When you deliberately reiterate wife/girlfriend, you make (slightly-over) half of the population think your article isn’t intended for them as an audience. Great article, but women have computers too!

Mart, they do. The ones I’ve come into contact with 1)understand that they are a minority or 2)are one of those wives/girlfriends that get all maintenence issues taken care of by someone else (significant other).

Thanks for the comment.

I think the problem is just that everyone seems to only care about getting the cheapest possible things these days. No one really seems to think about wanting the best quality. They just want cheap.

Rick

RIck, people are starting to learn cheaper is not always better - Chinese made toys, toothpaste, etc. Also, newer is not always better - IBM keyboards, older computer cases, etc.

Thanks for the comment.

Quality is no longer available because planned obsclesence is the mark
of today’s manufacturer. What better way to keep people coming back
to the market to buy another and another and another. They figure if
you don’t buy their brand, you’ll buy someone’s and eventually when that one breaks, you will probably have forgotten the original one unless it
was really terrible and buy one of theirs again.

In case you’ve not noticed, quality is down in many areas of life. I just gave away a 1957 Chevy C6400 dumptruck that was still roadworthy; I use a 1969 Maytag washer because it isn’t flimsy and has outlasted other machines (plural).

The point here is that quality is now decided by intended market lifespan.

The PC market is teetering on the brink of many changes. One is a new motherboard outline, due to dealing with higher integration of peripherals on the motherboard, and also potential market shifts towards smaller systems. Another issue is mobile computing and Web 2.0.

Will the stalwart ATX case need to provide a consumer with another 2 years of life or not?? It is a mixed view from here. Should any case manufacturer take a stand and proclaim “ATX for ever” and start producing machined aluminum ATX cases in T4041 billet Alumnum?? Why? in 5 years time, you’ll be using GMail on an iPhone 2.0.

Back when durable goods were so cost prohibitive and thus deliberately made as repairable as possible (re: my two cited examples, above), then we had designs that seemed to last longer and were also designed to resist wear and tear, because people respected the item more AND they didn’t replace them every year.

Nowadays, some cars get totally redesigned every 8-10 months (I’m not sure why carmakers think this writer would want that effort), and I’m sure you could void some washer machines warranty if you leaned on it too hard and thus warped the outside of it (which would misalign internal stuff…. I’ve been in them, I know the newer machines are flimsy). Yes, that is what you are talking about, but for washers, there is likely no new formfactor for the mechanisms; for automobiles, I guess people think cars MUST evolve into rocketships, MUST sport a home entertainment center, MUST have collision avoidance radar, MUST be self parking and MUST have rear looking cameras. And since all the new car internal goodies can get obsoleted in a few hours, next years model has to keep up with the joneses.

In simpler terms, your current idea of a PC is reaching end of life.

mmmmna, while I agree with all that you say, I disagree that it must necessarily be that way. I do think many younger people simply know no better - therefore they expect no better. This doesn’t mean that they don’t wish to have better quality - only part of the problem is higher cost.

As for ATX - It has worked for a number of years, and it has been at least 2 years since BTX was to have supplanted it - that hasn’t happened yet.

I also don’t think that miniaturization is always a good thing. Cell phones have actually gotten smaller than anyone with hands my size would like. They also are less rugged, and barely make it through the life of the contract. All the additional things are nice, but what good are they when you cannot make or receive a call? In items like that, the problem seems to be that most forget what the original purpose was.

I don’t happen to think that the home PC is near an end, nor do I think everyone wants a laptop. I do, but not as replacement, as augmentation.

Thanks for the comment.

Carl, I somehow missed your comment until now - thanks for it, and stopping by.

Hmm… maybe you guys should come to Germany for buying hardware… No problems getting quality cases (imported) or PSUs (imported or built/silent-modded here), and nothing beats the top-models of the keyboards from Cherry…

Arnold, Cherry keyboards are nice - but - I’ve never seen a better keyboard than the Northgate Omnikey models - if you ever saw one, you would have to agree.

As to cases - yes, Chieftec comes from there -so you are lucky!

Thanks for the comment.

While there are a LOT of cheap, flimsy cases there are also some pretty solid cases. I got an Ultra Wizard last fall for free after rebate and that’s rock solid. While the trend is to make cheap shit that won’t last, you can still find some reasonable quality stuff and sometimes pretty cheap. But you do have to look.

thetruth, yes, it is possible - but the examples are few and far between. Your Ultra case is basically the ripped off design of a Chieftec case, which I spoke of originally.

Just recently, a new case from Cooler Master has made me smile. The CM690 is a fine example of what can be made, and not cost 2 yet-unborn children.