Companies selling products not fit for purpose

[Dark Drakan]

Its been a while since I experienced this myself but happened again recently and amazed that companies still get away with this sort of thing. This thread isnt just aimed at Toshiba either this is just the incident that brought it back up, had this same thing with PC world when I was younger and less knowledgeable too and they have been in trouble for not honouring the sales of goods act & they have even been in trouble for other shady things also.

Back in May my wife & I suggested we get a basic laptop for her sons birthday for him to do his homework on (as he was starting high school) and to watch Youtube on and browse the Internet here and there (nothing fancy just something basic). His Grandma decided she would pay for it if I looked over the specs to check it was ok and would be capable of doing what he would want it to do. We knew he wasnt going to be maxing out The Witcher III or anything like that on it but for word processing and browsing the Internet & other basic purposes it seemed ok and price wasnt too bad overall (for a laptop).

We purchased the laptop and it was a Toshiba Satellite, like I said it was nothing more than a very basic entry level laptop/notebook but seemed enough to do what he needed it for. Looked fairly nice & slim too and turned on fine and everything seems to work as it should (besides it having Windows 8 which I had to tweak). However as soon as he actually went to do anything on it the trouble started, I plugged a USB mouse into it as I cant stand sensor pads and noticed straight away that it had become very sluggish and things were struggling to load etc and even mouse cursor was slow to move. So I played around with some startup programs and cleaned out the Anti-Virus etc that came with it and other unneeded preloaded programs and optimised everything I could. Restarted and it seemed to take forever to restart and nearly 10 mins past before it booted back up but overall it ran a little better when it did manage to get to Windows. However as soon as you started to attempt to do anything on it like open Internet browser or word processing program it slowed to a crawl again.

So my wife decided to call Toshiba Support to see if there was any faults with this model or any known issues. She was simply told to do all the things I had already tried as well as reverting it to factory settings (even though it was actaully now better optimised than factory settings). She was also told by Toshiba support to simply not plug anything into the USB ports, so no USB mouse, No USB stick to transfer documents (homework) and no connecting printer, the USB ports were useless...

Since then it has even took over 5 mins to open the Internet Browser and some pages took minutes to load (I have 200MB) connection (pic of test I just did on my computer). So it should not have been struggling to simply load a page even on the WiFi...

​

So as an experiment and to further test if it was capable of actually doing anything I tried to see if (the currently free) C&C Red Alert II would play on it. A game that is over 15 years old and something which my 17 year old Pentium III could run just fine and both my wifes 7 year old laptop and my own 6 year old laptop could run with no issues at all. After loading up and the menu running fine I tried to enter a game and it barely managed a single frame a second before it completely froze and I had to end task via Task Manager. The specs for the game are hardly demanding for a new laptop and these days a phone could likely run something that required those specs:

Red Alert 2 Specs​

Windows 95, 98, NT 6.0, 2000, or Millennium
Pentium II 266 or better
64 MB of RAM
2 MB of Video RAM
16 bit color
Direct Sound Compliant Sound Card
200 MB of additional hard drive space
3D Hardware acceleration (optional)

The Laptop Specs

AMD E1 E1-6010 dual core processor.
1.35GHz processor speed.
4GB RAM.
Intel HD GFX
500GB SATA hard drive.

Annoyingly I even saw an advert on TV recently advertising the same model laptop and a free upgrade to Windows 10 with £100 off. The laptop barely runs Windows 8 that it comes with and the software that is already loaded onto it and they are trying to tempt people to upgrade to Windows 10...

So to get to the overall point of my thread...

How can companies get away with selling products that arent fit for purpose and what are these laptops good for exactly?
​

 

[cheezMcNASTY]

There's definitely a need for a crackdown on the market. We hit the issue where people in such a position to do so may not necessarily understand enough about the technology and reasonable expectations for its functions. I'd wager most politicians understand about as much about their computers as my dad does. The majority of exposure people get to these companies is through their advertisements. It's to the point where most of the consumer market feel like they know their brand and which companies they can trust, but actually have no idea. Remember Apple's we don't get viruses campaign? So many people buy this urban myth. Tech publications have repeatedly refuted this and people still think it's true because they don't do their own research. Also, Apple refuses to outright admit it to be false. They have never come forward and apologized for lying to their consumers. Hey, did you know most of their notebooks are manufactured by ASUS?

Let's talk about how DELL only uses DELL parts on their prebuilt models and unless you DIY you will be buying more DELL parts to repair your broken one. They literally capitalize on their mistakes. Or how Alienware is a DELL subsidiary and has similar price inflation to an Apple notebook.

