5 Years Later and the same problem persist. Class Action anyone?

Just before all these posts get deleted by a mod (rightfully imo), has anyone got a 40 year old fridge, Mercedes Benz or average wristwatch?

Care to compare the lifespan of those items to their current day equivalents?

Companies got smart.

 

Erm, what? I'm not looking to sue. I've never stated that I'm looking to sue. This is a problem that I had experience of(from repairing other peoples' machines), but it's never happened to me. I never said it was easy, nor did I pretend I could create the perfect laptop. But I did say that the engineers did tremendous work and made some superb achievements.

I could, however, create a more substantial power socket arrangement. I dare say even you could, with your Craylola wax-crayons sitting in those ham-fists of yours.

If the problem affects "roughly nobody", then this thread wouldn't have happened. Nor would I have been in a position to reply to it. Nor would I have ever had to repair a machine because of this fault.

And what's this nonsense about people "calling you out"? It amazes me just how macho and bullish feeble folk with feeble minds become once behind the internet sanctuary. Is your point going to become a stronger one because you're offering folk the chance to come over and 'call you out'? Is it going to persuade us that you have a sound, and logical reasoning behind your opinion?

How's this for calling you out:-

Extend the size of the plastic on the power socket, around the connector. On the opposite side of the solder legs, make a screwhole. Screw socket to laptop case.

Fixed. Period. No more flex, no more lifted traces. End-of customer complaints, threats of law-suits, and semi-functional brains attempting to shout on an internet forum because they feel 'big' and 'hard'.

 

LOL, he acts like he's "in on it." Like, "yeah, guys, I know for a fact that they build their stuff to fall apart ...I'd do it, too! In fact, I'm the guy in charge of making sure it happens! So you can believe me."

OK!

 

Why don't you put on some pants and do it, then? All it will do is apparently make you millions of dollars by solving a problem that is apparently endemic to the entire laptop industry. What, you don't want to make easy money, or is it really easy to type stuff?

 

I do not have time to read all this bs, so I'll just post my experience so far.. I'm not sure if my problems have much to do with all of yours.. But i did a quick search on failed chargers and came upon this thread.

As of yesterday I've owned my precision for about 2 months... and my charger failed on me. It was brand new, luckily i have 3 years of warranty to back it up. A friend of mine also had his charger fail a few weeks ago, unfortunately he did not have warranty so ended up paying full retail price.

About two days ago the problem started, my charger would not work properly and had a weird hissing noise, it would work if i held the plug tight into place... and if i wasn't there to hold it.. it would fail to work. As of right now... it's completely dead, and dell is sending me a replacement.

 

We're not talking about a charger failing. This guy claims that the actual socket that the charger plugs into is designed to fail, thereby making your entire laptop useless.

 

What I don't understand is why this thread is going for pages and pages when the solution to the malfunction is like 15-30 dollar fix. I mean stuff happens, parts are bound to fail. We can all comply and moan here, but nothing concrete is going to happen (even if you file a class action suit).

 

No, these guys are claiming that the socket ON YOUR LAPTOP that the charger plugs into is intentionally designed to fail basically around the time your warranty expires. Replacing it, they claim, is more expensive than your laptop is worth at that point. So, they claim that all laptop manufacturers -- because this is supposedly something that affects all laptops -- are colluding to rip us all off and basically force us to keep purchasing laptops.

 

^No, what has been said is that the part doesn't fail on all machines. It can fail, and on a machine un/plugged a handful of times each day, it is likely to fail in possibly 1-in-5 cases before the machine would otherwise be upgraded.

Dude, if I cared about making money, I'd still be working in I.T. rather than caring for an elderly relative. I'd still be planning on returning to university to complete my degree in software engineering rather than starting one in nursing.

You're making out that this just doesn't happen, and that the chap is just looking to cover up his own damage to the machine. If this is the case, then there wouldn't be hit after hit after hit on Google for 'laptop failed power socket', 'laptop broken power socket' and such-like.

But there is.

I've said time and again that it is a problem which won't affect all users. I've clearly said that it is a problem in a sizable minority of cases. Heck, even if it only ended up affecting 2% of machines over a 5-year lifetime, do you really think it isn't worth spending the fraction-of-a-cent screw on the system to hold the power jack flush with the case of the machine, thereby eliminating the stress on the solder joints?

