How much attention do you pay to quality?

[amirm]

Pop Quiz: How many times do you think a laptop should survive falling from 4-5 feet in your shoulder onto concrete floor? How about three times and still working as if nothing happened? I am talking about my Sony Vaio Z laptop. This was one expensive laptop at $2,000 a couple of years ago. But courtesy of my super comfortable Ogio bag but with a fatal flaw of letting the laptop fall out if not zipped, twice I have dropped it at airport checkins. And this last time from my car. The impact was so forceful that it completely bent the corner the aluminum keyboard cover. The case almost separated and the optical drive jetted out. I pushed it all back into shape more or less and it is working like nothing happened. The prior drops caused the plastic power button to break but the carbon fiber casing elsewhere did not even register anything had happened.

The prior laptop was from Fujitsu. It also fell out at security checkpoint but this time, just off the table or about 3 feet. It completely shattered its LCD and Fujitsu wanted $700 for the repair! I bought the LCD onliine but they were all Chinese knock-offs that had lower resolution and horrible quality. I had to trash it after owning it for a year or two. It also cost $2,000 or so.

I have also dropped by Droidx phone many times and it never failed. I am fearful of what my HTC DNA will do.

As an electrical engineer and someone who used to repair electronics for a living, I am good at spotting when quality corners are cut. Alas I don't think end users are able to make such judgement and we buy in absence of that kind of data.

So how about you? When you buy an amplifier do you worry about how reliable the design is? How about cars? Computers? Tables and phones? Tools?

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Pop Quiz: How many times do you think a laptop should survive falling from 4-5 feet in your shoulder onto concrete floor? How about three times and still working as if nothing happened? I am talking about my Sony Vaio Z laptop. This was one expensive laptop at $2,000 a couple of years ago. But courtesy of my super comfortable Ogio bag but with a fatal flaw of letting the laptop fall out if not zipped, twice I have dropped it at airport checkins. And this last time from my car. The impact was so forceful that it completely bent the corner the aluminum keyboard cover. The case almost separated and the optical drive jetted out. I pushed it all back into shape more or less and it is working like nothing happened. The prior drops caused the plastic power button to break but the carbon fiber casing elsewhere did not even register anything had happened.

The prior laptop was from Fujitsu. It also fell out at security checkpoint but this time, just off the table or about 3 feet. It completely shattered its LCD and Fujitsu wanted $700 for the repair! I bought the LCD onliine but they were all Chinese knock-offs that had lower resolution and horrible quality. I had to trash it after owning it for a year or two. It also cost $2,000 or so.

I have also dropped by Droidx phone many times and it never failed. I am fearful of what my HTC DNA will do.

As an electrical engineer and someone who used to repair electronics for a living, I am good at spotting when quality corners are cut. Alas I don't think end users are able to make such judgement and we buy in absence of that kind of data.

So how about you? When you buy an amplifier do you worry about how reliable the design is? How about cars? Computers? Tables and phones? Tools?

Can't say I've dropped laptops enough to match your frequency, Amir, but I did drop one on a bed once, so hard that it bounced off, flipped 180 degrees in mid air and dropped flat to a hardwood floor 4, 4.5 feet below. Not a scratch. The hard drive made a little repetitive squeak as I quickly backed it up, and not being one to take chances I replaced it the next day, but it ran just fine and sustained no scratches, dents or visible damage of any kind.

Tim

 

[slowGEEZR]

So how about you? When you buy an amplifier do you worry about how reliable the design is? How about cars? Computers? Tables and phones? Tools?

I absolutely look at quality in everything I buy. In my 60 years on this planet, I've learned that quality ends up paying for itself time and again. Life is short, why buy junk?

 

[JackD201]

Quality over quantity every time. I subscribe to the saying that when the price is forgotten, quality remains.

 

[mep]

The prior laptop was from Fujitsu. It also fell out at security checkpoint but this time, just off the table or about 3 feet. It completely shattered its LCD and Fujitsu wanted $700 for the repair! I bought the LCD onliine but they were all Chinese knock-offs that had lower resolution and horrible quality. I had to trash it after owning it for a year or two. It also cost $2,000 or so.

I have also dropped by Droidx phone many times and it never failed. I am fearful of what my HTC DNA will do.

As an electrical engineer and someone who used to repair electronics for a living, I am good at spotting when quality corners are cut. Alas I don't think end users are able to make such judgement and we buy in absence of that kind of data.

Amir-I’m having a hard time reconciling your statements. You say you are good at spotting when quality corners are cut, and yet you got burned by your Fujitsu laptop and the replacement LCD you bought for it. And now you are “fearful” of your HTC DNA.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

I think that the word "quality" in your header is misleading. You are focusing mainly on durability which is only one of many desirable "qualities," such as speed, resolution, etc.

