[ale] Android Tablets

[Jim Kinney]

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.

Either way, by bad advertising or deceptive practices, you now own a device
that is less than what you thought you were buying.

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.

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, ...

Actually I would love to get anything even resembling an SLA from a cell
phone service provider (verizon) BEFORE I sign the contract.

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.

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).

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.

Except for the LSB. I think they are doing a pretty good job.

On Fri, Aug 20, 2010 at 10:29 AM, Jerald Sheets <questy at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> On Aug 20, 2010, at 10:20 AM, James Sumners wrote:
>
>
> So if a device doesn't work like you think it should, and you know it
> does things to prevent you from making it work like you think it
> should, just don't buy it.
>
>
>
> Precisely.  good word, James.
>
> --j
>
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-- 
-- 
James P. Kinney III
I would rather stumble along in freedom than walk effortlessly in chains.
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