Brand Recommendation

[sgath92]

I have had a long spat of terrible luck when it comes to cameras, where for three brands in a row now I have flopped down $300 USD on a new point & shoot only for it to fail on me within a year or two. Usually just after the warranty expired.

Last time around was a Fuji S8400W (they're cheap now but I had foolishly gotten mine when they had first came out and retailed for more). It was a fairly good camera and I liked it, while it was under warranty. The month after the warranty died the memory card retention system failed so the memory card was perpetually popping out of position. I had tried to see if Fuji would take pity on me since the warranty had literally just expired and all, but their customer service didn't care.

Trying to fix it, I had put a big glob of JB Weld on the inside of the battery door where the memory card is located. This kept the memory card from coming out of position but made it harder to open & close the battery door.

This gave me another 6 months of use and then the latches on the camera went (the glob of epoxy meant a lot more pressure was involved in moving the door). In the process of trying to macquire up the door so it would stay closed I snapped it in half and that's when I gave up and threw the camera out.

My prior bad experiences before that were with Kodak and GE/General Imaging. In those cases it was not mechanical failure (i.e. cheap plastic parts breaking) so much as electrical problems. The Kodak for instance had some kind of short in the flash circuit that caused it to catch fire while shooting. You see, all electronics come prefilled from the factory with a certain amount of "magic smoke" and when the magic smoke leaks out, that's the end of the service life.

So what are the reliable brands out there? Is it just Nikon & Cannon? Are their reliability reputations because of their SLRs (read: are the cheap P&Ss just as reliable?)?

As frustrated as I've gotten, if I could afford it I would consider just going back to film. Does any company still care about quality?

 

[Dao]

For point and shoot camera, I bought a Canon G11 back around 2009/2010 for my wife and I am using it now since I got her the Sony RX100 III in 2014. So far the G11 is still going strong.

The canon G series camera feel quit solid. So it worth a look.

The Canon refurbished Powershot G16 is around $280 +tax and it comes with one year warranty from Canon USA.
Canon PowerShot G16 Refurbished | Canon Online Store

 

[TCampbell]

Canon and Nikon have pretty solid reputations, but it depends on what you get because even they have assortments of cameras from entry-level to advanced models.

But even among point & shoots, Canon actually makes advanced point & shoot cameras that have metal bodies (not plastic) (e.g. Canon's PowerShot "G" series of cameras are their higher end models).

Low end point & shoots are a bit of a dying breed because smartphone cameras are getting pretty good. So there's not much reason to buy a dedicated camera unless a person plans on buying a pretty good dedicated camera (something significantly better than what a phone can do.)

 

[sgath92]

So the consensus then is Canon should be reliable, what about Nikon, Panasonic, or Olympus?

Also, not sure if relevant: By P&S I really mean zoom bridge type cameras rather than the tiny compacts. The Fuji that died on me was a 44x optical zoom, and as far as the optic is concerned it was fairly decent for its price point (unlike the GE whose optic would distort at the corners- i.e. take a picture of a flat horizontal line along the bottom of the frame and the two ends of the line will appear curved).

I have to say from reading reviews, I don't see why reviewers care so much about things like wifi, gps, touchscreens etc. on these devices. The Nikon, I believe it was the L830? have some of these "bells & whistles" but lack a lot of the manual adjustments you'd assume bridge P&S users would want instead.

I always figured the true market for the bridge cameras are the people who should really have a SLR but can't afford one.

 

[Designer]

So the consensus then is Canon should be reliable, what about Nikon, Panasonic, or Olympus?

I have to say from reading reviews, I don't see why reviewers care so much about things like wifi, gps, touchscreens etc. on these devices. The Nikon, I believe it was the L830? have some of these "bells & whistles" but lack a lot of the manual adjustments you'd assume bridge P&S users would want instead.

I always figured the true market for the bridge cameras are the people who should really have a SLR but can't afford one.

All four brands you listed have excellent reputations, and as a make of choice, any of the four should serve you well.

Part of the reason reviewers hit on all the bells and whistles is to ultimately sell more cameras.

Bridge cameras, being smaller and less complicated, often are the choice of someone who wishes to carry a camera in one's pocket, as in hiking, traveling, or just to keep it handy for everyday use.

 

[soufiej]

While I can sympathize with your situation, I have to point out two simple facts.

1) In the world of cameras, $300 isn't considered to be big money. It is to you and I. It is not to the companies that deal in the millions and billions of dollars in sales and costs.

