My take on this is that as the price came down, units could be made off shore and shipped here for the price of a few hours service shop labor, not to mention what they charged for service calls. May be I'm lucky, maybe I'm smart, every TV I've bought in the last 20 years is still running with no problems. Of course, the repair situation may be changing with the wide screens. I don't know if they hold up like the older solid state color TVs.
A little different with computers. I learned quite a bit about computer repair over the same period. I can change drives, cards and power supplies and such things. Not rocket science. I also know when to give up. I had a lap top in which the memory went bad. No one would touch it, because the memory was soldered in. Guess what. I wouldn't either, so it went to the dump after I removed the hard drive, but I had had several years use and it was CHEAP. That's why I bought it. An introduction to lap tops. Would you buy a Ferrari to learn how to drive?
So...I buy what meets my needs at the best price I can find. I've even bought a new up-to-date HP, just because it was an outstanding value, to replace one that was just getting old. I had thought for a couple of years to build one, after following Adrian's features. I figured I couldn't build the system any cheaper and I didn't have to buy all the components and do the work. I'm sure Adrian could have done better, but I'm not Adrian.
Discussion on:
Message 7 of 1
The best of ZDNet, delivered
ZDNet Newsletters
Get the best of ZDNet delivered straight to your inbox
