DEBATE: All general purpose laptops should be easily upgradable or be banned from import

Forums › Laptops and mobile computers › DEBATE: All general purpose laptops should be easily upgradable or be banned from import

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Awrrr
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#2555000 1-Sep-2020 17:29

Lias:

The expected life of a consumer device according to most manufacturers is 12 months. Generally I'd expect business quality laptops to last 5+ years, but not lower end consumer gear.

No wonder we're choking on crap and running out of resources!

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#2555009 1-Sep-2020 17:54

Lias:

The expected life of a consumer device according to most manufacturers is 12 months.

Do you have any citation that the expected life (as opposed to warranty) for a consumer device is 12 months. Any such device would be in breach of New Zealand consumer law now.

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#2555063 1-Sep-2020 18:22

^It's simply untrue

Lias

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#2555065 1-Sep-2020 18:26

Handle9:

Lias:

The expected life of a consumer device according to most manufacturers is 12 months.

Do you have any citation that the expected life (as opposed to warranty) for a consumer device is 12 months. Any such device would be in breach of New Zealand consumer law now.

I think its pretty self evident that the warranty offered on products by most manufacturers is their expected design life minus a margin of error. No-one is going to design a product to last 20 years and then offer a 1 year warranty on it.

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#2555067 1-Sep-2020 18:31

Lias:

Handle9:

Do you have any citation that the expected life (as opposed to warranty) for a consumer device is 12 months. Any such device would be in breach of New Zealand consumer law now.

I think its pretty self evident that the warranty offered on products by most manufacturers is their expected design life minus a margin of error. No-one is going to design a product to last 20 years and then offer a 1 year warranty on it.

I don't think it's self evident and certainly not how products get designed.

Most of the products that my company make have design lives of ~15 years. We only offer a 12 month warranty as that satisfies the demands of the market.

Lias

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#2555068 1-Sep-2020 18:35

Handle9:

Lias:

I think its pretty self evident that the warranty offered on products by most manufacturers is their expected design life minus a margin of error. No-one is going to design a product to last 20 years and then offer a 1 year warranty on it.

I don't think it's self evident and certainly not how products get designed.

Most of the products that my company make have design lives of ~15 years. We only offer a 12 month warranty as that satisfies the demands of the market.

I don't know what industry you work in, but it sure as heck is how PCs get designed and built in my experience (and yes, that does include having worked in relevant roles for an OEM pc builder)

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#2555075 1-Sep-2020 18:41

Lias:

I don't know what industry you work in, but it sure as heck is how PCs get designed and built in my experience (and yes, that does include having worked in relevant roles for an OEM pc builder)

Then I'm sure you can produce something that shows a one year design life or MTBF.

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#2555088 1-Sep-2020 18:54

Handle9:

Then I'm sure you can produce something that shows a one year design life or MTBF.

Firstly, I never said a 1 year design life.. I said a warranty is the design life with a margin of error. Secondly, even if there was some sort of internal document from that company that said such a thing, I'd hardly have access to it years after leaving. That being said, there was no such document, it was just a constant push to use the cheapest possible components. The R&D team had to fight just to get them to use components that we thought would last the warranty period half the time. When you re talking about consumer electronics, especially at the lower end, most people only care about the price and in turn that was pretty much all management cared about.

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#2555089 1-Sep-2020 18:56

What a terrible idea.

Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

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#2555187 1-Sep-2020 20:21

Camden: I am currently on the receiving end of Microsoft's obsolescent policies. Seven years ago I purchased a Windows 8 Pro 128gb tablet c/w keyboard and travel mouse. This unit has been upgraded software wise to W10 and the unit has worked faultlessly up until just recently when I noticed the case had started to expand and a while after that the cooling fan started to squeal. Even though the unit still functions normally it appears that the battery has expanded causing the case to buckle. No problem I thought. Take it back to Harvey Norman were I got it from and ask them to fix it or send it to Microsoft's repair center for repair.

This will be an easy fix. There are many repair guides for these. Microsoft won't do it, any number of skilled repair people will attempt it.

networkn

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#2555191 1-Sep-2020 20:33

Handle9:

Most of the products that my company make have design lives of ~15 years. We only offer a 12 month warranty as that satisfies the demands of the ~~market~~ company accountants

FTFY.

The "market" wants longer warranties, ask any consumer or business owner if they want 1 year warranties. If you can find me one that would prefer 1 over 2 I'll buy you lunch :)

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#2555192 1-Sep-2020 20:36

Rikkitic:

Lias:

The expected life of a consumer device according to most manufacturers is 12 months. Generally I'd expect business quality laptops to last 5+ years, but not lower end consumer gear.

No wonder we're choking on crap and running out of resources!

Consider thsi: If you buy and keep a device for 10 years, how much innovation are you missing out on? Think about how fast technology has moved in the past 5 years and some of the enhancements that have come out to newer versions of your devices...

Thinner, smaller, lighter, faster, higher resolution, and the list goes on. If you are one of the small part of the market who has no additional needs of a device in 10 years, then what you are saying might be true, but for the majority of people....

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#2555193 1-Sep-2020 20:37

networkn:

Handle9:

Most of the products that my company make have design lives of ~15 years. We only offer a 12 month warranty as that satisfies the demands of the market company accountants

FTFY.

The "market" wants longer warranties, ask any consumer or business owner if they want 1 year warranties. If you can find me one that would prefer 1 over 2 I'll buy you lunch :)

The market won't pay extra for them and is satisfied with a 1 year warranty.

There is a cost to a longer warranty for an OEM (you have to accrue for it) so the market finds a balance between paying that cost or buying something cheaper.

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#2555203 1-Sep-2020 20:43

Debate: All general purpose laptops should be easily upgradable

This comes down to one issue - desktops have standardized motherboard form factors. There is no standard laptop motherboard form factor. This is the reason many upgrade paths are unavailable.

It's a hard one. Every designer every year wants to put ports in different places and round different corners, and make the battery a different shape. That said, many business brands settle on a standard within the brand for a few years, sometimes.

A California style solution could work. Brands must provide at least one model using a standardized form factor and utilising standardized components. A market the size of California is needed to get that started. So, who wants to move to California and start lobbying? : ).

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#2555395 2-Sep-2020 08:36

Consider a scenario where a laptop is five years old and has the following issues:

Running slow and needs an upgrade.
Software glitches.
Worn keyboard and trackpad.
Diminished battery capacity.

Now let's assume that the owner of that computer is a typical user who doesn't have the skills to fix any of those things themselves. What is the economic viability of them paying the service agent to fix all of those things, versus just buying a new machine with a fresh warranty?

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