Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!psuvax1!rutgers!mcdchg!ddsw1!karl From: karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Karl Denninger) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: Amigas -- why the 90 day warranty? Summary: More discussion Message-ID: <1989Oct31.180252.7798@ddsw1.MCS.COM> Date: 31 Oct 89 18:02:52 GMT References: <1989Oct15.021329.2118@ddsw1.MCS.COM> <23196@cup.portal.com> <1989Oct24.193454.23743@ddsw1.MCS.COM> <72137@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> Reply-To: karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Karl Denninger) Distribution: na Organization: Macro Computer Solutions, Inc., Mundelein, IL Lines: 89 In article <72137@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> Jeff Martens writes: >In article <1989Oct24.193454.23743@ddsw1.MCS.COM> karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Karl Denninger) writes: > > [ stuff deleted ] > >>I don't CARE if I see a PC with the features of an Amiga at the same price. >>That is not the point. The Amys are neat machines, yes, but they have >>several shortcomings: > >>1) The plastic case. Yes, the PLASTIC case. It deforms easily, is broken >> easily, and in general gives off the impression of >toy<. The A500s and > >How does this distinguish the Amiga from, say, the Mac? The Mac is >plastic. A Sun workstation, certainly a professional system, is >plastic. Granted, PCs are metal. So what? Ok, let me redefine that. A >cheap< plastic case. The A1000s had horribly cheap plastic used in their construction. Plastic that was inadaquately reinforced, such that if you did what appeared to be intended (place a monitor on top of the box) the entire thing would deform and bend! >>2) Shoddy construction. Included here are the problems with the A500 >> keyboards which are reputed to short out, some things I saw in the >> original A1000s that didn't really turn me on (the "stacking" method on >> the circuit boards) and a few other points. All in all, bad news. > >Commodore should be embarassed by the A1000 keyboard. I don't know >enough to comment about the 500 or 2000s. I know of two people who had 500 KBs short out -- repeatedly. Note too that on the 500's, the keyboard IS the computer. Yuck. >>4) The warranty. As a commercial entity I might be interested in buying an >> Amy for work use. As an individual I am not -- because I cannot afford >> the hit that could come from a failure between 90 days and a year's time. >> 90 days is insufficient to prove out the hardware unless I use it every >> day for several hours -- and I can't be sure I'll do that. A year >> warranty would be likely to catch >all< the problems. This problem is >> exacerbated by all the custom chips and their costs, as well as the cost >> of repairs -- a reasonably simple problem could cost a few hundred bucks >> to get fixed! Say Agnes blows up. How much? Some $100 for the part, >> plus an hour or so tech time. Total cost of some $150 perhaps. On a >> $500-900 system (A500 here). Within the first 6 months of ownership? >> There is no chance I'm willing to accept that kind of risk. > >I don't know one way or another about your prices, but you seem pretty >concerned about fairly unlikely occurrences. What a crock. If it WAS unlikely, then there would be a year warranty, no? Why not, if Commodore isn't going to eat much in repairs? Or is the truth that the systems DO blow up often, and expensively. THOSE CUSTOM CHIPS CANNOT BE IGNORED. I can get nearly ANY part for a PC clone from any one of 100 distributors. Half of the Ami's stuff is CUSTOM and available ONLY from Commodore. Monopolistic pricing sets in under this circumstance. >As a general rule with electronics, if it works for a few weeks, it's >gonna keep working. Unless the design stinks, in which case that axiom doesn't hold true. >>Let's take an example from the consumer market -- big-ticket stuff. A >>cellular phone, for example. Every unit out there I am aware of either has a >>one or three year warranty. They sell for somewhere around $1,000, a major >>investment for most people. They take a while to get fixed when they do >>break, and are >expensive< to fix if you're footing the bill. >>.......The incremental cost increase is >not< large >>UNLESS THE PRODUCT BREAKS A LOT. > >First, a cellular phone is typically kept in a harsh environment -- >your Yugo. It's regularly subjected to temperature and humidity >extremes, so it's going to break more often. Thus, a longer warrantee >really is a selling point. Oh? I suppose you know nothing about something called "thermal cycling", eh? I do, we run into these kind of failures all the time in the PC world. >Second, your point about incremental cost is valid. Yep. If failure is improbable, say, 2% of the systems fail, then the incremental cost is only a couple of dollars a system! -- Karl Denninger (karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM, !ddsw1!karl) Public Access Data Line: [+1 312 566-8911], Voice: [+1 312 566-8910] Macro Computer Solutions, Inc. "Quality Solutions at a Fair Price"