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View Full Version : Just What Exactly Do The Vendors Owe You?


Brad Adrian
06-28-2002, 03:40 PM
Some of the discussions we've been having in the Thoughts forums have gotten me thinking more and more about the kinds of expectations that Pocket PC users have for the companies that produce the goods and services we use. On more than one occasion, I've noted a strong sense of entitlement that some customers (and potential customers) have, especially when it comes to the latest and greatest devices and their features.<br /><br />Here are a couple of examples of what I'm talking about:<br /><br />• The backlight on my iPAQ started messing up, just like it has on many people's devices. It is fair for me to expect HPQ to fix or replace that unit until the backlight performs the way I was told it would perform and in a way that most reasonable people would expect it to perform. I'm entitled to that remediation.<br /><br />• The news of how the upcoming XScale-based devices will probably not exhibit significant performance increases over current models was a huge disappointment to many of us. I was personally looking forward to getting a new speed demon Pocket PC. However, I hadn't plunked down any money for one yet, I hadn't significantly altered the way I live or do business in anticipation of the XScale devices and I am none the worse for wear because they will not provide the promised improvement. <br /><br />Now *assuming* that there has been no X-Files-type conspiracy afoot to deliberately bilk us out of our hard-earned money, why do so many of us have that same sense of entitlement with the XScale devices that I have with the backlight issue? The device, software and chip manufacturers surely didn't set out to provide Pocket PCs that are a flop, and they will bear the brunt of their mistakes in the form of diminished or nonexistent sales. Yet, many readers still feel they are *owed* something, some remediation, as a result of this fiasco. They seem to take it quite personally.<br /><br />Unless someone has suffered a loss or damage as a result of this mess, how can that person feel entitled to anything more than a bit of disappointment over a technology that never came to fruition?

FredMurphy
06-28-2002, 04:05 PM
I'm not sure anyone feels they're *owed* anything by the manufacturers or the upcoming x-scale devices or that we've lost out. Personally, I'm just thinking "Well, if that's the best you can do I'll wait for CE.NET".

Then again, I know once they're in the shops I'll be parting with the cash :lol: and have no-one else to blame but myself.

Fred

Sven Johannsen
06-28-2002, 04:10 PM
I think you have two vastly different items there. A backlight should light. If it doesn't it should be fixed. That is a failure in an advertised function.

Microsoft Reader (the 1st PPC one) should have read encrypted/secure .lit files. Not doing so was inexcusible. That was marketing hype that failed to mention a major limitation. As was the SD slot on iPAQs. Never declared to be an SDIO slot (though the distinction is not especially well defined); people made an assumption. (When it get down to it, many have put an SD memeory card in their HP MMC slot. Does that make it an SD slot? In this case I guess HP didn't want to promise it would work by calling it that.)

Again the assumption is that 400Mhz is twice as fast as 206Mhz. We should know better. I didn't see that radical a difference between a 400Mhz PC and an 800Mhz PC. At least not on day to day use. Same for 1Ghz to 2Ghz. Benchmarks? Sure. Writing in Word, surfing the web? Not real significant.

We just need to understand that marketing guys get big bucks for making us believe something without actually telling it to us :) and they are good at it.

Hans the Hedgehog
06-28-2002, 04:37 PM
We just need to understand that marketing guys get big bucks for making us believe something without actually telling it to us :) and they are good at it.

That is the real rub, I believe. All the hype we were fed about faster performance and drastically better battery life became what we expected. When it wasn't delivered, everyone became disappointed and many felt lied to or betrayed. When you hear that MS didn't want to strand 2M users of the PPC platform, we can accept it a little better... until you hear that Longhorn (the next Windows) most likely will not be compatible with anything currently running! :roll: Tell me which is worse, 2M PPC users or 97% of the computing world?

Anyways, I still have my E-125, and was really looking forward to the XScale devices. I was all primed. To say that I am terribly disappointed in how Toshiba has executed its XScale is an understatement.

