[TeMPOraL]

> I'm no expert but maybe it's actually possible to create speaker that doesn't go bad.

Of course it is, but nobody wants to do that; it's not profitable. * sigh * .

I sometimes wonder how difficult would it be to create, say, a brand of kettles with lifetime warranty, designed to last 50+ years instead of 50+ weeks the ones we have do. How hard would it be to sell them and to what ends would the competition go to stop you from killing their market?

[PhantomGremlin]

Over on this side of the pond we generally use "coffee makers" instead of "kettles". But the problem is the same. They fail after a few years. It's all cheap consumer crap made in China.

We've given up trying to buy "good" coffee makers. We just buy something cheap that's on sale and throw it away when it breaks. There should be the equivalent of "Gresham's Law" for consumer goods (the bad eliminates the good). But I don't know the name of that. Perhaps "China's Law" would be appropriate.

[laumars]

We have coffee makers as well, but you can't make a cup of tea with a coffee machine.

Nor make a cup-a-soup, pot/instant noodles, pre-boil water for cooking veg, hot water bottle, etc.

[PhantomGremlin]

I used to boil water in a stovetop kettle. But that takes too long. So now I just use the microwave. Take a teabag, pour cold water over it, nuke for 90 seconds, DONE!

Of course it doesn't taste nearly as good as pouring hot water from a kettle onto a teabag, but it's so fast and convenient.

And I don't think anyone in the USA buys loose tea. It's all teabags here (i.e. probably 99% of the market).

[laumars]

The microwave trick not only tastes bad, but it also doesn't heat evenly as you get patches of boiling water and patches of cold water.

Modern kettles boil in about 2 minutes anyway. So I don't really see them as any more inconvenient than using the microwave. The real inconvenience is having to get up to switch the device on; what I really want is a networked kettle so I can boil it from the comfort of my seat hehe

[ihateloggingin]

Microwave just the water, then put the teabag in after. Then it will taste the same.

[guard-of-terra]

I never had either failing speaker or failing* kettle in my life so it's hard for me to say anything. Maybe there just so much you can get from laptop speakers so it makes sense to cap their power hard?

* Some no loger turn off automatically, tho

[SixSigma]

> * Some no loger turn off automatically, tho

And you don't think a kettle burning its way through your kitchen is a fail !

[amenod]

Kettle: I had one with the same problem. That's a terminal failure to me...

[fnordfnordfnord]

Dell isn't winning much on this. The service calls and now the reputation hit cost them more than they could make repairing laptops.