you often cut quality in order to drop the cost and make it appear it still has the same functionality?
What kind of parts do you usually truncate on?
The rant:
Unfortunately my weird generic (pronounced GE) 900MHz telephone went fubar today. The headset no longer stay synchronized to the base unit. Tried the usual routine like removing the battery and unplugging and it didn't help it. I have two phones just like this and I swear they did something to it on the second revision. The first one was one of those metallic green GE 900MHz phone. We had that for over two years and it still works fine. The second one was purchased for my room about 16month ago. This one is white and it looks exactly like the other one except there is only one indicator LED, cords directly attached to base unit instead of using connectors and they must have also economized something inside. Man I bet this thing was built to last just long enough to avoid warranty claims.
I took it apart and it's put together like hell with hot glue and crap. The earlier unit said Thomson Consumer Electronics and this one says Atlink USA Inc. Who the hell are they? Definitely not a first rate brand.
Other than the GE symbol, no where on the box does it say "GENERAL ELECTRIC". Well I'm really disappoited that GE is no GENERAL ELECTRIC today. They used to make quality electrical stuff. They build POS now.
This really sucks. I bought this phone, because this handset is really comfortible for me. It was only $19.99 though. Maybe its my fault for expecting something better than POS from $20 phone. I want another GE because it fits me so well, but I don't want GE because it will probably die in this manner again . No matter how cheap it is, a telephone that must be replaced every 18month is not acceptable in my view.
Anyways if you do design:
Do you often cut quality in order to drop the cost and make it appear it still has the same functionality?
What kind of parts do you usually truncate on?
The rant:
Unfortunately my weird generic (pronounced GE) 900MHz telephone went fubar today. The headset no longer stay synchronized to the base unit. Tried the usual routine like removing the battery and unplugging and it didn't help it. I have two phones just like this and I swear they did something to it on the second revision. The first one was one of those metallic green GE 900MHz phone. We had that for over two years and it still works fine. The second one was purchased for my room about 16month ago. This one is white and it looks exactly like the other one except there is only one indicator LED, cords directly attached to base unit instead of using connectors and they must have also economized something inside. Man I bet this thing was built to last just long enough to avoid warranty claims.
I took it apart and it's put together like hell with hot glue and crap. The earlier unit said Thomson Consumer Electronics and this one says Atlink USA Inc. Who the hell are they? Definitely not a first rate brand.
Other than the GE symbol, no where on the box does it say "GENERAL ELECTRIC". Well I'm really disappoited that GE is no GENERAL ELECTRIC today. They used to make quality electrical stuff. They build POS now.
This really sucks. I bought this phone, because this handset is really comfortible for me. It was only $19.99 though. Maybe its my fault for expecting something better than POS from $20 phone. I want another GE because it fits me so well, but I don't want GE because it will probably die in this manner again . No matter how cheap it is, a telephone that must be replaced every 18month is not acceptable in my view.
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