Anyways, happy tapping,
Hans

PPCRules
06-28-2002, 04:45 PM
... disappointment over a technology that never came to fruition? The technology is there, and it is an improvement. It will produce good results when things (OS and apps) are optimized for it.

As for the "unrealized expectations", I don't think manufacturers were leading this nearly so much as the computer press. And just try to hold the press responsible for anything; it won't stick, so don't bother.

As for "double" the speed, 400 / 206 = less than 2 to start with, so at best people should have thought "less than double" from that change. And as 'Sven' points out, on every other computer system, other system elements limit the overall performance increase to less than the raw clock speed increase. Actually, for old ("legacy") OS and apps to work at all on vastly changed hardware is something we need to be thankful for.

I get excited about new things too, but if my excitement causes me to think irrationally, I can't really blame someone else for the conclusions I might draw.

Chairman Clench
06-28-2002, 04:50 PM
I agree that the X-Scale disappointment doesn't give users the right to claim damages for unfulfilled expectations.

My issue is with my iPAQ 3835. It doesn't work the way Compaq said it would. If Compaq makes a claim that the device should do something and it doesn't, that means it is defective. Compaq still hasn't fixed the majority of issues with the various iPAQs.

Now, if Toshiba had claimed that the e740 would run applications twice as fast as previous PPCs, then users would have a legitimate gripe. They didn't.

However, Compaq has made lots of claims about what the iPAQ is supposed to do and they have yet to deliver on their claims. This is not marketing leading us astray... this is selling a defective product and then not supporting it.

JonnoB
06-28-2002, 04:52 PM
The expectation from the hype is that these new devices would perform better. This came from all those involved (PDA builder, MS, Intel, etc). The fact that the reality did not live up to the hype is not surprising, but that there was so much hype before there was any real product and no one to calm down the rhetoric with reality. There was plenty of time for someone to readjust the expectation.... knowing and not saying squares guilt on all the parties in the know.

If there was hype about a new car with technology that reduced its fuel consumption three-fold and everyone talked about it (designer, car manufacturer, etc) only to have after the car ships, the realization that something extra was required (new fuel additive for example) then the public would be upset at the misleading hype. This is no different. The public was believed that these devices would be faster for multimedia (games, movies, etc) and we find that they are actually slower!

If I pre-ordered a device, I would feel that I was owed something post-fact. Now that the truth is known, then new buyers are not owed anything because real performance is now known.

-Jonathan

Jimmy Dodd
06-28-2002, 05:15 PM
I think part of the reason everyone was so upset about the e740/XScale issue is that not only is it no faster than its predecessors, its battery life is said to be pitiful. Pocket PCs have always suffered from less than stellar battery life and the XScale was expected to vastly improve that, too. It seems that, for now anyway, there is no compelling reason for the XScale to exist. That may, of course, change next week - but for now it seems a big waste.

Maybe we are just getting tired of each new generation of PPCs being a dissapointment in some way (battery life, dust, speed, display, etc.). The initial excitement over the "next big thing" fails to carry over into the actual deployment of the new devices. Part of this is probably due to the realization that even if the new device measures up in most ways, something better will soon come along and make you wish you'd waited a little longer to plunk down that fistful of cash.

Even now we are waiting for CE.NET - anyone care to bet whether it will make even the most current "Gee-Whiz" devices "obsolete" because they don't have enough Flash ROM to hold the new OS?

As PPC users do we expect too much? Probably. But if we didn't then we'd all be Palm users, wouldn't we? :wink:

BwanaJim

Brad Adrian
06-28-2002, 06:13 PM
If I pre-ordered a device, I would feel that I was owed something post-fact.

Even if your payment was never processed, i.e., you lost no money or interest on your money?

JonnoB
06-28-2002, 06:15 PM
Even if your payment was never processed, i.e., you lost no money or interest on your money?

Yes, I would feel owed then as well.

fmcpherson
06-28-2002, 06:21 PM
There is another issue here too, which is that in some cases performance is actually worse. As is the case in many things in life, once you set a performance benchmark that becomes the baseline. Most people expect that new Pocket PCs will at the least perform at the same speeds as existing Pocket PCs. That is proving to not be the case.

