Tuesday 8 April 2003

Pic of the day: Remember this logo. And when you see it in your shop, run like you just met a coughing Chinese. The Freecom DVD burner, now with USB 2 and Firewire.

Big surprise - not

Bought Freecom USB DVD burner. DVD burner does not burn DVD. Nor does it in fact burn CDs, which it was supposed to also do. It does however play normal CDs, both audio and program, as long as it has not been exposed to blank DVD or CDs since last it was turned on. It even plays DVD movies, although I had to install a separate program for this. The one I used for the original DVD player in the machine did not work.

Long time readers probably see a pattern here. It seems that most computer retailers first try to push defective equipment on me. I can only assume that this is the default, since they would probably not single out someone who has the power to make them look bad to readers all over the world as well as locally. (Very silent readers admittedly, but I assume a goodly number of you influence the purchase of computers, at the very least your own.)

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So here is how I imagine it: Factory makes computer equipment with no quality control and ships it all. Retailer sells it all, still with no quality control. Customer does the quality control. If equipment is defective, customer returns it to retailer and gets new. Retailer does not return the defective equipment, but puts it back along with the unsold stuff. Then next customer will either get the defective equipment or new, which may or may not be OK, depending on random luck. As this process repeats, a gradually larger part of inventory is defective. On the other hand, some customers just can't be bothered to complain if they don't really need the missing feature. So the retailer gets away with it, and the factory never hears anything so assume that their product is perfect even with no quality control.

I believe the last time I bought a computer without defective parts, not counting Hewlett Packard who evidently has quality control, was in the mid 1980es. It was a PC-AT compatible, 10MHz 80286 with 20 MB hard disk. It still runs, although the add-in Plus hard disk is gone.

I guess I should just save up and buy Hewlett Packard all the time, but I am not a very patient person. I am a surprisingly optimistic person. So I'll probably go back to the computer shop. Realistically they will say that it is a problem with the computers (both of them that I tested it on) and none of their concern. But hope springs eternal, isn't that so?