2) The electronics market as a group has shifted to a disposable product philosophy.

And, to some extent, #3 is, every company builds lemons. That's why there are service departments and warranties. (Not really, we'll get to that in a minute.)

In the electronics business, the low end of the dollar range is completely filler to round out a manufacturer's line and to bring in a bit of small change buyers not committed to anything other than a commodity in their hands. A $300 camera buyer is, to these companies, not that different from the guy on the corner asking for loose change. You are not a "serious" buyer.

No one builds a $300 retail camera in their own factory today. It is subcontracted out and, at times, subcontracted to several companies who build parts and then another company which assembles those parts and puts a name on the front. One factory can be building for a half dozen "manufacturers", one name brand on Mondays and another for each day of the week. Internally, most components are very similar and only the front face plate and the brand name sticker set them apart from the day of the week for the builder.

In such a situation, quality control is everything and nothing.

It is up to the company whose name is on the product to do quality control. Most often though, the price range doesn't permit much more than purely random checks on individual components as they are pulled from the assembly line. With almost the entire product being a function of integrated circuits performing hundreds, if not thousands, of functions within each chip, this is a less than desirable level of control for the end user.

Problems which might occur after a few years of ownership are ignored because they are not made evident during this initial quality check. By the time such issues arise, the manufacturer is several generations of product down the line and they no longer care since there are no rules which suggest they should.

How do you build a low cost product? You use low cost parts. Low cost parts are also low quality parts for most builders.

It costs good money to build good components. That's not how the low end of the consumer electronics market works when a few dollars can mean you lose a sale to the other guy. The "other guy" being a camera built in the same factory but on another day of the week.

Most consumers do not have the time to really research what they buy so it is done on impulse in most cases. The "that one looks good" approach to quality control when you are looking at a product description on line. Or the on line review from the buyer who was either paid to write the review or has owned the component for less than two days but is anxious to share their opinions.

With the loss of brick and mortar stores where the customer can pick up and handle a product and ask questions, the market no longer must build for that market.

This is a significant change in how mass market consumer electronics are designed, built, sold, serviced and thought of.

Try arguing with Amazon about a product you purchased three years ago.


Does any company care about quality? Yes and no. Yes, if you are in the upper ranges of price where production cost vs profit returned has a more direct value relationship. And where a bad review can cost significant sales numbers.

With a $300 retail camera, there are no individual "significant sales".

Modern electronics companies are, in reality, run by bean counters. Unfortunately, bean counters care about beans.

They do not care about you or your camera, your aging mother's health or the condition of your children's teeth or how much repair your car might require.

You are simply a single digit on a blip screen to a bean counter.

No, they will not have pity on the poor consumer.

That's someone else's job. Their's is to make sure the company makes profit.

If a so called camera "manufacturer" who is simply buying a commodity off an assembly line loses you as a customer, well, you have gone through three such companies yourself, right?

The profit made on a $300 retail camera isn't enough to draw anyone's attention at the company.

This is not an indictment of the camera industry but of the entire mass market consumer electronics industry which has decided it is in their best interest to build stuff you throw away rather than repair. When a $120 toaster oven breaks, you don't repair it. You buy new. When a $600 AV receiver breaks, you don't fix it. You buy new.

"Service centers" have become the quality control centers for the manufacturers. Designs are not quality controlled by the manufacturer today. The product is OK'd for production and sent out into the market. Service centers now serve the manufacturer, not the client directly, in diagnosing the most common problems found in sufficient numbers of products to tell the manufacturer they need to stock up on part "XYZ" because it has consistent failure rates. So the service techs are doing the work of quality control techs for the manufacturers who no longer have paid staff to do that job.

This simply is how modern mass market electronics are built and serviced. There is no brand loyalty today because there is no customer loyalty. The industry has shifted to a price controls everything equation. More features, more bells and whistles, more geegaws for less dollars is primarily what sells equipment in the mass market today.



You have happened to fall into the black hole that is mass market electronics.

If you buy another $300 camera from Canon or Nikon, don't expect anything different. They do not build their $300 retail cameras either. They change their models quite regularly to keep up with the competition so they too will have moved on to another component in two year's time.

You can buy an extended warranty. However, with an extended warranty, if your camera breaks in that warranty period, you will be given back a refurbished component.

Refurbished is not necessarily bad news since refurbished components often times have more time spent by a single technician making sure they do operate as advertised. Still, the basic rules for making profit in today's mass market electronics market persist in all mass market products.

