Products made to break easy.

WatchTower

WatchTower

WatchTower

Soldato
Joined
9 Jan 2005
Posts
4,427
Location
Stoke-On-Trent
A while a go I broke my PSP I dropped it and it fell only about two feet on to a step that leads to my beadroom then fell off there on to a teddy. I thought Oh **** but then it only fell a very short distance so it'll be fine. Well I turned it on and it came on but with a shattered LCD screen. I was shocked on how fragile it was and thought OMG is it worth getting fixed if thats how easy they break I thought. I was gutted.

I've also herd that Ipods are just as fragile. Surely its obvious things that are in peoples hands so often their's a good chance they'll be dropped once or twice. So why are they made so fragile? I think it's a way of getting you to spend extra money with companys like Sony and Apple. I think it's disgrace. I bet you could throw the old GameBoy across the room or out of a window and it'll still work. All comapanys should be as good as Nintendo.
 
Because these large companies work via internal distintegration of their trading networks. They basically do deals with whoever can produce certain parts the cheapest. If these small companies want the contract, then they have to be the cheapest and to be the cheapest they'll need to cut corners or use more fragile materials.
 
I beg to differ *begs*. Ive had my sony erikson k500 phone for 18 months now and it works absolutely fine! Trust me, its been thrown around a lot.
Also talking of ipods, i have a nano that has been dropped onto various surfaces from scary heights (some real brown pants moments), yet it still works absolutely perfectly :cool: i have no idea what everyone is talking about saying that ipod nanos break easily. Mine has no cover :o . Its also second-second hand!

Although on reflection, i may be just very lucky.
 
Nix said:
Because these large companies work via internal distintegration of their trading networks. They basically do deals with whoever can produce certain parts the cheapest. If these small companies want the contract, then they have to be the cheapest and to be the cheapest they'll need to cut corners or use more fragile materials.
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Do you think they didnt do this "back in the day" as well? Of course they did.

I think we just have to get used to the fact that items like psps and ipods are a lot more complex than say walkmans or gameboys we had 10 years ago and so theres less margin for error (and plenty more bits to break, crammed into the same space) if something goes wrong.
 
Burned_Alive said:
Do you think they didnt do this "back in the day" as well? Of course they did.

I think we just have to get used to the fact that items like psps and ipods are a lot more complex than say walkmans or gameboys we had 10 years ago and so theres less margin for error (and plenty more bits to break, crammed into the same space) if something goes wrong.
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They've been doing this since the decline of Fordism into Post-Fordism. I know damn well what i'm talking about and why on earth do you think that I think it's a new thing? I never suggested anything of the sort.

I was going to elaborate on my earlier post and explain what you said, but I took that as a given. Obviously I was wrong as I left my post too generalised.
 
I belive the PSP was simply made to break easy to make more money. I bet there's many ways it could have be made to take the odd fall. Instead of PSP they should have put one of them post office lables on it that reads handle with care.

It feels extremly fragile while you hold it. How is the DS in the sense can you drop that on a teddy with out it breaking? :)
 
I recently dropped my Ipod nano off of a first floor balcony onto concrete, whereupon my dog picked it up and started chewing on it. By the time I got downstairs outside and round the back to where the dog was it was thoroughly chewed... The only visible signs anything had happened though were a small chunk taken out of the headphone cable by the dogs teeth. The Ipod works fine, tough little begger. :)

LCD screens are notoriously fragile though. It wasn't that long ago that they had a 50% failure rate at manufacture just because of that fragility.
 
Johanson said:
I beg to differ *begs*. Ive had my sony erikson k500 phone for 18 months now and it works absolutely fine! Trust me, its been thrown around a lot.
Also talking of ipods, i have a nano that has been dropped onto various surfaces from scary heights (some real brown pants moments), yet it still works absolutely perfectly :cool: i have no idea what everyone is talking about saying that ipod nanos break easily. Mine has no cover :o . Its also second-second hand!

Although on reflection, i may be just very lucky.
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The nanos weak point is direct pressure on the screen. The reason owners were a bit miffed is that the sales pitch running up to it's release showed Apples MD shoving one in his trouser pocket, a lot of nanos break from owners doing just that as it puts pressure on the stupidly fragile screen when you walk/run/jog.
 
WatchTower said:
How is the DS in the sense can you drop that on a teddy with out it breaking? :)
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Well I dropped mine onto the concrete warehouse floor at work the other week and it's fine. My phone (Orange SPV C550) has also been droped numerous times onto hard surfaces from various heights, and despite some physical damage (keypad slightly knocked out of place, dent in top right corner) it still works perfectly well.
 
A lot of it seems to be down to the angle it falls at I think.
I've seen phones fall down a flight of concrete stairs and be fine, and then I've seen the same type of phone fall on the floor in a street and be wrecked.

But I do agree that they're not made to break 'easily', they're just getting more complicated now and rely on more fiddlier bits.
 
Steedie said:
my ipod mini has fallen onto concrete many times from my hand, and even down a flight of stairs once.

Still works fine, no sign of damage at all
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Kinda the same with my iPod video. Someone tried to grab it while I was walking down the road choosing a song and it fell on the concrete floor. Luckily nothing was broken but that was probaly because it was in a leather case. I've dropped my phone loads as well without a leather case and all that's happened is chips in the case, still works well though.

WatchTower said:
All hail Nintendo. I saw some guy on a vid thow a GameCube out of a car :eek: then drag it a few miles. When they got the GameCube back home it was well battered but to my surprise the thing still worked. :cool:
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I've always heard that Nintendo's stuff is very well made. There was that post a while back about some people in the north pole using Nintendo DSs and they survived (unlike other electrical things they tried). Does anyone have a link to it?
 
Nix said:
They've been doing this since the decline of Fordism into Post-Fordism. I know damn well what i'm talking about and why on earth do you think that I think it's a new thing? I never suggested anything of the sort.

I was going to elaborate on my earlier post and explain what you said, but I took that as a given. Obviously I was wrong as I left my post too generalised.
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Coming straight after the OP your post gave the impression you agreed and suggested it was a modern thing, nay worries though fella no need to get worked up over it! :)

WatchTower said:
All hail Nintendo. I saw some guy on a vid thow a GameCube out of a car :eek: then drag it a few miles. When they got the GameCube back home it was well battered but to my surprise the thing still worked. :cool:
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To be fair, theres not really much to a gamecube its mostly plastic casing so id expect it to take a battering.
 
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