Comments on: Mass production nurtures craving for metal

By: steel bar

steel bar — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 02:02:53 +0000

metal looks better then plastic, thus more luxury. why most plastic tvs now are silver? because it reminds you of metal. once they used to be black

By: Rarst

Rarst — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 14:31:14 +0000

@Iggi

Radio modules are an issue but without tech miracle required to solve it. Casing of my Nokia N810 is almost completely metal except upper-back where antennas (and plenty of those with WiFi/BT/GPS) are. Works fine for me. :) Only use it for few months but I had read plenty of long-time users refer to it as one of the sturdiest gadgets.

By: Iggi

Iggi — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 13:09:00 +0000

On the other hand, metal cases have issues. They are not transparent for radio waves, so any wireless device cannot have full-metal case and even partial one requires thin balance between rigidity, good-look (antennas can be placed outside metal case), connection quality and battery life. Designers also need to be careful with internal wiring, since metal can cause short-circuits and insulation adds both to weight and size.

By: Rarst

Rarst — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 19:18:50 +0000

@valencio

Yeah, I have some trust in Nokia. It takes some guts for phone to live long enough so I get tired of it (which is not in my character). :)

Read rumors lately that they are going to get in netbook market. And push their tablets now that market is ready. Will be interesting.

By: valencio

valencio — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 19:14:04 +0000

Companies like Nokia, Honda, Toyota etc design products that last. As for others well.. I suspect many of these are designed to fail as soon as their warranty runs out.

By: Rarst

Rarst — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 18:57:58 +0000

@Lyndi

Yeah, gadgets are often expected to fail and some companies seem to engineer them for that. I had some gadgets fail almost exactly after end of warranty period.

I drop my phone all the time but much more careful with other toys. I think it is screen size – the bigger it is the more I am aware things are fragile.

By: Lyndi

Lyndi — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 18:50:02 +0000

Isn’t the idea that our gadgets are not supposed to last forever, they expect us to continually buy the latest version? The only real damage I suffered to any of my gadgets recently was when my son decided that the toilet would be just the place to throw my phone into. No amount of metal or any other casing would have helped me with that one. Thanks for an interesting post.