The fun happens when it doesn't work as advertised and there is no way to find this out until you buy it. The return policy prohibits the use of the device long enough to find the faults and still be able to return it or there's a contract service associated with the device.<br>
<br>Either way, by bad advertising or deceptive practices, you now own a device that is less than what you thought you were buying. <br><br>The device is NOT going to get "fixed" by the maker. And you are barred from fixing it yourself or getting someone to fix it.<br>
<br>Cell phone, pda, laptop, car, makes no difference the device use; once it's mine it's no longer yours. The mud in this is the warranty obligations. I would love to see a device warranty spell out what SLA they are going to provide: i.e. a cell phone will have a battery life of at least x hours in use and y hours on standby, the minimum signal strength output in use will be z, the minimum signal strength required for phone service is a, for data service is b, etc. The following included apps will perform this list of functions, 1, 2, 3, ...<br>
<br>Actually I would love to get anything even resembling an SLA from a cell phone service provider (verizon) BEFORE I sign the contract.<br><br>ipad is an overpriced tv set. For a gazillion people, that's OK. But once it's mine (I won't buy one of these things so this is rhetorical) if MINE. Is it _wise_ to tinker with the car computer? Probably not. But I can. Will it void the warranty? Yes. Is it wise to deliberately open up oneself to the hassles of a voided warranty? If you have the cash to burn, knock yourself out and publish your trials and tribulations so others can benefit from your misery or triumph.<br>
<br>But to deliberately create a process that denies owners from using the device in any way they choose even after warranty period has expired smells like 4 day old fish in the sun. The exception to this is if the device can still be a safety issue to other non-owners (i.e. some sort of safety issue like trashing the car computer that now disables the electronic brake sub-system).<br>
<br>Lemmings over a cliff is still lemmings over a cliff. Industry Standard is not always a good thing. As standards are designed by committees of financially vested interests, the out put standards tend to strongly favor the profit making over the performance, safety, durability, effectiveness, and pretty much anything else that could be standardized to the benefit of buyers.<br>
<br>Except for the LSB. I think they are doing a pretty good job.<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Aug 20, 2010 at 10:29 AM, Jerald Sheets <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:questy@gmail.com">questy@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;"><div style="word-wrap: break-word;"><div class="im"><br><div><div>On Aug 20, 2010, at 10:20 AM, James Sumners wrote:</div>
<blockquote type="cite"><div><font color="#000000"><br></font>So if a device doesn't work like you think it should, and you know it<br>does things to prevent you from making it work like you think it<br>should, just don't buy it.</div>
</blockquote><br></div><div><br></div></div><div>Precisely. good word, James.</div><div><br></div><font color="#888888"><div>--j</div></font></div><br>_______________________________________________<br>
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