Bah, I'm banging my head on a brick wall here. You're doing a splendid job of keeping yourself in-line with the earlier comments by stevenkelby, which you seemed to jump on...

 

LOL, there it is!

This guy rips on corporations for supposedly intentionally rigging 20% of laptops to fail just as their warranty expires. And he knows how to fix it. Anyone could do it, even me, with my Crayolas in my fists. For pennies. And that proves that corporations don't care about anything but money.

But wait.

The reason he won't do it? Even though it's simple, lots of people need it, and it would net him tons of cash? Right, you guessed it. It's because he doesn't care about money. He's too noble for that. Even though he could if he wanted to, because it's such an easy fix, according to him. Makes sense to me.

Of course, he's NOT too noble to complain about corporations on the Internet to anyone who will listen and talk about how greedy and penny-pinching they are. He's great at yelling and complaining, he just is really really bad at doing anything. Hm. So corporations which DO things that improve people's lives suck and people like him who DON'T do things that improve people's lives are noble. You got me!

 

That's why I always recommend getting a 3 year warranty on a laptop, unless the laptop costs $400, in which case it's not worth the money.

I have only come across this issue once, out of tens of different Dells which I've seen, and since the guy listened to me and bought the warranty at the time of purchase, Dell replaced his motherboard and he's all set.

Laptops have to fit a million little parts into a very small area and to expect them to hold up like desktops do is asking a bit much. I think Dells hold up fairly well, and certainly do much better than the HP/Compaqs I've seen. Toshibas seem decent, too, though I do prefer Dell.

As far as the class-action threat, I think it's a bit troll-like to put class action in the title of your thread. It's one thing to mention the problem and then ask if anyone wants to join in a class action, but when you come in with guns blazing, if your issue is not really egregious, people are going to wonder....

Call Dell and ask nicely if they can help you. You may be in luck.

 

Oh FFS - I didn't start the thread. I didn't say I planned on taking anyone to court. So all of a sudden I'm the guy to blame because someone else entirely has a problem with their machine, with which I can relate? And despite Google producing pages of results of folk with the same problem, I'm the real problem because I've never done anything about it?

Have you even bothered reading this thread from the first page?

 

I didn't say anything about you wanting to take anyone to court. I just pointed out that you're sitting here like a couple of other guys on the same thread, moaning and yelling about how Dell is all penny-pinching and producing deliberately defective products that they could fix "easily" and with just "cents" on the dollar. Then I ask you to do it and you're like, "uh, I could, but that's OK. I'm not really interested in money because I'm noble." And now you're upset because of how laughable that sounds?

 

The guy may have a point. Friend of mine has a B130 with the same problem.

 

LOL wow, this thread is pretty heated up huh? I just read the entire thread from page 1 and the only thing that comes to my mind at this point is that kamehame is an *******. Why? I dunno. You just sound like one. =) Yea, yea, go ahead, call me names, insult me, call me a noob, I don't really care lol.

I find it annoying when someone suggests a problem (in this case: the poor quality powerjack on laptops) with a very simple solution (in this case: a screw to add physical support) and someone else comes along and says something along the lines of "well, why won't you open up a business and do that then? I'm sure you'll make a lot of money from it." Do you realize how impractical a business such as that really is? Starting a business just to put a screw in each person's laptop, wow...and no I don't have a Ph.D in microeconomics. Does taking microeconomics in university count? Probably not...

Anyway, it's not just this case either, I've seen this happen a few times before. The person who suggested the problem and solution can't really say much to the other person's business proposal...

Oh and by the way, I actually have the same theory as stevenkelby, that Americans tend to defend their country a lot more. It's a neutral theory really, because it's not like defending your country is a good/bad thing, so chill out buddy.

Alright, say whatever you want about me now

EDIT: LOL I forgot profanity gets cencored out, oh well, you can figure out what I said.

 

I think a few of you guys might be a bit naive. All consumer products are carefully designed to have an average expected life. If you think that's a lie, do you also think the earth is flat, because that's what it's equivalent to.

Do you think that Dell, or anyone, are making laptops, or anything, as well as they possibly can, to last as long as possible, and that just happens to be about 3 years?