 

[Mosin]

I not only pay attention to quality, I tend to modify half of everything I buy. Also, I will often buy a used, but time-proven item over the latest and greatest one. Then, some things I buy because of my experiences with that particular brand, or the experiences of known professional users. Even small purchases get serious consideration before I buy them.

Some examples:

I have serviced the electrical systems of most cars, including the most prestigious ones, Mercedes, BMW, Jaguar, etc., so I know what is out there. We buy Honda made vehicles without consideration for any others because I know they work, and I know they will last my family until we become totally bored with them, or in the case of my wife, too embarrassed to be seen in such an old car. An Acura lasted me nineteen years. My family insisted I get rid of it because of its age. I saw a guy driving it the other day. It's a 1989 model, and he is a Honda mechanic at the local dealership. If not my family, at least someone out there appreciates quality, regardless of age. Who knows how long a perfectly maintained Honda will last? Forever?

Shoes? I buy the same style of the same brand every time...without trying them on. Sneakers are an exception.

Suits? I get off-the-rack Ralph Lauren or Brooks Brothers. They last.

My wife decided that she wanted a sewing machine for some bizarre reason. (She has never used it.) Anyway, I did research, a lot of research. In the end, she got a mint 1950's Singer Mod.301. If she never sews a stitch, I can get a return on that small investment, if it ever gets sold.

The can opener has Sharp copier gears. The cabinets got ripped apart, and re-fitted with full extension industrial guide rails.

If you want a Wok, find out what Chinese restaurants use. We got a hand-hammered low carbon steel one, and a 60,000 BTU burner to sit it on. The same goes for pots and pans. We skipped right past Williams Sonoma, and got Wear-Ever and DeBuyer skillets. If those brands are good enough for Cordon Bleu chefs, they're good enough for us.

I tend to buy hi-fi equipment based on performance coupled with longevity. A lot of my stuff consists of experimental pieces that my friends made, however.

My workstation is one I built using a server board with multiple processors way back in 2002. It holds its own. The thing did catch fire around five years ago. My son and I did a board repair. As long as it keeps working, it serves my purposes. XP works for me, so why change? (It has been reloaded once in all these years, and that was an overwrite.)

Laptops, etc? I'm sort of stuck because my son used to sell them. We've been lucky with Toshiba, though. I have the only Gigabyte netbook that still works out of several that we bought for work. That purchase was made because the units have a touch screen that allows us to scroll through large .pdf files quickly. You can't win'em all.

 

[amirm]

Amir-I’m having a hard time reconciling your statements. You say you are good at spotting when quality corners are cut, and yet you got burned by your Fujitsu laptop and the replacement LCD you bought for it. And now you are “fearful” of your HTC DNA.

I am not a mechanical engineer so judging the crash worthiness of a product, i.e. laptop durability, is not something I know how to do. My fear or HTC DNA as such, is not based on data but layman assessment of it.

On electronics though, that is what I used do for a living. Here is a simple example you can also follow. Look inside an amplifier and find electrolytic capacitors. These are the round "cans" which are often in blue, green or gray. On them there is always a temperature rating. The standard and cheaper ones are rated for 85 degree C. The higher quality ones are 105 degree C. The former are fine for most uses. However, when a cap like this is put next to major power generation sources like output transistors or power supply regulators, which you can tell by existence of heat sinks, then you should see if they are 105 degree C variety. If they are 85, longer term the cap will dry out leading to failures. Better yet I like to see the cap away from heat sources.

The above is a great technique by the way when you go shopping for PC power supply in a store when building your own PC. Usually the power supply has slots in its case so you can peer into the guts and read the capacitor ratings. When you find power supplies with 105 degree caps, you will also see better quality elsewhere.

I am also a woodworker. When I buy furniture or kitchen cabinets, the first thing I do is put them on their faces and look at the build quality. I can tell by the choice of material, and construction techniques whether they are going to last or not. I am not a machinist but woodworking requires some knowledge there so I can tell when metal mechanical parts are put together to save money or not. A sheet metal screw is cheaper to use than a threaded one so when I see the former, my antenna is up.

For another example, I am a photographer. I use my knowledge of that world to determine the quality of a video projector. I can tell what is a lens quality problems vs the rest of the projector. It is routine to find such quality problems often in even expensive projectors.

I am fortunate in having learned these things due to my job or hobbies but as I noted, my knowledge is not complete and I fall victim to quality issues just the same at times.

 

[Mosin]

I am fortunate in having learned these things due to my job or hobbies but as I noted, my knowledge is not complete and I fall victim to quality issues just the same at times.

You pretty much summed it up with that single sentence.

I will add that I am extremely suspicious of bling. Superfluous additions to a product also throw up red flags to me. If the item is too glitzy, I wonder what they are hiding. I'll go for understated elegance and functionality very time.

