Life without Far-East Electronics

[Mujja]

Just a thought, if the far eastern countries were still living in the third world we would be using Alba, Bush and Goodmans laptops, mobiles and games consoles.

Looking around the house almost everything, from the watch on my wrist to the fridge in the kitchen, is made by or manufactured by a company in the far east.

How different would gadgets and electronics look today if they were designed by British/European companies?

 

[jimmynaetroots]

Loads are designed by British and European companies, just they make them in the Far East to keep costs down.

 

[dowie]

the items themselves would probably be a few generations behind current products and they'd be rarer and more expensive

the companies making them would be smaller and less able to invest heavily in R&D

 

[Deleted member 66701]

Just a thought, if the far eastern countries were still living in the third world we would be using Alba, Bush and Goodmans laptops, mobiles and games consoles.

Looking around the house almost everything, from the watch on my wrist to the fridge in the kitchen, is made by or manufactured by a company in the far east.

How different would gadgets and electronics look today if they were designed by British/European companies?

Most gadgets and electronics today ARE designed by British/Eurpoean (+ American) companies.

They're just made in the far east.

 

[Hades]

The products would be similar to those we have today. But they would be more expensive. We would also have a higher rate of employment in the country.

 

[Terminal_Boy]

Most gadgets and electronics today ARE designed by British/Eurpoean (+ American) companies.

They're just made in the far east.

That's always been the case. The Japanese are masters of improving and miniaturising existing technologies; but haven't had a whole load of original designs outside digital photography and gaming platforms.

 

[Monkeynut]

The chips would probably be made in the US, and the assembly would just be in Poland or Romania or somewhere.

 

[jsmoke]

Most of these things derive from university labs or companies like Intel anyway, these companies are generally just gluing them all together and shipping them.

 

[FoxEye]

The products would be similar to those we have today. But they would be more expensive. We would also have a higher rate of employment in the country.

This. The only reason we moved to have everything made in the east is due to low wages.

We'd have exactly the same stuff, only it would be more expensive. And we'd still have a manufacturing sector in this country. Or the US would

There's no reason at all to suggest we wouldn't have smartphones or the like.

But you might not upgrade your smartphone every year (I think that's pretty wasteful anyhow, but I know plenty who make out that they can't live without the latest and greatest Apple phone).

 

[Nate75]

I reckon they are just made in the far east to keep the costs down...

... hey wait!!1

 

[Mark A]

Just a thought, if the far eastern countries were still living in the third world we would be using Alba, Bush and Goodmans laptops, mobiles and games consoles.

Alba, Bush and Goodmans are all made in China as well..

 

[plasmahal]

The products would be similar to those we have today. But they would be more expensive. We would also have a higher rate of employment in the country.

Basically this....

 

[arctine]

The chips would probably be made in the US, and the assembly would just be in Poland or Romania or somewhere.

Staggered.

 

[Rroff]

To grossly simplify a lot of our current tech has its legacy in WW2 much of it iterating on the break throughs of German (many of them ended up working in US labs at the end of the war - some against their will), British and US scientists from that period. Much of the original work then and since has originated in Europe or the US as mentioned though the Japanese have had significant impact on the miniaturisation and aesthetics.

I think the main difference would be:

Rather than mass produced tat of questionable quality we'd have a more marked divide of low and high end with the low end still being high quality just lacking a lot of luxury features and being relatively affordable and the high end stuff being considerably more expensive and probably a bit more feature rich than typical today.

A lot less innovation in the middle ground.

Many devices being bulkier and brick like i.e. laptops would probably still be more like briefcases.