Do you think it's impossible to make a laptop that has an average life of 10 years?

I'm telling you, the extra cost to do so would be minimal, if anything.

But what are you going to sell once everybody owns one?

Can anyone please tell me what is the number one motivation for all corporations/businesses/companies etc (not charities)?

If it's not making money I'd love to know what it is?

Why do you think fixing this would net anyone a ton of cash? The opposite is true. If no part of any laptop ever failed, don't you think there would be less laptops sold? Most people don't care that it breaks after 3 years because they're ready for the latest technology. The one that aren't are forced into a new one anyway by careful industrial design.

 

Man, this thread has gone off the deep end as far as logic. I tried to say out of it when it turned to name-calling, but this is outrageous.

You're kidding yourself if you think the companies have a conspiracy theory that they're crippling their own system so that they can sell you more.

Dell's bottom line is cost. Is it possible to build a computer that's more reliable? Sure is. That's why I own an Asus. Is it possible to build a cheap computer that's more reliable? Now that one's much harder.

You have absolutely no clue how much "extra cost" it's going to take to build a more reliable computer, but in Dell's world, where their margins range from razor thin to nonexistent, every single penny counts.

Why would any company make a reliable item when "they could run out of things to sell?" First, they would get so many sales of their first item, it'd be crazy. Would you not buy XYZ's computer if everyone said that it twice as reliable as the competitors? Second, 3-5 years is a WONDERFUL amount of time when you factor in cost v. reliability. The lifespan of a computer is 3-5 years, not only reliability wise, but hardware and software wise too. Why spend $300 more on a computer to make it last 10 years, when the majority of your customers care about cost and are going to upgrade in 3 years anyway? And finally, say you bought a computer. Does that mean you'll never buy one again? Heck no. Computers get outdated, not just broken.

This throws your theory out of the window.

And Kamehame, though I agree with your viewpoint, I ask that you try to be more civil in presenting your case. Let your logic do the talking, not namecalling.

 

Don't get angry, you're just not seeing it from the right point of view, when you do, you'll agree. It's my fault for not explaining things more clearly.

They aren't "crippling" the machines, they are just designing them with a certain lifetime. This isn't a conspiracy, it's simple business, every single manufacturing company does it. They test things, duty cycles etc and try to see what the mean time between failures will be. They set targets and build the machine to hit those targets.

It's a very delicate balance, and sometimes companies get it wrong. Whether Dell got it wrong or not with the AC plug is something that I have not commented on, if you look closely. And I would not comment on it as I don't have all the data needed to make a statement either way. Maybe they should have changed the design, maybe they are perfectly happy with the current failure rate. I don't know and neither do you.

I can assure you that Dell are well aware of this issue and I can assure you that fixing it would not affect their manufacturing cost per unit, especially over this period of time when a design change at the point of original design of a new machine (when they are already aware of the issue) would cost an irrelevantly small amount. They chose not to do the change, I'm sure they have good reasons why.

They could fix this issue, even if it did cost more money, but they don't, why? Because they have decided that it has the correct lifespan before failure, taking into account there full business plan.

Do you think that Dell build their machines to last as long as possible, within the budget they spend. I mean, do you think that they could not make a machine that lasts any longer, for the same features and price?

First, assuming that you know what I know is a rookie mistake, shame on you

Do you really think that changing the shape of a piece of plastic next time they design and make a mold for a new model, would be prohibitively expensive? Do you honestly believe that any cost involved would strip profit from Dell? It might, but not in the way you think. Believe it or not, it would cost nothing to have made sure this was not an issue. There are many reasons Dell chose not to change the design, but production cost was not one of them. They were designing a new notebook anyway, more or less plastic in that area will not noticeably affect the production cost. At all. Maybe fractions of a cent per machine. Irrelevant.


This isn't about an AC adapter, it's about every single manufactured item from every single manufacturer. They don't make things to last as long as possible and if they fail early, that's just unlucky. They design things that way. Nothing wrong with it, it's good business sense. Nothing happens by chance in businesses Dells size. They know how long the ac adapter plug is expected to last and they chose to do it that way for good reasons, to ultimately sell more machines.

