Re: Choosing retailer for mimimum complaints

[Paul]

Yes Toshiba P200-100 didn't like one bit.

[Mike Lane]

Doctor D wrote on Jul 2, 2010:

I would say £100 is not unreasonable for 4 years warranty. If a modern digital camera develops a fault it's usually uneconomic to repair it even if it's possible - and they do get faults.

[dennis]

I would say that its unreasonable digital cameras are very reliable and have a life expectancy of many years. One that fails after 3-4 years should be covered by the sale of goods act and the retailer would be responsible for at least some of the repair costs.

PS, its a TV.

[Mike Lane]

dennis@home wrote on Jul 4, 2010:

Oh sorry. Cameras are on my mind at the moment!

I've just had a Canon PowerShot camera fail after 4 years. Apparently the repair costs would be at least £100 that is if spares were available. I was going on holiday the next day so I had to fork out for a new one - about £200.

[Mark]

is this an ixus with  ?"Memory card error" fault if so

[Ste]

My laptop, purchased in 2003 for a grand, has a 2.4Ghz single core processor, 2gig memory (about =A340 18 months ago, upgraded from the original 512meg).

Incidentally, it also has a "Windows Experience score" (or whatever) of 1, an internal 4200 ATA hard disk of 37gig (up from 27gig), an external USB 500gig 7200 SATA hard disk, an external monitor of

1680x1050 (as well as running the integrated panel as an extended desktop), and a DVD writer (up from the original CD writer), and I find the performance quite satisfactory for most things (with the exception of video conversion, which is best done overnight). Also, most of my graphics settings are in "performance mode", which gives all the same function but with the Windows 98 appearance (which I find better anyway). And, with the exception of the sound card, Windows 7 runs without any 3rd party drivers, which is probably another reason for improved performance, now I'm shut of the associated bloatware.

And if my laptop can run Windows 7 as well as XP SP3, then any "new" laptop ought to be able to.

[Ste]

There is nothing about a Linux system that is faster than Windows.

[D.M.Chapman]

Yep, on several machines.

A couple of Tosh machines have no drivers available, and a sony. Also, some of the latest netbooks (less of an issue, as they ship with win 7).

It seems the more corporate machines are more likely to have XP drivers (no surprise - many suppliers still offered XP as an option until recently).

This is just basic stuff like network drivers or USB drivers. Once you start heading into the shock protection stuff or the battery monitoring it gets even harder. Can end up with half the battery life on XP :-/

Darren

[Andy]

With Vertu you pay for the exclusivity and the concierge button. And the fused sapphire screen as opposed to stick on bling. That said even if I had the money I would never consider buying one.

Andy

[Tim Watts]

Ste wibbled on Monday 05 July 2010 06:17

My experiences say otherwise.

[Andy]

Ditto. Until very recently it was very clearly faster as I had a full 64 bit linux system and a 32 bit windows system. I now have Win7 (64 bit) which is much faster that the 32 bit XP system but my linux system is still faster.

Andy

[Mike Lane]

Mark wrote on Jul 5, 2010:

No. it's a PowerShot A620. The problem is the display screen that's stopped working. Apart from that it still takes good pictures!

[dennis]

chip's substrate would build up charge if you left the batteries in it. After a few weeks it would stop working. Taking all the batteries out for a day would "fix" it. I bet that's the real fault in the Canon and they have developed firmware to "fix" it.

[dennis]

I find that when you actually run applications rather than windows managers the OS makes little difference. Of course if you like a particular app that runs on a particular OS it becomes pointless worrying about which OS to use. And as I run apps for 99.999% of the time the OS is pretty irrelevant, the apps are not.

[Paul]

I tried Linux for years as a desktop and still use it as a server OS - got fed up with not being able to use certain apps. Maybe its better now.

But what really does piss me off is the 'importance' of the OS - should it matter what flavour of OS you use - it should be transparent and just let you get on with your apps with little intereference or self publicity.

After all, my office desk supports all the tools I use every day, it doesn't scream 'look at me, fix my wonky leg' every day and doesn't insist on a replacement for DESK 4 when Desk 3 is still sturdy.

[Tim Watts]

Paul wibbled on Monday 05 July 2010 09:39

I like a OS that doesn't need 1/2 dozen plus reboots to install then another umpteen hours to load on the applications. I also like having an OS that doesn't get taken down by either malware or the anti virus scanners designed to prevent the former!

To me, linux is akin to your desk analogy (well, closer to that than MS Windows which IME is more like a 1970's MFI desk...)

[Tim Watts]

Mike Lane wibbled on Monday 05 July 2010 08:27

You *may* find it is one of the connectors that needs reseating. I repaired a half dead Powershot G3 which turned out to be only a sticky microswitch. Worth a go, even if it's to get a spare rough use camera for all those DIY jobs :)

Mine came apart with a decent set of jewellers screwdrivers and no more than common sense, which I was quite surprised at.

[The Natural Philosopher]

[Ste]

Mine don't. I've had the questionable pleasure of wrestling with Linux systems twice in my life (once in work, and once at home for the purposes of running Linux-only software), and doing anything useful with the system took infinitely more trial-and-error iterations than with Windows. I'm afraid Linux can only be recommended on the grounds of the sheer power and functionality of many of its programs, but the price you pay for that is the time taken to get them working in the desired way..

[Tim Streater]

Just like Windows, then.