Due to the large scale ic's involved in cameras (and a good number of modern electronics) today, it is easier and less expensive for the company to swap out a refurbished component for a broken component. They then put in a new ic in your old camera and it will become someone else's warranty repair.

Techs can't sit around troubleshooting an ic that performs several hundred discrete functions. Nor are there parts for things like broken battery holders. So the manufacturers have switched to simple swapping out stuff for stuff. When the supply of parts no longer exists, repairs no longer exist either. Parts supplies are finite since making more complicated parts at a lower cost is how the mass market electronics business stays in business.



This is the market place today. You can't change the system by making noise because the people you would need to talk to won't take your message. They only listen to the bean counters and we've already discussed how important you are to a bean counter.

There is no good answer to your question.

You can decide to drop out of the market all together and buy a phone with a camera. Unfortunately, the phone business is even less concerned about their clients than is the camera market.

You can step up to a more expensive component which allows some degree of higher initial quality and buys you better quality parts to begin with. It does nothing to change how the market operates though.

You can buy a pre-owned component of higher pedigree. One simple fact is, if a component makes it through the first six months of use, it will probably last for many more years. That, however, does not include the mechanical issues you have encountered. The black hole of a repair center still exists for such issues.

I would say, if you buy from a company better known for quality products, then your chances of better results increase. If nothing else, the 1-2% failure rate is now spread out over a more broadly distributed client base. Your chances improve sort of like the lottery increases its rewards when more buyers get into the system.

You are more likely to find better customer care after the sale from the larger manufacturers. But frustrations still abound when problems arise.

You puts your money down and you takes your chances is how the modern consumer electronics industry operates. You can choose to participate in their roulette wheel of a market or you can choose not to participate. If you choose to play, realize one fact, the house never loses. If they did, they wouldn't stay in business. Then everyone would lose.

 

[Ihatemymoney]

I started out with a used canon G10.
For what the camera was designed to do it was a great camera and proved to be very reliable .............

 

[spiralout462]

Good electronic brands........ Sony, Samsung, Canon, Nikon. You can always get a lemon, just have to increase your odds of a keeper.

 

[table1349]

While I can sympathize with your situation, I have to point out two simple facts.

1) In the world of cameras, $300 isn't considered to be big money. It is to you and I. It is not to the companies that deal in the millions and billions of dollars in sales and costs.

2) The electronics market as a group has shifted to a disposable product philosophy.

And, to some extent, #3 is, every company builds lemons. That's why there are service departments and warranties. (Not really, we'll get to that in a minute.)

In the electronics business, the low end of the dollar range is completely filler to round out a manufacturer's line and to bring in a bit of small change buyers not committed to anything other than a commodity in their hands. A $300 camera buyer is, to these companies, not that different from the guy on the corner asking for loose change. You are not a "serious" buyer.

No one builds a $300 retail camera in their own factory today. It is subcontracted out and, at times, subcontracted to several companies who build parts and then another company which assembles those parts and puts a name on the front. One factory can be building for a half dozen "manufacturers", one name brand on Mondays and another for each day of the week. Internally, most components are very similar and only the front face plate and the brand name sticker set them apart from the day of the week for the builder.

In such a situation, quality control is everything and nothing.

It is up to the company whose name is on the product to do quality control. Most often though, the price range doesn't permit much more than purely random checks on individual components as they are pulled from the assembly line. With almost the entire product being a function of integrated circuits performing hundreds, if not thousands, of functions within each chip, this is a less than desirable level of control for the end user.

Problems which might occur after a few years of ownership are ignored because they are not made evident during this initial quality check. By the time such issues arise, the manufacturer is several generations of product down the line and they no longer care since there are no rules which suggest they should.

How do you build a low cost product? You use low cost parts. Low cost parts are also low quality parts for most builders.

It costs good money to build good components. That's not how the low end of the consumer electronics market works when a few dollars can mean you lose a sale to the other guy. The "other guy" being a camera built in the same factory but on another day of the week.

Most consumers do not have the time to really research what they buy so it is done on impulse in most cases. The "that one looks good" approach to quality control when you are looking at a product description on line. Or the on line review from the buyer who was either paid to write the review or has owned the component for less than two days but is anxious to share their opinions.

With the loss of brick and mortar stores where the customer can pick up and handle a product and ask questions, the market no longer must build for that market.

This is a significant change in how mass market consumer electronics are designed, built, sold, serviced and thought of.

Try arguing with Amazon about a product you purchased three years ago.