Companies don't engineer things to last forever for very good reasons. It's not possible to make everything last for ever, but many, many things can get close. Yes, light bulbs that don't ever burn out and tires that never wear down were patented many years ago. It would make very poor economic sense to sell them. People don't want things that last for ever, they want new things every few years. Including AC adapters. As I said it's a delicate balance, maybe Dell got this one a bit wrong, maybe not.

A company that made an item more reliable would not make more sales because people simply don't care. They want a new laptop every 3 years, not one that lasts for 10. If Dell sold laptops that last for 10 years, it would cost them money, not from increased production costs.

If people buy a laptop and it lasts 10 years, after 3 years of ownership, SOME people (I don't know what percentage, but I guarantee Dell does) may think about getting a new machine, but they don't, because this one still works perfectly. This 3 year old machine still does everything they need, functionally, it works perfect and does everything they need. They want the latest tech, lighter weight, nice looks etc, but can live without it. They are waiting for an excuse to buy a new machine, but one never comes, because the machine still works. These people might keep using this machine for a full 10 years before it finally dies, and they buy another machine (maybe from Dell, maybe not, doesn't matter to Dell, what matters is that people "buy laptops" regularly. Dell have a share of that constant market and will try to increase that share in certain ways, but not by building a machine with a stronger AC port).

Now, it's the lost sales from that percentage of the market mentioned above that Dell is thinking of when they make a machine with an average service life of 3 years (or whatever they aim for). That is the reason for engineering a laptop to fail after 3 (or whatever) years.

This is how I know you don't understand what I'm trying to say.

I agree, 3-5 years is a wonderful amount of time when the consumer factors in perceived value.

As the lifespan of a computer is 3-5 years, people should be expected to buy a new one after 3-5 years, everyone is expected to buy a new one, every 3-5 years. If they made machines that last longer, they would lose a (small, I admit, but big enough to impact those razor thin profits) number of sales from people who don't need a new machine.

I say it supports my statement (theories are unproven).

Does anyone here work in a large manufacturing corporation? This is all basic stuff...

 

I'm going to go back to Kamehame's arguement. It would be very wise for you to start a company. You seem to know the industry better than Dell or people like me. You have the knowledge to build a more reliable computer at the same cost. You have the knowledge to build a lightbulb that doesn't burn out. You have the knowledge of tires that don't wear out (assuming you know how tires work and what friction is).

I'm sure you also know that we never landed on the moon, JFK was killed by antelopes, and those crocs in the sewer smell like catfish.

I'm sure that I'm just naive and not seeing the "right point of view".

 

Dissertation anyone?

 

I did, and I run it pretty much like Dell do. As it's the most profitable way to run a company.You don't understand the concept do you?

I don't know how to make light bulbs that don't burn out (another false assumption by your good self), but every light bulb manufacturer does. They aren't allowed to build them because the patent is owned by Phillips.

Even if they could, they wouldn't, for reasons you obviously can't grasp.

You can't make anything last for ever, but you can certainly make lightbulbs that last 20, 30, 40 years, and laptops that last more than 3.

I'd say ignorant. Even willfully ignorant, which is the worst kind of ignorant.

 

I'm not sure what to say from here. I've presented my case, and you have presented yours. However, I do have to clarify on the lightbulb part.

In 1991, Phillips patented a light bulb that lasts 60k hours. A little less than "forever", just by a tiny bit though. Apparently, you can't buy them, because the companies don't want to sell them since you'll "never" buy another lightbulb again. Wait...

http://www.ccrane.com/lights/led-light-bulbs/index.aspx

I'm sorry I assumed things about you. I had no clue that you're amazingly smart and obviously a billionaire. Too bad you can't sell your laptops since you don't want to, given it'll ruin the balance of things.

 

Fair enough, I guess that proves what? That Dell did everything they could to ensure that ac jacks wouldn't break?

Can I ask a few questions just to clarify your position?

1. Do you think that Dell know how long their machines, and the parts of the machine, are expected to last?

 

1. Of course. They know the failure rates, I'm sure they take more statistics than we know existed.

Still waiting on the tire that never wears out.

 

OK stay focussed, the tire was an example to illustrate a point, really, the validity of that point is irrelevant and it would be ad-hominem anyway.

2. Do you think that Dell are content with that failure rate, or do you think they would like it to be better?

 

2. Both. QA is content with it. R&D would like it better.

Apparently examples of a point can now be completely made up...

