Quote:
Originally Posted by jbcohen
Personally I work for a company's buying office that tends to emphasize cost and open market so I have been trained to care less who makes the product, I want to pay less for the product.
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For myself, I always consider who makes the product, and this can add a good deal to the (monetary) value I percieve that product to have. Take a comparison between Sony, Amazon and a relatively unknown brand of eink reader. I presume from previous knowledge of the first two companies that Sony will use materials that feel stronger and will have a more pleasant form factor. However, I also know - from past experience - that if something goes wrong with the Sony, I will be playing Russian roulette with their customer support. It will also be bundled with poorly engineered software, and Sony will abandon the device (in terms of updates) within a few months. The Amazon product, on the other hand, will have very efficient firmware that will be updated regularly over the period of a year. If I need to replace four Kindles to get a good one, Amazon will allow me to do so without any quibble.
So... taking into account the swings-and-roundabouts of this comparison; for me the Sony and Amazon products are 'worth' about the same, even though the Sony is in reality 1.5 times the cost of the Amazon parallel product. The 'unknown brand' reader can be presumed to be made from shoddier materials and I have to presume that their customer support will be on a similar level to that of Notion. I can pay a third less than for an Amazon product, but would be taking a gamble that I won't receive a duff product, in which case I'd be up the proverbial creek. I am also gambling that they will sell enough products to stay in business and not go bust, otherwise - once again - I may be left with a useless device.
This is where Amazon have a real advantage over the rest of the market: not so much that they have a better product than everyone else. The really important factor is that everyone knows you can try the Kindle for a month and then simply turn round to Amazon and say, 'I don't want this,' and they'll take it back. That's a very powerful selling tool. At the price-point they've achieved, it's pretty much an unstoppable one.
There's a lot of (perceived? - I think some in reality, too) value in buying into a particular manufacturer's product line, disregarding the qualities of the product itself. I think that people who choose to buy time-and-again from a particular manufacturer are often motivated by reason, rather than fanboyism.
I believe the OP uses a RIM smart-phone to read on. You can't go wrong with customer support from RIM, Apple or a number (even a majority) of the Android smart-phone producers these days, so I can see his point of view. All these companies are juggernauts in a highly competitive market, so they have to offer good customer-service / build-quality. The manufacturers of eink devices and tablets are much more of a mixed bag at this stage of proceedings, and I would always go for the manufacturer who has been in the game for longer rather than for a device with marginally more powerful specs, when buying these products.