Does any company care about quality? Yes and no. Yes, if you are in the upper ranges of price where production cost vs profit returned has a more direct value relationship. And where a bad review can cost significant sales numbers.

With a $300 retail camera, there are no individual "significant sales".

Modern electronics companies are, in reality, run by bean counters. Unfortunately, bean counters care about beans.

They do not care about you or your camera, your aging mother's health or the condition of your children's teeth or how much repair your car might require.

You are simply a single digit on a blip screen to a bean counter.

No, they will not have pity on the poor consumer.

That's someone else's job. Their's is to make sure the company makes profit.

If a so called camera "manufacturer" who is simply buying a commodity off an assembly line loses you as a customer, well, you have gone through three such companies yourself, right?

The profit made on a $300 retail camera isn't enough to draw anyone's attention at the company.

This is not an indictment of the camera industry but of the entire mass market consumer electronics industry which has decided it is in their best interest to build stuff you throw away rather than repair. When a $120 toaster oven breaks, you don't repair it. You buy new. When a $600 AV receiver breaks, you don't fix it. You buy new.

"Service centers" have become the quality control centers for the manufacturers. Designs are not quality controlled by the manufacturer today. The product is OK'd for production and sent out into the market. Service centers now serve the manufacturer, not the client directly, in diagnosing the most common problems found in sufficient numbers of products to tell the manufacturer they need to stock up on part "XYZ" because it has consistent failure rates. So the service techs are doing the work of quality control techs for the manufacturers who no longer have paid staff to do that job.

This simply is how modern mass market electronics are built and serviced. There is no brand loyalty today because there is no customer loyalty. The industry has shifted to a price controls everything equation. More features, more bells and whistles, more geegaws for less dollars is primarily what sells equipment in the mass market today.



You have happened to fall into the black hole that is mass market electronics.

If you buy another $300 camera from Canon or Nikon, don't expect anything different. They do not build their $300 retail cameras either. They change their models quite regularly to keep up with the competition so they too will have moved on to another component in two year's time.

You can buy an extended warranty. However, with an extended warranty, if your camera breaks in that warranty period, you will be given back a refurbished component.

Refurbished is not necessarily bad news since refurbished components often times have more time spent by a single technician making sure they do operate as advertised. Still, the basic rules for making profit in today's mass market electronics market persist in all mass market products.

Due to the large scale ic's involved in cameras (and a good number of modern electronics) today, it is easier and less expensive for the company to swap out a refurbished component for a broken component. They then put in a new ic in your old camera and it will become someone else's warranty repair.

Techs can't sit around troubleshooting an ic that performs several hundred discrete functions. Nor are there parts for things like broken battery holders. So the manufacturers have switched to simple swapping out stuff for stuff. When the supply of parts no longer exists, repairs no longer exist either. Parts supplies are finite since making more complicated parts at a lower cost is how the mass market electronics business stays in business.



This is the market place today. You can't change the system by making noise because the people you would need to talk to won't take your message. They only listen to the bean counters and we've already discussed how important you are to a bean counter.

There is no good answer to your question.

You can decide to drop out of the market all together and buy a phone with a camera. Unfortunately, the phone business is even less concerned about their clients than is the camera market.

You can step up to a more expensive component which allows some degree of higher initial quality and buys you better quality parts to begin with. It does nothing to change how the market operates though.

You can buy a pre-owned component of higher pedigree. One simple fact is, if a component makes it through the first six months of use, it will probably last for many more years. That, however, does not include the mechanical issues you have encountered. The black hole of a repair center still exists for such issues.

I would say, if you buy from a company better known for quality products, then your chances of better results increase. If nothing else, the 1-2% failure rate is now spread out over a more broadly distributed client base. Your chances improve sort of like the lottery increases its rewards when more buyers get into the system.

You are more likely to find better customer care after the sale from the larger manufacturers. But frustrations still abound when problems arise.

You puts your money down and you takes your chances is how the modern consumer electronics industry operates. You can choose to participate in their roulette wheel of a market or you can choose not to participate. If you choose to play, realize one fact, the house never loses. If they did, they wouldn't stay in business. Then everyone would lose.

Ok all good points, BUT...............For the attention span impaired. You Get What You Pay For.

 

[Derrel]

Look for $300 P&S compact digitals and $499 bridge models at a good pawn shop, priced around $50 to $125

 

[soufiej]

Ok all good points, BUT...............For the attention span impaired. You Get What You Pay For.

What is it with you guys - always guys - who can't pay attention for more than fifteen seconds or two sentences? Stop eating the GMO crap full of preservatives and poisons for chrissake!