 

Not made up, you don't care anyway and neither do I.

3. What is more profitable, leaving the part "faulty", or fixing it to last longer?

 

3. You have to expand what we're talking about. If we're talking about reliability in general, leaving it "faulty" is more profitable on the short-term. Fixing it is more profitable on the long-term.

Let me rephrase then: Apparently support to an outlandish claim can be completely nonexistent. And also, a guy once told me "assuming that you know what I know is a rookie mistake" so, shame on you . I do care. If there were tires that lasted forever, and they were reasonable, I'd buy them in a heartbeat.

 

No-one would sell them to you. It would be bad business.

This is no fun anymore. You beat me. Well done.

 

Darn. I was just beginning to see the light.

Anyways, for those of you out there who want to know how tires work (and I just know there's a bunch of you lined up right now), here it goes. Tires work on the abstract concept of "friction", or in redneck terms "them circle things rubbin' wit the ground". When you put two tons of force on two objects, and also apply a shear force (in other words, "rubbin' things together") they eventually wear out. What's special though, is that the harder object wears down much slower than the softer object. The ground is much harder than the tires on your car, thus, the tires wear out much faster that the ground. This is what causes tires to wear out, and thus have to eventually be replaced.

Is it possible to make tires that take a lot longer to wear out? Of course. If you apply the above logic to the situation ("take what I just said and thunk really hard 'bout it"), all you would have to do is make the tires really hard. But guess what happens? Now that your tires don't wear out, the ground that you're driving over does. Now this presents a predicament ("a pickle") that it costs a ton more to repair the ground than it does to get you a new set of tires (them round things).

Thus, if someone was able to solve this situamation, then that there be a genus.

 

Oh, so in other words, you and your buddy are great at acting like hotshots and pointing out how there are multiple conspiracies in businesses and businesses are evil ...but you just suck a lot at making your OWN business. And the excuse is "uh, microeconomics, microeconomics." Here's a lesson in economics: if there's a problem you have identified that you claim affects millions of people who would be happy to shell out dollars for a solution that costs pennies to YOU, you would make millions of dollars easily. Of course, that's assuming you actually could run a company, rather than just sitting around talking about how corporations are nasty. Which doesn't happen to be the case, apparently.

 

Again demonstrating that you don't know anything about business. How many cars are there on the road? Multiply that by four. Assume you'll sell approximately 75% of that number, even if your price is outlandish, considering it's the only tire they'll ever have to buy. Now slap a price on it, which is no big deal because according to you we can do it easily and right now, with no additional R&D.

So basically, you're saying you KNOW how to do all that, but you don't want to. You're so noble that you don't want to basically make millions of dollars without breaking a sweat ...but you sure are able to grouse that tire companies won't! Good job, winner.

 

It's not how much people will pay. It's how MANY people will pay that. If you get one guy to pay $20 for the $1 solution, you made a NICE profit. But if he is the only one.....well you know. Most people are just gonna warranty if available or pay Dell 7 million dollars to fix it for them.

 

Sure, but if you read the thread, this guy claims that the problem affects 20% of ALL laptop owners. And not only that, the problem supposedly renders your laptop unusable (because he claims that the laptop manufacturers conspire to deliberately make a connector on your laptop that breaks, meaning nothing can ever be plugging in there again). This supposedly forces people to buy new laptops.

Now, if the fix is $20 and he claims that the ACTUAL COST is 3 cents and you figure most people would rather pay $20 than buy a new laptop ...that's money in the bank. Even if you only get a few million people to do it.

Of course, that would only be if he was making sense, which he isn't.

 

I'd just like to say thanks to Steve, for coming back and detailing his thoughts. It was a breath of fresh air .

Dude, learn to read my posts a little more thoroughly before making comments against them. I'll quote it for you...

So, just to make my comments perfectly understandable:-

Give 100 laptops to folk.
Find the 15 people who, because of their job/university/college/etc swap locations multiple times per day.
Monitor those 15 people.
Of those 15 machines, I believe that "it is likely to fail in possibly 1-in-5 cases before the machine would otherwise be upgraded."

So, using my guesstimated above figures, the problem would affect around 3% of all machines sold, at some point during their lives. Whether it's under warranty or 3 years down the line.