What we need is a website similar to politifact for computer hardware companies so people can see them for what they are, plain as day, with cited sources.

I will say my only interaction with Toshiba was not a good one. I lost the USB cable for my portable HDD, an $8 part normally, and they said that because I didn't buy a warranty for it (half the value of the HDD its self), I could, in customer service language, go f*ck myself.

They conveniently didn't sell the cable by its self, and I'd have to buy a whole new HDD.

 

[Precipice]

Man, I'm with you. My biggest problem, regarding any facet of this topic, is the exploitation of people who don't know better. I can't even go into detail because blood may begin to spurt out of my eyeballs.

Because I've fallen victim of it before, I'll say that PCs that use an apu instead of a dedicated cpu/gpu won't ever deliver the same kind of performance as the numbers promise. I'll also say that the retailers and manufacturers, once they've sold you as much as you're going to buy, sometimes like to lay out a long line of hoops for people to jump through to get anything that kind of looks like recourse.

@cheezMcNASTY Don't get me started on Dell. I hate those boxes. Even if you're savvy enough for DIY they design the damn things to be as inconvenient as possible for any parts that aren't Dell, which would only be okay if the price reflected the limitation. Even if you pounded out enough space for a larger HDD, in the Dell shop, the cheapest Dell brand drives are low-end and cost more than everyone else's better hardware that additionally comes with free shipping.

 

[Dark Drakan]

There's definitely a need for a crackdown on the market. We hit the issue where people in such a position to do so may not necessarily understand enough about the technology and reasonable expectations for its functions. I'd wager most politicians understand about as much about their computers as my dad does. The majority of exposure people get to these companies is through their advertisements. It's to the point where most of the consumer market feel like they know their brand and which companies they can trust, but actually have no idea. Remember Apple's we don't get viruses campaign? So many people buy this urban myth. Tech publications have repeatedly refuted this and people still think it's true because they don't do their own research. Also, Apple refuses to outright admit it to be false. They have never come forward and apologized for lying to their consumers. Hey, did you know most of their notebooks are manufactured by ASUS?

Got many people who constantly tell me how unstable Windows is and Macs are the way to go etc. However when you do have a problem with a Mac there aren't as many solutions to fix them as there is with Windows and much harder to reset something when something goes wrong or you get a virus.

Let's talk about how DELL only uses DELL parts on their prebuilt models and unless you DIY you will be buying more DELL parts to repair your broken one. They literally capitalize on their mistakes. Or how Alienware is a DELL subsidiary and has similar price inflation to an Apple notebook.

Alienware are ridiculously overpriced & funny when you see people slate Dell but then see Alienware as the holy grail of PC components.

What we need is a website similar to politifact for computer hardware companies so people can see them for what they are, plain as day, with cited sources.

Companies need to start making laptops that are more easily customisable and upgradable. With Steam Machine and customisable consoles coming it would make sense to be given the same option on portable laptops too so you can game on the go & upgrade far more easily.

I will say my only interaction with Toshiba was not a good one. I lost the USB cable for my portable HDD, an $8 part normally, and they said that because I didn't buy a warranty for it (half the value of the HDD its self), I could, in customer service language, go f*ck myself.

They conveniently didn't sell the cable by its self, and I'd have to buy a whole new HDD.

These days most USBs are interchangeable but had similar thing when my rabbit escaped and ate through my 360 Kinect & my power cable. I had to pay to get Kinect cable repaired via 3rd party as couldn't buy USB cable separately and also couldn't purchase power bricks or cables separately either (something you can do now).

Man, I'm with you. My biggest problem, regarding any facet of this topic, is the exploitation of people who don't know better. I can't even go into detail because blood may begin to spurt out of my eyeballs.

Because I've fallen victim of it before, I'll say that PCs that use an apu instead of a dedicated cpu/gpu won't ever deliver the same kind of performance as the numbers promise. I'll also say that the retailers and manufacturers, once they've sold you as much as you're going to buy, sometimes like to lay out a long line of hoops for people to jump through to get anything that kind of looks like recourse.

Amazed me how they try and palm you off with the same pre-prepared responses that they copy and paste to everyone with same solutions. Everything they were going to suggest I have already done and it's not anything on laptop that's making it run so slow it's just the components & their speeds aren't fit for purpose.

