Query : Price Drop = Quality Drop ???

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thrash_metal

In the zone
Well heres a simple question running in through my mind ... whenever hardware prices drop does their quality also drop ??? I had a DVD writter purchased a long time back (round 4 to 4.5 years ago approx) for quite a sum ... burnt a huge amount of discs ..... total disc faliures would be hardly 10-15 in its runtime of 3 - 3.5 years ... whereas after that I've been through 3 DVD writters in 1.5 years !!! All of them failing one after the another ...these ones were bought very cheap (yea with bill and warranty) for less than 2k ...... (Sony / LG) .... as the warranty sucks and they do nothing bout it .. nways ..... does this mean quality drops with price ??
 
B

blacklight

Journeyman
no way ... if that was the case most of the stuff would be out of range for everybody.
prices fall because there's always something new and better coming up
take for instance the core 2 duo processors ,they are good in performance and overclock great..yet there were price cuts recently .and there will be more .this is coz u have the quad core coming in.
Another reason could be competition - AMD which too has an impressive lineup. they were cutting prices like mad so that users go for AMD instead of Intel.

In today's gaming world , u mainly have 2 categories - the enthusiast and the mainstream markets.
the enthusiast is one who looks for performance and cost is not a deterrant for him .
once the product becomes old/newer product comes in , the same product moves to the mainstream market (by price cuts )

in your case of DVD drives , its just a case of u getting bad stuff
 
Sourabh

Sourabh

Laptoping
I don't believe it is so. Price cuts happen on same products coz newer products are announced/launched. In case of optical drives, we are stuck with DVD writers for quite some time. Nothing has replaced them as such. They have just got cheaper and faster. Their fast nature could be the culprit here. A few years back, we had 8x writers or slower. Now, it is hard to get a 16x, all are supporting 18x. Not that it means anything, but it's better and we write faster.

The case you've mentioned doesn't exactly deal with the usual meaning of price drop on a short term basis. Optical drives are an exception IMO, because they have their own life cycle of limited writes in a way. We burn more DVDs today than we did a couple of years back, right?

As for other things - processors, graphics cards and usual computer peripherals, price drops never means quality drops. Those products are not manufactured separately on a 'cheaper' budget or they are just at the end of their production cycle.
 
damnthenet

damnthenet

Journeyman
When a product comes out initially, the production costs (keeping in mind the huge capital involved) are quiet high.
But later, as the number of good products to the number produced exceeds, the cost starts coming down.
 
J

janitha

Wise Old Owl
damnthenet said:
When a product comes out initially, the production costs (keeping in mind the huge capital involved) are quiet high.
But later, as the number of good products to the number produced exceeds, the cost starts coming down.
Click to expand...

Yes, first of all it is a matter of "economy of scale".
See
*en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economies_of_scale
 
deathvirus_me

deathvirus_me

Wise Old Owl
thrash_metal said:
Well heres a simple question running in through my mind ... whenever hardware prices drop does their quality also drop ??? I had a DVD writter purchased a long time back (round 4 to 4.5 years ago approx) for quite a sum ... burnt a huge amount of discs ..... total disc faliures would be hardly 10-15 in its runtime of 3 - 3.5 years ... whereas after that I've been through 3 DVD writters in 1.5 years !!! All of them failing one after the another ...these ones were bought very cheap (yea with bill and warranty) for less than 2k ...... (Sony / LG) .... as the warranty sucks and they do nothing bout it .. nways ..... does this mean quality drops with price ??
Click to expand...

Its not the burner .. its the media ... :( ... and the media in turns hurts the lens and so on ..
 
OP
T

thrash_metal

In the zone
So far i've only used Moserbaer / Sony discs ...... they r supposed to be the good ones right ? ...... must be my bad luck then

@janitha

I'm bad in economics ......
 
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samanvya_ad

Broken In
thrash_metal said:
Well heres a simple question running in through my mind ... whenever hardware prices drop does their quality also drop ??? I had a DVD writter purchased a long time back (round 4 to 4.5 years ago approx) for quite a sum ... burnt a huge amount of discs ..... total disc faliures would be hardly 10-15 in its runtime of 3 - 3.5 years ... whereas after that I've been through 3 DVD writters in 1.5 years !!! All of them failing one after the another ...these ones were bought very cheap (yea with bill and warranty) for less than 2k ...... (Sony / LG) .... as the warranty sucks and they do nothing bout it .. nways ..... does this mean quality drops with price ??
Click to expand...


very true... the CD writer i bought 5 years ago in 4000 works so great that i just cant leave it.... but i have a totally failed Samsung combo drive(1 year old) and 1 sony DVD writer which is with company only since last 20 days (2 months old including the 20 days)
 
Kniwor

Kniwor

Learner
thrash_metal said:
Well heres a simple question running in through my mind ... whenever hardware prices drop does their quality also drop ??? I had a DVD writter purchased a long time back (round 4 to 4.5 years ago approx) for quite a sum ... burnt a huge amount of discs ..... total disc faliures would be hardly 10-15 in its runtime of 3 - 3.5 years ... whereas after that I've been through 3 DVD writters in 1.5 years !!! All of them failing one after the another ...these ones were bought very cheap (yea with bill and warranty) for less than 2k ...... (Sony / LG) .... as the warranty sucks and they do nothing bout it .. nways ..... does this mean quality drops with price ??
Click to expand...

u purchased a DVD writer in 2002, how much for, what brand is it??
 
damnthenet

damnthenet

Journeyman
For those devices which have already embraced the optimization level in terms to manufacturing and still in production (esp. DVD writers etc), there's many a chance for quality to drop. This is because the manufacturers may prefer low quality components to make low cost devices.
 
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samanvya_ad

Broken In
but its not healthy competition cos when all brands start manufacturing low quality products to keep the lowest price then its a failure of economics as well as trust....

i used to think samsung as a good brand but never ever has its optical drives proven themselves good...
 
blackpearl

blackpearl

The Devil
They aren't manufacturing low quality products. Its the same quality. They are just compromising on their profit to get a bigger market share, which in the long run would bring more profit. This competition is perfectly healthy and very profitable for customers.
 
G

gcbeldar

In the zone
Yes, I found same. 3 years back, quality is different. But, I am unable to quote wether it is because of media quality, price of media also droped.
 
OP
T

thrash_metal

In the zone
So far I've used only moserbaer and sony discs ....... considering (they r good products .... i think) ... it might be some hardware related problem then !!
 
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samanvya_ad

Broken In
blackpearl said:
This competition is perfectly healthy and very profitable for customers.
Click to expand...


i bet ... get a blue ray disk reader now n it will give u better performance after 3-4 years too when blue ray disks will be like around 2000 only....
 
xbonez

xbonez

NP : Crysis
^i beleive that drop in prices does not translate to drop in quality. it simply means higher demand, so lower production costs. if drop in prices meant drop in quality, then you would find dvd writers for rs2000 in the market but also there would be more expensive dvd writers in the market (in case someone doesn't mind spending more for a better quality writer). but since thats not the case, it obviously means quality doesn't drop
 
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