No, it's not "you get what you pay for".

Yes, if you spend more money, you deserve to expect better equipment. That's not how it should be though!

There was a time when that wasn't the case. "Low priced gear" was not throw away gear. It wasn't great equipment, but it wasn't meant to be thrown away simply because it had a problem.

It's that, if you buy higher priced equipment, you get higher priced parts and real design.

Higher priced parts are generally more reliable parts because the tolerances are tighter. "Real design" is not a zero sum game meant solely to feed the machine.

Manufacturers may actually be responsible for building their own product, or at least, more of it, as the price rises. They are more aware of the user's feedback as price rises because there's more at stake.

People buy a $300 camera because.

Not for any good reason in most cases. Just "because".

But, yes, a $300 camera is now throw away stuff for most manufacturers. A $2500 camera, not so much, because they aren't selling as many $2500 camera as they are $300 cameras.

Again, the lottery analogy. No one complains about loosing the lottery when thousands of tickets are sold. You spent two bucks, what do you expect?

Mostly, no one expects a $300 camera to last because they have moved on by the time it breaks. You're told the new camera has this and that features you don't have on this three year old camera and so you go buy something new.

If planned obsolescence wasn't in the design, who the heck would buy a new camera every few years?

Unfortunately, to complain about the low quality of what is considered a disposable product is not going to get anyone's attention.

Most such products, if the tech get's them apart, they can't be put back together again. That is, sadly, not a joke.

We do it because we've been conditioned not to.

 

[table1349]

Ok all good points, BUT...............For the attention span impaired. You Get What You Pay For.

What is it with you guys - always guys - who can't pay attention for more than fifteen seconds or two sentences? Stop eating the GMO crap full of preservatives and poisons for chrissake!



No, it's not "you get what you pay for".

Yes, if you spend more money, you deserve to expect better equipment. That's not how it should be though!

There was a time when that wasn't the case. "Low priced gear" was not throw away gear. It wasn't great equipment, but it wasn't meant to be thrown away simply because it had a problem.

It's that, if you buy higher priced equipment, you get higher priced parts and real design.

Higher priced parts are generally more reliable parts because the tolerances are tighter. "Real design" is not a zero sum game meant solely to feed the machine.

Manufacturers may actually be responsible for building their own product, or at least, more of it, as the price rises. They are more aware of the user's feedback as price rises because there's more at stake.

People buy a $300 camera because.

Not for any good reason in most cases. Just "because".

But, yes, a $300 camera is now throw away stuff for most manufacturers. A $2500 camera, not so much, because they aren't selling as many $2500 camera as they are $300 cameras.

Again, the lottery analogy. No one complains about loosing the lottery when thousands of tickets are sold. You spent two bucks, what do you expect?

Mostly, no one expects a $300 camera to last because they have moved on by the time it breaks. You're told the new camera has this and that features you don't have on this three year old camera and so you go buy something new.

If planned obsolescence wasn't in the design, who the heck would buy a new camera every few years?

Unfortunately, to complain about the low quality of what is considered a disposable product is not going to get anyone's attention.

Most such products, if the tech get's them apart, they can't be put back together again. That is, sadly, not a joke.

We do it because we've been conditioned not to.

Welcome to the 21st century. What should or should not be and what the reality is, happens to be two different things. Reality is these days, you get what you pay for.

We could debate the goods and the bads of the situation forever. Wouldn't change one damn thing. And for me at this stage of life, let the generations fix the mess they created or live with it. And if you don't believe that is was created then just scroll through the forums, especially the equipment forums. Everybody wants the cheapest thing they can get that will take fabulous photos like they have seen in the magazines.

 

[soufiej]

Welcome to the 21st century. What should or should not be and what the reality is, happens to be two different things. Reality is these days, you get what you pay for.

We could debate the goods and the bads of the situation forever. Wouldn't change one damn thing. And for me at this stage of life, let the generations fix the mess they created or live with it. And if you don't believe that is was created then just scroll through the forums, especially the equipment forums. Everybody wants the cheapest thing they can get that will take fabulous photos like they have seen in the magazines.

We're not that far apart.

I can't, in this case, say it comes down to you get what you pay for. One of the more significant issues I see is the nature of the mass market. Couple that to the loss of brick and mortar stores with real "sales specialists" who take the time to learn their product and you have a recipe for crap.

Just who is responsible for creating that recipe is what is up for debate.

Mass market buyers eat their young. They thrive on "new".