@cheezMcNASTY Don't get me started on Dell. I hate those boxes. Even if you're savvy enough for DIY they design the damn things to be as inconvenient as possible for any parts that aren't Dell, which would only be okay if the price reflected the limitation. Even if you pounded out enough space for a larger HDD, in the Dell shop, the cheapest Dell brand drives are low-end and cost more than everyone else's better hardware that additionally comes with free shipping.

Companies love to make you have to jump through hoops with other components to make it look like they are the awkward ones rather than they themselves having purposely designed it to only fit their own components.

 

[Zarkes]

Same thing happened to my sisters, got two new hp laptops for school and both started crashing and freezing after a week. They went back an apparently it was a bad update and was happening to alot of people. So right there, they're selling stuff they know is broken.

If software and hardware don't jelly then there's nothing you can really do about it.

 

[Dark Drakan]

Same thing happened to my sisters, got two new hp laptops for school and both started crashing and freezing after a week. They went back an apparently it was a bad update and was happening to alot of people. So right there, they're selling stuff they know is broken.

If software and hardware don't jelly then there's nothing you can really do about it.

Like a dealership selling you a car that wont get over 30mph as soon as you drive it away and them going 'Well its only a basic model, its not designed for speed.' You expect a certain amount of performance and it to perform its most basic functions still as that is what it is being sold as. This laptop/notebook was being sold as being ideal for internet browsing and word processing and it struggles with both of those two basic functions.

 

[Romero]

Drakan, that Toshiba laptop in your first post is many times slower than my old 2001 Compaq laptop that I used until a couple of months ago. When a 850MHz Pentium III from 2001 is doing things several times faster than a new PC, something is very wrong. My old laptop didn't even have a GPU, but it had dedicated VRAM (only 8MB!!).

How can a new budget PC be that slow? I'm thinking it's more than a design flaw, it must be broken.



Dell (thanks to their customer support) have a very good reputation here, one of the best reputations of all brands regardless of industry. I don't think any computer brands comes close. I hear about private customers buying Dell not because of the hardware, but because of the excellent customer support. I've never had a Dell computer myself, but some family members have.

 

[Precipice]

Dell (thanks to their customer support) have a very good reputation here, one of the best reputations of all brands regardless of industry. I don't think any computer brands comes close. I hear about private customers buying Dell not because of the hardware, but because of the excellent customer support. I've never had a Dell computer myself, but some family members have.

Mmm, I hate to give praise to someone I just finished bashing as it comes off as kinda flipfloppy and I'm not running for president.
However. You're not wrong. I only have HP and Acer support to compare it to, but Dell's support is the strongest of the three and HP is, in my own personal experience, the absolute worst.

I still think they design crap boxes though. I won't move an inch on that.

 

[Dark Drakan]

Drakan, that Toshiba laptop in your first post is many times slower than my old 2001 Compaq laptop that I used until a couple of months ago. When a 850MHz Pentium III from 2001 is doing things several times faster than a new PC, something is very wrong. My old laptop didn't even have a GPU, but it had dedicated VRAM (only 8MB!!).

How can a new budget PC be that slow? I'm thinking it's more than a design flaw, it must be broken.

Dell (thanks to their customer support) have a very good reputation here, one of the best reputations of all brands regardless of industry. I don't think any computer brands comes close. I hear about private customers buying Dell not because of the hardware, but because of the excellent customer support. I've never had a Dell computer myself, but some family members have.

My Pentium III was a 500MHz and it ran the game better than the new laptop does, Youtube runs better on his iPhone than it does on the laptop. However Toshiba gave me the usual copy and paste tips and such to speed it up as if I hadnt already tried all those (and more) and told me to call their premium rate helpline for software assistance, which I dont need as it has barely any software on it. In fact it has less on there than when I bought it as I cleaned out all the preloaded awful default programs it comes with.

 

[Romero]

I would check if the computer recognized all RAM, but I guess you've thought of that already. I helped someone with a Dell desktop PC that had become hopelessly slow, the reason was that half of the RAM was "lost". I took out the RAM chips and put them back in and it resolved the problem.

 

[Dark Drakan]

I would check if the computer recognized all RAM, but I guess you've thought of that already. I helped someone with a Dell desktop PC that had become hopelessly slow, the reason was that half of the RAM was "lost". I took out the RAM chips and put them back in and it resolved the problem.

Not a bad idea to recheck that actually, I did check it when it first ran slow but nothing saying that couldn't have changed when it began to go even slower than that. Not as simple to take them out and put them back in, in a laptop though if that were the case. However could say it's faulty then and send it back.