An acceptable failure rate for Dell? Most probably. It's a terribly simple problem to rectify, and it takes just a screwhole at the R&D time, and a screw during manufacture.

Does this mean that it is not an inherent fault with the design used in many laptops? Certainly not. It is a problem which has been going on for many years now. It is not limited to Dell, or any other manufacturer. Google simple terms related to faulty laptop power connectors and you'll find many pages of separate problems with the same item.

As for all the comments about razor-thin profit margins - they're probably right. The money in computer-manufacture was made many years ago when component cards were less than the cost of a machine. In this day and age, machines are dirt cheap compared to even a decade ago. But it doesn't negate the fact that the fix for this item is a fraction of a penny, or cent. Someone spending over $700 isn't going to care about that cent. If the rest of that cent were used to make every socket on the machine a little more rigid, then(from my example figures above) a possible 3% of users would have a happier overall experience with the machine.

I think I've pretty much said everything I ever could say on this subject.

 

LOL, he's backpedaling because he realizes how lame his entire argument was. Start with page 3 of the thread, where he claims that laptops break due to "normal wear and tear" as a result of deliberate disregard from manufacturers to force you to buy a new laptop:

And who does it affect, according to him? "It is a real problem that does affect a sizeable minority, on a year-in year-out, model-in model-out basis." Apparently, he went from his "1-in-5" statement to "1-in-5 ...uh, out of 15%." Suddenly, it went from affecting a "sizeable minority" to affecting, well, just a few people ...so now you know why he wouldn't go into business making money hand over fist replacing these screws!!

It's convenient because when he talks about it in terms of CORPORATIONS, it's a BIG DEAL. HUGE!!!! It affects LOTS of people!!!! So shouldn't they change?!?!?

Then when you ask him to start his own business to deal with the problem, which is apparently easily solved and profitable, he changes to, "well, it's not THAT big a deal and it doesn't affect THAT many people ...really, the easiest thing would be if all the laptop manufacterers dealt with it, so I can continue to complain about other things they conspire over."

 

Oh dear. I give up, I really do.

 

Uh oh, did the corporation silence you?

 

I agree with the OP to a certain extend, that part should not fail yearly, but perhaps need to last for a longer duration, let's say a good 3 years minimum sounds good. (then if it fails, you are just in time get a new one). But I don't support the idea of suing for compensation, because the idea of suing everything because of little problem are just waste of resources. Does any one remember that woman who sue MacDonald for "HOT" coffee, and won? God, that was an embarrassing moment for the U.S. legal system.

 

One of my professors was on the jury for a woman who was suing a car manufacturer because her husband was driving drunk and ran his car into a telephone pole at 60 mph and was injured. She said that since cars can travel at those speeds, it was the responsibility of car manufacturers to design cars that would protect people from any harm at those speeds. He was the only person who thought that was a stupid idea.

 

Oh for the sake of Pete .....

Lets all just get our toys back in the pram and carry on like adults eh?

Lets face it - the power supply jack is an obvious area of concern. When it is just soldered on to the board with no other form of support it is an area of likely future problems - especially when you plug and unplug your laptop a lot. Why do you think Apple moved to the magnetic ones? It's a much better idea and I have no idea why other manufacturers haven't done something similar (maybe Apple have protected the whole concept).
For sure doing something to add to the sturdiness of the power jack would lessen the chances of it failing in the future. And it is a fairly common repair carried out by repairers along with screen replacements so it is fairly common among "reasons my laptop died".

EDIT - Need to get my response in quicker, he heh.

 

While I share the view of the woman that suggest company should have safety mechanism for car at high speed, I TOTALLY disagree with the point and place where she used this argument. Car Companies have implement these safety measures for those who used their product in the way which the company and car builder intended the user to use, and not for those who decided to drink and drive. It is like saying Knives are dangerous, therefore, we made them all dull and install a huge piece of wood at the tip of all knives so criminal can't go around stabbing others.

