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Re:Chinese netbooks break $100 mark... by jacquesm on Friday August 14, 2009 @02:04AM (#762476)
You don't buy an iPhone for $100, you get a plan that you will pay a premium on that will pay for 'your' iPhone.

I'm putting the 'your' in quotes here because it seems that Apple thinks it still owns it as well, even though they give you the thing and give you a bill of sale.

Re:Chinese netbooks break $100 mark... by chrischen on Friday August 14, 2009 @02:22AM (#762490)
Yea I know. I'm just saying when get one of these china made and designed computers you'll realize they're probably worth far less than $100.
Re:Chinese netbooks break $100 mark... by dasil003 on Friday August 14, 2009 @03:00AM (#762519)
It's $100 man lighten up. I'll bet you can do some cool hacking on it.
Re:Chinese netbooks break $100 mark... by sho on Friday August 14, 2009 @03:50AM (#762569)
What the hell are you talking about? I'm stunned that we've come so far, so fast, that you can buy a fully functional portable computer for under $100!!

Your comparison with the iPhone, which is almost 10 times the price, is completely invalid. And your little slur on "China design" is also wrong. Countries don't design things, companies do. And it's not like America has any kind of reputation for good design besides the output of a single company - which is arguably largely due to the effort of a single man!

Re:Chinese netbooks break $100 mark... by jacquesm on Friday August 14, 2009 @03:56AM (#762576)
> which is arguably largely due to the effort of a single man!

I doubt that. I'm taking it that you refer to Steve Jobs here, and while he has a ton of influence there are a lot more people making a lot of effort than just him.

Steve Jobs by himself would - just like any other human being - have a hard time designing a functioning and well packaged toaster from scratch.

There are a lot of people involved in product development at Apple, any item they release is the product of the efforts of a very large team.

For the rest of it I completely agree with your comment.

Re:Chinese netbooks break $100 mark... by sho on Friday August 14, 2009 @04:56AM (#762647)
Hm, I meant more that he'd instituted a culture of design obsession at Apple, not that he personally designed each and every product. I think the culture of perfectionism and extreme attention to detail at Apple is largely due to his efforts.

Thanks for the reminder, though.

Re:Chinese netbooks break $100 mark... by chrischen on Friday August 14, 2009 @07:20AM (#762786)
My comparison was meant as an exaggeration, sorry if that wasn't clear. The country does not design however the culture, accepted standards, less regulation, the regular market they cater to, etc, do mean that china more often than not design products that may be considered sub standard quality. I've lived there so you would know when you've actually held and used some of these genuine china made products. At the north American int'l auto shows, chinas prototypes had visible defects, were hell ugly, and partially constructed of bamboo.

Now this company may be better, but chances are this computer has poorer build quality.

Re:Chinese netbooks break $100 mark... by jacquesm on Friday August 14, 2009 @07:37AM (#762805)
I don't think they did much designing other than to take the atom reference motherboard and find a way to graft an ARM in there, all the rest looks like a dead ringer for the eee pc.

Build quality is something you can only establish by looking at the product and preferably disassembling it. Even then you still have to remember it's a statistics game, something may look excellent and yet it could fail miserably and in large numbers over a longer period of time.