Quote:
Originally Posted by ApK
"We?" If by "we" you mean the broad consumer market, "we" have already spoken loudly and clearly: We want it cheap, quality be darned. Else, Panasonic Toughbooks and Dolch like we used in the military, would be the best selling laptops, and most device casings would be made of metal, not plastic, and new generations of devices would come out years apart after long and thorough test cycles funded by the high prices we are willing to pay.
We have spoken: "We want inexpensive stuff that's just good enough!"
Some things get cheap by sacrificing overall quality, some do it by trimming out features. I personally prefer the latter, hence I have a Fire, and not some $99 no-name tablet found on ebay.
ApK
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Yes and no. Military toughness is definitely overkill for the average consumer (not to mention that it adds size and weight), it wouldn't make sense to spend that much extra money just to get those features. And yes, many people prefer cheap stuff or are sucked in by really low prices. However, it is not as if the market place is being dominated by super cheap Chinese branded tablets, phones, and computers. The only time that price really was the main factor in electronics was during the netbook craze. These days a lot of products do command very high prices, but still manage to cut back on features.
With the Kindle Fire the trade off is very clear -- low price for low specs. A fair deal. But with the iPad, the Zoom, Samsung, etc you pay a very high price and they still skimp on the goodies. In those cases the consumer should demand more.