[LeonM]

After 2004, they ditched that slogan and started using "Sense and Simplicity" as their new slogan.

I remember after that their consumer electronics got really, really bad. Basically all their products were just... not finished. The firmware on most of their devices was just terribly buggy, and features advertised on the box where sometimes not even available. I remember having an MP3 player where selecting the FM radio mode would just crash the device. Never did they release a firmware version that would enable FM radio mode. I had to carry a small metal pin in my wallet, just to be able to use the reset button behind a tiny hole in the side of the MP3 player. I usually had to reset it once or twice a day.

I also had a media streamer that did not work at all out of the box, it just didn't support any of the advertised codecs. And I had a Phlips TV that would reliably crash when switching from TV mode to Teletext mode.

Living in the Netherlands, I felt kind of obligated to choose Philips over brands such as Samsung. However, many times I found myself returning a Philips appliance, and buying a Korean/Japanese made alternative instead.

Never, ever again will I trust them for consumer electronics.

[nlehuen]

Philips in the Netherlands and Thomson in France went the same way (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomson_(marque)) - after being major manufacturers of consumer products, they are now licensing their consumer brand to third party manufacturers.

Basically they are banking on their previous glories and advertising.

Sometimes you can spot the exact same product from a noname manufacturer, it's just missing the right sticker.

[Hublium]

Telefunken, too.

[jacquesm]

Same here, every Philips device bought after the mid 90's was junk. At some point they even couldn't make vacuum cleaners that worked or fridges that didn't fail completely within the warranty. Which is also why plenty of the bigbox outlets stopped offering their stuff, the quality was just incredibly bad.

And given how much goodwill that brand had it is very impressive how fast it was run into the ground. I still see their TVs for sale here, and medical devices and some stuff for infants.

[scns]

Interesting, the vacuum cleaner of my parents is a Philips and itworks well. No smell in the air while running, the first time i don't hate using one.

[wojciii]

I still have a Phillips vacuum cleaner. It's 10 years or more. Impressive build quality.

[lttlrck]

That was about the time, IIRC, that they went on a mission to make everything as simple to use as a Senseo coffee machine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senseo