Worst gadget ever? Ars reviews a $99 Android tablet

It really says something when some of your customers ask the Internet whether they got the right thing when they received your product, or whether it got switched out with some joke Chinese knockoff that’s not really supposed to work.

The Maylong M-150 TabletPC is an Android-based device sold by Walgreens for a mere $99 a pop. The obvious purpose for this tablet’s existence is to appeal to bargain basement shoppers—grandmas, poor college kids, those on a tight budget—by claiming to offer a full tablet experience for cheap. I mean, it runs Android, right? That’s a legit operating system nowadays. Unfortunately, the Maylong M-150 is the very epitome of “race to the bottom,” and anyone looking to buy one would get more bang for the buck by setting it on fire for warmth.

It also says something that this was the most positive statement in the entire review.  Really, the M-150 has a 2-3 hour STANDBY time for the battery…  WTF?  Read the review yourself at Worst gadget ever? Ars reviews a $99 Android tablet.

Verizon Wireless really screwed up the Samsung Tab with pricing and policy

First off, if you purchase from Verizon Wireless and decide that the Tab is not for you, you will be hit with a $70 restocking fee. If that’s not bad enough, if you return it after three days of having purchased it, you will not be credited back your $35 activation fee either. Oh, did I forget to tell you about that fee? Yeah, in addition to the price of acquisition, Verizon also throws a $35 activation fee onto your first bill.

The above would be bad enough, but it gets worse. The receipt that you get when you purchase the Tab has an estimated monthly bill on it. Since I opted for the $20 per month for 1GB, the first estimated monthly payment was a whopping $88.36!! Needless to say, this sounded alarm bells so I called Verizon Wireless to discuss it. Here’s what I found out:

The truth behind Verizon’s pricing of the Samsung Tab…

Insteon devices are internally fused? (No, they are not!)

Myth:

I have found that most, and possibly all*, Insteon
“Bricks” are fused internally.

The Truth:

This is not true. In fact, most INSTEON products
are not internally fused.

The ApplianceLinc, PowerLinc Modems, and PowerLinc Controllers contain no fuses. There are also no designed-in fusible links within the components or circuit board(s).  (Fusible links, means that an component is designed act as a fuse, for example, a resistor is designed to fail at 125% of load.  This way the manufacturer has the same protection of a fuse, but without adding another component).

Although, if a fault were to develop within the electronics, one or more parts would open and cut off the supply of current. On most of the INSTEON products, during the Intertek ETL (the safety lab) safety testing, the engineer intentionally creates a shorted conditions within the electronics or the attached load to observe what happens and that it does not catch on fire. We have never failed this test.

There is a fuse installed in the LampLinc modules that is not required by the ANSI/UL-508 (the safety standard used to cover this product). We added it to ‘fail-safe’ the product after we found customers sometimes overloaded the X10 LampLinc Modules (made from 2001 to 2005) with too many Christmas tree lights. The fuse will open at 60% above the rated wattage.

The full conversation is here, the details regarding the Insteon products is from jlockyer.

Dell knew about computer failures, hid info from customers

A lawsuit from 2007, has finally proven that Dell made efforts to conceal known issues in it’s desktop machines…

For example, the Times says that Dell conducted a study in 2004 and concluded that a minimum of 12 percent of its SX270 Optiplex machines would have problems over three years (the same study also included the GX270). The company eventually raised that minimum expectation to 45 percent later that year, with the possibility of the failure rate reaching as high as 97 percent.

See the rest of the information at Dell knew about computer failures, hid info from customers.