Technology
Consumers take risks buying new tech
It happened: The company that made the product that I’d been looking at appears to have run into difficulties. So much so the pricey product I reviewed, a 3D Robotics Solo drone, is being sold online at bargain prices.
Ironically, the 3DR Solo is probably a good buy with the price slashed, as long as you can accept the risk that support and updates could end should they stop making the product.
I still wouldn’t buy one, and someone should tell Harvey Norman not to charge full whack for the 3D R Solo, as it’s likely to anger customers.
I had a crash using the Solo drone but maybe it wasn’t my fault. When I pressed the “home” button to return the drone to its starting point, the quad-copter rose vertically into the air and hit a tree branch and dropped out of the sky.
This could be due to the design of the global positioning system (GPS) receiver.
3D Robotics has been around since 2009 though, and was founded by Chris Anderson of The Economist and WIRED fame.
Consumers take a risk buying technology when companies can withdraw products and potentially end support.
For instance, I dodged a giant bullet with the Samsung Galaxy Note 7.
I felt it was, truth to be told, a very nice device, beautifully
Samsung acted quickly and handled the burning Note 7 public relations catastrophe well compared to other companies.
designed and built and with all the features a smartphone user could wish for and then some.
During the review period though, reports started to arrive about the Note 7 bursting into flames while charging. That fatal flaw turned what appeared to be a great device into one of the biggest tech fiascos ever.
Samsung acted quickly and handled the burning Note 7 public relations catastrophe well compared to other companies.
I thought it was a refreshing change from say Microsoft and the Windows Phone that it first marketed incredibly hard, only to drop it when not enough people got aboard the platform.
Enough smartphone users and app developers bought into Windows Phone though, and I think Microsoft should be made to take back at least the newer models and reimburse people.
It has enough cash in the bank for that.
Having said that, Samsung may have had other reasons than altruism in mind when it hastily recalled and reimbursed users of the explosive Note 7 device.
A new tear-down (dismantling) of the phone shows that Samsung’s designers were particularly aggressive with the Note 7.
Long story short, in order to make the Note 7 svelte, slim and elegant, the case designers may not have left enough space for the battery to expand while charging and to avoid it being squashed when in your pocket.
As we all know, poke or bend powerful lithium batteries, and they explode.
In other words, there doesn’t appear to have been anything wrong with the Note 7 battery per se, and instead Samsung may have taken a gamble with the case that went wrong and which led to the explosions.
If that’s the er, case, Samsung will have some further explaining to do around the Note 7 failure, and the company can expect future models to be scrutinised incredibly closely for obvious reasons.