 

I don't know; why does Apple weld its batteries into all of its devices, which prevents consumers from changing them for the life of the device? The fact that Apple does something doesn't mean that there's a problem. It may be more stylish, sure, but that's hardly an admission of wide-spread problems within the laptop industry. I've only owned this current laptop, but I know lots of people who have had lots of laptops and I've never heard them saying that their power-adaptor jack suddenly became inoperable. But even if they had, to then make the next monster leap to saying that it's an "inside job" to make us buy more laptops is ludicrous. Hear those black helicoptors?!?!? THEY'RE GONNA GET US!!!!

 

P.S. Those are actually two separate issues, now that I think about it. The magnetic cord is designed to "break off" when someone trips on the cord. That's not exactly normal wear and tear. This guy is claiming that simply plugging and unplugging the cord will damage the connector at the laptop and render the laptop inoperable.

 

Umm, you guys do realize that the MagSafe adapter is one of the most common areas of failure for the Macs right?

http://blogs.zdnet.com/mobile-gadgeteer/?p=276
http://www.appledefects.com/wiki/index.php?title=Magsafe

This thread has wavered back and forth so long now that I've lost track of its purpose. What's the main point/counterpoint here? That Dell should be required to make their laptops more reliable?

 

No, the point they were making was that laptop manufacturers deliberately make laptops that fail in order to force consumers to buy new ones.

Then I laughed.

That's the summary.

 

Yes! You laughed because you lack the understanding to realize that it's true. See if you can make your way through all these words below, good luck!

OK one more time real quick.

Never mind why they make laptops that fail, lets tackle one point at a time. You don't seem to be able to comprehend more than one point at a time. We can speculate about their reasons and motivations later if you want, once we get this out of the way.

Here's the first point of my posts in this thread. Here's my premise:

Laptop manufacturers deliberately make laptops that fail.

Not only do they do it on purpose, but they do it carefully, they study it and design it to specific tolerances, and they know when they are expected to fail.

Now, can you provide a counterpoint to that?

You would have to say one of 5 things:

1. Laptop manufacturers DO NOT deliberately make laptops that fail.

Which means they do it accidentally. Not true, they don't leave these things to chance.

2. Laptop manufacturers deliberately make laptops that DO NOT fail.

Which isn't true, we know they fail.

3.. Laptop manufacturers make laptops which they intend to last forever.

4. Laptop manufacturers make the laptops as well as they can and the fact that they fail eventually is left completely to chance. They aren't aware that it will happen one day and therefore it's an accident that they do fail, not deliberate. In other words, Laptop manufacturers make laptops that accidentally fail.

5. Some other crazy idea you have that isn't true either.

So which one are you claiming?

The truth is, they do everything deliberately, they make them to fail, they know it will fail, we know it will fail, and their is nothing wrong with that! The machines are cheap, they last 3-5 years which is enough for most people, the manufacturers aren't trying to screw us over any more than any other company that's in business to make money, and everyones a winner.

Laptop manufacturers deliberately make laptops that fail. Everyone in manufacturing does, realistically , everything will fail one day and it would be remiss not to realize and design for that.

There would be no point designing an AC plug to last 10 years when the rest of the machine lasts 3-5 would there? Maybe Dell got it a bit wrong on this one, it's a delicate balance.

 

You're only working with half the statement there.

This is the point/counterpoint: "laptop manufacturers deliberately make laptops that fail in order to force consumers to buy new ones".

The first part is undeniably true. Laptop manufacturers are deliberately making laptops - yes, yes they are. They aren't being pooped out of the factories accidentally. And yes, they fail. Everything does at a certain point.

The second part is where you conspiracy theory comes in. Your claim is that "laptop manufacturers have the ability to make laptops AT THE SAME COST that last a lot longer and CHOOSE NOT TO BECAUSE IT WOULD COST THEM SALES". That's the part we have an issue with. That's the part that's absolutely NOT TRUE. It defies common sense, economics, and competition.

If I made the claim "Man landed on the moon, and danced happily with Martians", then I'd better be able to prove both parts of the statement.

And I'm still waiting on those tires. Mine are wearing out.

 

Read my post please. One point at a time, I was responding to post #96. Once we can agree on that, then we can move on to the complex and hard-to-grasp question of why they do what they do. Be patient and let him answer first.

 

Yeah, I was responding to post 97 which was responding to post 96, which was responding to post 95. Surprising how that works isn't it?

Or is it that I'm not longer allowed to respond to your faulty logic since I always so inconveniently expose your erroneous ways?