[ltp] Bad news for us ...

[David A. Desrosiers]

On Sun, 2006-06-04 at 14:57 +0200, Kris Steenhaut wrote:
> 
> And by the way, as most of you apparently have missed it: Lenovo
> announced it won't keep the change-batteries stock anymore, as IBM did
> (one of the reasons of their losses btw). So, if it was me, I wouldn't
> purchase a too old type anyway. 

Perfect opportunity for another third-party vendor of these batteries to
enter the market here and make a killing, selling replacement batteries
to everyone who has one of these "legacy" (1-year-old or older)
laptops. 

Capitalism at its best. 

> Meanwhile I hope my TP41 will last for another 4 years at least. (-: 

This reminds me of something I saw in a local computer repair shop just
2 days ago while I was pricing out some servers for my business: 

An older gentleman came into the store with a laptop that was in need of
repair. The laptop was probably 3-4 years old, by my visual inspection a
few feet away. The employee was explaining to him that he couldn't
upgrade the laptop, because it would just be easier for him to spend a
little more and buy a new "current" laptop. 

The older gentleman was apparently apalled at this, because he simply
wanted the same machine, running the same applications, in the same way
he had them configured, but with upgraded drive space and system RAM. 

The employee kept insisting that he should upgrade, and that "in these
times, you should plan on buying a new computer or laptop every 2 years
anyway, because technology changes that fast." 

The man said he didn't need "today's" technology, and that he just
wanted his existing laptop to continue to work. Period. 

Well, no sale was made, no upgrade done, because neither person would
budge.

Now, I can see if a person had a laptop in need of repair, where parts
simply were no longer available for it through normal (non-eBay)
channels, but this laptop was clearly still useful, usable, and just
needed a new drive and RAM, and could have been fixed without buying a
whole new laptop. 

There is a sweeping trend I've personally experienced and seen in the
industry, where devices are made to be "expendable" after 'n' months or
years of use. "Planned obsolescence" seems to be the norm these days,
with batteries engineered to last 13 months on a 1-year warrantee,
hardware which simply has no repair plan or parts, because you're just
supposed to throw it away and buy a new one when things fail, and
worse. 


-- 
David A. Desrosiers
desrod gnu-designs com
http://gnu-designs.com

"Erosion of civil liberties... is a threat to national security."