 

[Johnny Vinyl]

I like that word "durability". It's something I look for in a product and is as important to me as features, usability and service. So if in the end a product has lasted I would then call that a quality product, regardless of what it is or what one has paid for it.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

I like that word "durability". It's something I look for in a product and is as important to me as features, usability and service. So if in the end a product has lasted I would then call that a quality product, regardless of what it is or what one has paid for it.

Sorta. Durability is a desirable quality but cannot define the overall quality of the device which, of course, depends on its ability to perform in the intended application. Pick any product. You buy it to perform a task or tasks and durability is a valuable adjunct property.

 

[treitz3]

Quality in a computer mouse? I'm on it Amir. Quality in everything else I own? I evaluate it everyday, regardless of what it is I purchased.

Tom

 

[jazdoc]

If you buy the best (quality), it only hurts once!

 

[amirm]

Here is another example of quality. In 1987 I bought a Honda mower. We had honda cars and I was a real believer in their reliability so paid a premium to get the Honda mower. I have a tractor now that I use for mowing our property so the Honda has not run for years. Feeling bad for it , I took it out, sprayed a bit of engine starter in it and despite the old fuel in it it started right up! Not only did it start, but it ran smooth like the day I bought it! 26 year old, mechanical device that was neglected has this much quality put into it that it simply does not age. The aluminum deck in it means that there is zero rust in it.

Compare that with a gas string trimmer I have. I paid $1,200 for it. A year later its B&S engine would not start, its valves needed adjusting, and even after fixing it it still takes fussing with it to get it started. And this is their higher-end engine not their bottom of the line stuff.

 

[treitz3]

Amir, can I purchase your Honda mower? I have a Lawn Boy that cuts like a carpet but the [fill in the blank] mower has been in the shop more than it should be lately. The difference is between yours and mine is one has been "abused" by no use. The other has been abused by use. That would be mine. It is the quietest mower I have used and when working, plows through what I would consider a field of grass. With or without the grass catcher/mulcher option.

Even though it's 2 decades old, the deck remains with minimal degradation. It still cuts grass that looks like a carpet when I'm done and it's quiet compared to any mower I have ever used. There is nothing more important to me when it comes to the purchase of something like quality. The end result of what this mower does combined with the Db level while mowing keeps me wanting to keep it running. I look at newer mowers and I hear the gripes......the quality of this mower, even with it being in the shop more often than not, makes me not want to even consider purchasing another one.

Quality matters.

Tom

 

[amirm]

Did you say abuse Tom? How is cutting everything in sight including metal posts with the Honda mower? When I used to live in California I used it non-stop. I would use to literally clean out fields, not knowing what was until after I hear that, "oh, what did I hit now?"

I now use my tractor for abuse duty. This thing has multiple belts, moving a mower unit that is 300 pounds by itself (tractor weighs in at 2,500 pounds). I have cut through rebar with it without even knowing it!

 

[treitz3]

Oh dear, you are as bad as I am. I've hit bricks, metal, stumps....you name it? My mower has hit it. I didn't want to say it but since you brought it up.....I'm as bad as you are when it comes to a mower. A blade is cheap when you are attempting to get something done.

I would, however, hate to see your blade after the rebar incident. Whoa.

Tom

 

[Bill Hart]

For what it's worth, we just disassembled an old iMac G3 to recycle it. Getting at the harddrive involved an unbelievable number of steps to unscrew assemblies, I can't imagine modern consumer computers are still assembled this way, it would seem far too labor intensive. It appeared that parts were made in Japan, too, which would now seem cost prohibitive. And this was, at the time, a 'cheap' Apple computer. Cool piece of industrial design, with about as much power as a garage door opener.

 

[mep]

Compare that with a gas string trimmer I have. I paid $1,200 for it. A year later its B&S engine would not start, its valves needed adjusting, and even after fixing it it still takes fussing with it to get it started. And this is their higher-end engine not their bottom of the line stuff.

I never knew that $1200 gas string trimmers existed. I buy high-quality Echo trimmers and they aren't close to that kind of money. What brand is that?

 

[amirm]

I never knew that $1200 gas string trimmers existed. I buy high-quality Echo trimmers and they aren't close to that kind of money. What brand is that?

It is a man's tool. Is by DR. https://www.drpower.com/prdsell.aspx?Name=trm-sp-pro-xl

It is self-propelled and is able to cut through pretty nasty material. It easily sheers off my sprinkler *tubes* for example . It even ripped apart my aluminum downspouts!!! We have a large field at our vacation house and I am constantly having to keep the vegetation at bay. If I can over them I use the tractor. But by structures and such, and dealing with thick brush (I am talking 3 foot high grass and weeds), this thing devours them. It is hard work though even though it is self-propelled.