build quality of Macs & PCs.

[Stroller]

On 12 Aug 2007, at 17:16, Chuck Guzis wrote:

> On 12 Aug 2007 at 13:10, Stroller wrote:
>
>> When I got that workstation home I was *so* pleased with it. I wiped
>> the dust off it with a damp cloth and stood back and admired it, then
>> started taking it apart. (That old monkey curiosity, eh?) I was so
>> impressed with how solid & well-made it was - each piece of FAR
>> better quality than the commodity PC hardware I was familiar with
>> (despite having paid £115 for one of the first 56k PCI modems).
> ...
> At one time, there *were* high-quality PCs being produced for the
> commercial use market.  Even some of the old Deskpros were pretty
> well constucted.  I still use a 600MHz P3 as my mail server.

Indeed. I have used these for the same purpose the last 4 or 5 years.  
I was using a 400mhz but upgraded to a 700mhz one which a customer  
was throwing out; between them they have given me my highest Linux  
uptimes. The low-profile PIII Compaqs are _lovely_ - thought has  
obviously been put into their design; slotting drives in & out is  
very quick and easy and it is convenient to access the PCI card slots  
through the removable risers.

> There may still be
> such animals--but I haven't bought a new PC in years.

I work on PCs for a living. I don't think I've come across any as  
nice as the Deskpros, but I guess that doesn't mean there aren't any  
in production. I've come across some which are nearly as good - I  
find the build quality of Dell desktops to be surprisingly adequate  
and a customer bought a Fujitsu perhaps 6 months ago which had a  
worthy design involving a hinged power supply. Having the drives on  
quickly removable rails is common on PCs aimed at the corporate market.

The reason I didn't mention this in my previous post was that I  
hadn't seen those PCs when I got my SGI 6 or 7 years ago. Beige boxes  
built by the local PC shop - and using the nastiest components - seem  
to be much less common now than they were a decade ago and most of  
the PCs I see are branded and come from a factory which must produce  
hundreds or thousands of PCs each day. Many still use the cheapest  
and nastiest components - Packard Hell & eMachines spring to mind -  
but others (like Dell & the Fujitsu I mentioned; I think the most  
recent HP / Compaq I've seen was a model of perhaps 4 years ago, a  
Pentium 4) do start to approach the build-quality of days of yore;  
they seem to be manufactured with the corporate market in mind.

> But let's face it--today's consumer PCs by and large are designed for
> a year or two of operating life.   They're essentially disposable
> items.  People upgrade even when they don't have to--and sometimes
> the upgrade path is forced by software bloat (but I'm not going to
> climb onto that horse right now).

Indeed, this  is true, although corporate shops don't seem so  
affected by this. They do still seem to budget for better quality PCs.

> If Apple wants to over-engineer their consumer products, then good
> for them.  I predict that the trend won't last, however.

Zane Healy has addressed this very well indeed, and I don't think I  
can add to his comments.

Stroller.