RAGE! Products that can't perform their function...

Has anyone ever bought something and when it came to using it it didn't work for what seem like fatal design flaws... that even the designer should have picked up on let alone quality assurance!

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My example. I bought a wallet from River Island... I performed the checks like coin pocket, ID sleave, card slots, etc. It never occurred to me for a second to test the note holder... you know, it's a wallet. Me and the crew stop for a bite to eat and I sought out my wallet... notes stick out the top! It's not tall enough to accommodate notes?! What idiot makes a wallet that can't hold money?!

Numero deux. So there I was... getting out the shower, dripping on the shower mat. I grabbed my flannel, leaned over the sink and washed my face. I cleared some of the condensation and my face was blue! I looked down and my hands were covered, and blue was dripping from the flannel. Seriously, a flannel whose colour isn't water proof?! I think kicked at the shower mat (part of a set) and there were blue stains on the floor!

*pants in anger*

Oh, and for teh lulz... the iPhone 4. Ariel doesn't work for left handed users, and overheats (people have come out in blisters!)! Did no-one even hold it when they tested it?!

I had to google flannel...

Why were you wearing your checkered shirt in the shower?

A face cloth? It's like a small towel, smaller than a hand towel.

It's a small piece of flannel; hence we call it a flannel. But flannel is a fabric/cut and so you can have things made of flannel.

*facepalm*

I've had things like that. I had a half-arsed printer that would print or scan half of a document, stop and literally say "do it yourself".

If it actually said that: that would be the most amazing printer evar!

Two days ago, I bought an xbox360 250GB. Y'know, the new model.
One of the first four games I bought was Final Fantasy 13, so I popped that in, and away it went. A couples of hours in though, the console began to feel extremely warm, almost dangerously so, or so it seemed.
Noticing the airvent on this model's top, I thought "Hmm, perhaps there's another on the bottom side that's not able to work with the way I've positioned it." So, while the game was running, I flipped the console from vertical to horizontal. . .

The game was ruined.


'Twas unacceptable.

There's another name for that... Marketing Strategy.

A console is designed with a flaw. If the customer comes across that flaw, they have to pay money to have it shoddily repaired.

They should be subtle though

LAZAHBURN!

Pwnd.

Yeah, you never move the XBox when it's got a disk in it... also be careful about overheating it, turning it off and on rapidly, and other stuff... RROD, ya know.

It certainly would seem to be a common issue, as when I took the disk back to the store, they recognised the problem straight away and repaired it. Free of charge.
The console itself seems okay, other games still work.

But if that's a marketing strategy, it seems a little counter-productive to me. Surely, a barrage of issues like that would only make customers questions it's reliability, then perhaps change their mind and purchase a rival's console?

Blaze FF8 wrote:So, while the game was running, I flipped the console from vertical to horizontal. . ..

That's why most things with a disc drive says in the manual not to move it whilst operating... including DVD Players, Laptops and Tower Desktops.

MorbiusMonster wrote:A console is designed with a flaw. If the customer comes across that flaw, they have to pay money to have it shoddily repaired.

Except for the one year warranty Xbox 360 Slim, and three years on the older Xbox models.


A real example of an integrated flaw is the iPod Touch breaking just after a year of use - coinciding with the yearly release of the next model. >_<

Hey, I could change the position of a PS1, PS2, Gamecube or Wii without any of them having any trouble.