The OEM response to this performance issue could have been, "well, some things run a little slower, but look at the longer battery life you are getting." Unfortunately, people are not seeing significant enough gains in battery life to tolerate the performance problems.

I do like the comment one of the previous replies had suggesting that Pocket PC users have higher expectations. I agree with that. The majority of us chose Pocket PC over other brands because we wanted more. The extra features we gain justifies in our minds the higher prices we pay for the hardware. This places a higher burden of expectations on Microsoft and all the OEMs. I think, however, that is a burden that all those companies want because it means we are buying their products.

I think the iPAQ 3970 is an even better example of this. In that case question is, since performance and battery life aren't improved, does the screen alone justify the $749 price tag? I think it doesn't, but the market will provide the ultimate answer to that.

Gerard
06-28-2002, 10:08 PM
As for 'the screen alone' justifying the heftier pricetag on the new iPAQ, there's a couple of other things in there too. What about the extra ~20MB of flash memory built in? With my Casio EG-800 I have found the extra 14MB of flash memory invaluable for installing most applications, freeing up more main memory for video and still captures, downloads, and other new data or extra processing memory for intensive applications like editing big JPEG images in Photogenics. (Pocket PhoJo is able to use a CF card as a swap-disk, but Photogenics crashes if there isn't tons of Program Memory preset.)
Anyway, my feeling is that anyone who bought the lines about increased performance with X-scale was simply too eager to practice a decent level of cautious cynicism. Really, I never bought the hype about iPAQ performance in all the tens of thousands of posts I saw in the two years before I got one, and now that I have a 3835 (given to me for testing), my suspicions were almost exactly right; the device is in fact less stable, slower, and generally harder to use than my Casio EG-800. The fact that I'm using it to write this post, and use it more now than my Casio, is due to the enhancements in memory (64MB, SD slot), Messenger, Pocket IE, and to a very limited degree the daylight viewability (don't use it outdoors much anyway). The Casio's role has shifted away from PIM, email (I use nPOP 100% of the time now), and internet use, and acts now as my multimedia device almost exclusively. It has excellent colour, easily adjustable contrast (two buttons - boom, done), the best cursorpad in the business, is dramatically less prone to freeze-ups, the Casio CF camera is excellent with Marauderz' program to take crisper images, and if I feel like gaming there's nothing better.
So, my point relevant to this discussion? Simple. Wait and see. I had an E-115, so I knew the EG-800 could only offer more of that goodness. It did (allowing for some hardware bugs which Casio remedied with replacement units). I'll be waiting and seeing what the first few hundred users have to say about any new device before I seriously look at any of them in considering a purchase. Same with any new thing I try. I waited until the scooter craze popped out the Zootr, and a few thousand users tried to break them and couldn't. These are not small investments, the PPCs we love so well. Unless I win a lottery (hard to do, since I don't buy tickets), why would I waste hard-earned cash on some salesman's notion of what I want to hear?
I know, it's hard to behave in a reserved fashion when such promises are made, and one always hopes they'll prove true. But really, the whole capitalist system is based on hype, so why not wait for proof before throwing money away?

Brad Adrian
06-29-2002, 05:22 AM
Even if your payment was never processed, i.e., you lost no money or interest on your money?

Yes, I would feel owed then as well.

You see, that's my main point. If you were not harmed, suffered no financial loss and weren't demonstrably affected by the hype, how can you expect compensation? To be perfectly honest, it sounds kinda whiney to me.

JonnoB
06-29-2002, 07:56 AM
To be perfectly honest, it sounds kinda whiney to me.

Waaaaah...

Fortunately, I did not make any pre-order investment. And I also I agree that it is a bit whiney, but at the same time this is no small investment and one could feel they were the victim of a bait and switch and I would not blame them. Ultimately, even though it is not THAT big of a deal... I feel that SOMEONE should have been able to say something about the performance (or lack thereof).

Pony99CA
06-29-2002, 08:54 AM
I think you have two vastly different items there. A backlight should light. If it doesn't it should be fixed. That is a failure in an advertised function.


Well, yes, and that was Brad's point. He was contrasting the two issues, not claiming they were analogous.

It seems other people didn't get that, either, but I think it was clear if you read the bullet points. When Brad said, "I'm entitled to that remediation" for the backlight, it seemed obvious to me.

Brad's set up made it sound like he was giving two examples of "bad entitlement", though, so I can see where some people might have been misled if they didn't read the rest carefully.

Maybe Brad should be working for the XScale team.... :lol:

Steve

Pony99CA
06-29-2002, 09:45 AM
I think the iPAQ 3970 is an even better example of this. In that case question is, since performance and battery life aren't improved, does the screen alone justify the $749 price tag? I think it doesn't, but the market will provide the ultimate answer to that.

When I first read this, I thought "another person who can't see the forest for the trees". However, if "fmcpherson" is really Frank McPherson, Pocket PC expert and author, I'm almost shocked.

There is a lot more to the 3970 than just the screen. As the 3970 is a Bluetooth model, it should be compared against the 3870. Not counting the arguable XScale "upgrade", I'm going to list the upgrades to the 3870 and assign a rough value to them. They are:

* The transflective screen - This is said to be awesome by some people. I'd value this at $40 to $50.

* An additional 16 MB of Flash ROM (14 MB of which seems to be available to the user) - As I've mentioned before, Pocket PC memory is expensive. The difference between a 3830 and 3850 is $50 for 32MB of RAM, so I'd say the additional Flash ROM is worth $20 to $25.

* SDIO - This won't really be very usable until more SDIO peripherals are out, and if you use an SDIO peripheral in this slot, you'll need a sleeve for memory expansion, so I'd say this is a marginal upgrade. I'll value it at $10 to $20.

* Consumer IR with remote control software - The Ultramote software sells for $20, $40 with the IR extender (which requires a sleeve), so you could easily say having this built-in is worth $20 to $50.

* Improved backup utility - I don't know what the improvements are. If they allow backing up and restoring individual files, this could be quite useful, but without knowing, I can only assign a value of $0 to $5.

* iPAQ Image Viewer - I wondered why the 38xx series didn't have the image viewer, but the 38xx did ship with Quick View Plus (although that was a RAM installation). If QVP still comes with the 39xx series, the image viewer is a marginal upgrade, but if QVP is not included, this could almost be a downgrade. I'll value this at $0.

Adding it up, these features have a value of $90 to $150, so I'd say a $100 increase is not unreasonable. Your mileage may vary, of course, especially if the software bundle has been changed for the worse compared to the 3870.

If someone doesn't think the 3970 is worth $100 more than the 3870, that's their prerogative. Just don't buy the 3970. Maybe the market will cause it to come down in price. (I just noticed that the 3850 now lists for $549 compared to the 3870 listing for $649. Bluetooth is not really worth $100 to me; it was worth $50 -- even though I don't use it.)

Steve

ghoonk
06-30-2002, 07:21 AM
My 2 cents on the XScale issue:

I think a lot of us read and bought the the XScale promise of better performance and battery life.

There's nothing wrong with that, neither do I think it is untrue. XScale is probably THAT fast.

The limiting factor here is the OS and lack of XScale-optimsed apps, not the processor.

MS *NEVER* claimed PPCs were going to be twice as fast, or have a much better battery life. Toshiba, Compaq/HP, Fujitsu *NEVER* promised that.

Granted, their marketing was probably cunning enough to point out that the units were running XScale proccesors which could have that level of performance. Note that they didn't say the units were capable (note also the use of theword CAPABLE. Ability does not imply ACTUAL performance) of that level of performance, only the processor.

Us consumers should really start reading between the lines now, and filter out all the marketing-speak. Sites and feedback forums like PPC Thoughts are where we get closer to the truth. :)