Models are swapped every year for something with a new face plate and a new feature set. Until the buyer is looking at upper price range specialty gear, most of what they are buying is distinguished from another model from another "manufacturer" by its features, not by its performance.

Big box sale staff point to features, not performance. Even if they themself are an enthusiast, they sell to the masses in terms the masses will comprehend. Feature/benefit/close the sale.

Reviews in the "professional" press niggle over small items that are seldom realized in real world use. Of what significance would laboratory tests be to a $300 camera? No one with such a camera would use it in a lab, locked down on a tripod with specifically prepared lighting.

Is a wifi connection in the lab as reliable as a wifi connection at the hotel on the island?

If Ionesco were still alive and writing plays today, he would be writing about people trapped in enormous piles of disposable crap.

Oh, wait, he did that back in the 1950's!



When all products are selected by their feature set, you can only argue over which has the most and, possibly, the most useful/useless features to some buyers.

Feature sets are determined by committee.

The manufacturers can argue they make what the public wants but they also ignore what some of the public wants which is nothing more than a camera that takes good photos and works beyond the warranty period.

How much money was invested in blink detection? How many pages of your owner's manual have you never read because they describe a feature you wouldn't even consider using?

Not that long ago, there were the "giant killer products". Stripped of features, they performed the task they were meant to perform. Typically built more like their higher priced kin. What today might be classified as an "enthusiast" compact.

Yet, the most well known enthusiast camera today is the Sony RX series which now sells for almost $1,000. No one who has ever lost a small camera at the beach or the kid's park is going to spend $1k for another small camera. Add to that the reputation the Sony's have developed for not being long lived products and you have the absurdity of the modern camera market IMO.

With the constant churning of the models anyone looking for a compact camera will be faced with dozens and dozens of models to choose from. That would be from one manufacturer.

"Enthusiast" models will simply get lost in the masses. I have spent over 30 years in electronic sales. In those years I've seen the mass market go from a few brands with a few products to a swamp of largely indistinguishable slop meant to sell to every need yet service none.

Yes, the mass market consumer has made this situation for themselves. The cheapest product which is seen as the same as all others is what sells now. Decisions are based more on the disposable nature of the product than on the quality of the equipment. If it's going to be tossed in two years, why spend more for the same junk?

For several decades the service industry has promoted a do not fix it option. They don't want to be tied down to something that is five years old due to the unreliability of a five year old anything. The better option is to replace the component with a new something with even more features they didn't have in their old piece of junk.

If the old junk isn't going to be fixed, why should the manufacturers build and act as if it might be repaired? Local service centers have dried up along with the brick and mortar dealers.

If you want service, you no longer have the option of authorized service centers in your area. Now you send your broken junk to some other state where it will be tossed into the pile with the other broken junk, some of which was deemed broken simply because the buyer couldn't comprehend the instructions for the myriad of features offered on the less than stellar piece of junk they purchased for a few dollars less than the other piece of junk.




The op had originally asked, "Does any company still care about quality?".

To that question, the answer is a resounding "No" when you are spending $300.

Unfortunately, that price applies to too many products today.

In 2003 I spent $365 for a dishwasher that lasted 13 years. Yesterday I spent almost $1k for a discontinued, floor model to replace the old $365 unit. I could have spent a bit less but I would have had a less reliable product by all accounts.

Seven wash cycles plus lots of other features where my old unit had two cycles and turned out clean dishes. That's all it did for 13 years. I don't expect, from what every salesperson said, this new machine will last ten.

Spend $1k on a AV receiver today and, when it breaks in a few years, you'll be told not to repair it, just buy new. If you get six years use out of a $1k receiver, you're told you've done well.



So, IMO, it is not simply a matter of you get what you pay for because most of what you are buying today is feature filled junk. It is not expected to last.

No matter how long it does last, you won't likely be repairing that unit because it wasn't built to be repaired.

No, the market is filled with junk and the giant killers are virtually extinct.

What sets a $2500 camera apart from a $300 camera is most people will be slightly more reluctant to, or incapable of, dropping another $2500 for new with more features.

Other than that, I can't, in most cases, say you get what you pay for any longer.

 

[table1349]

One quick question, all I want is an answer, don't need any explanation I already know what it will be. Pantyhose or girdle/garter belt and stockings?

Think about it and you will see how we got here. One persons panty hose is another persons, camera, cell phone, DVD/Bluray player, mixer, etc. Now I'm not a panty hose wearer, but my wife tells me you get what you pay for there as well. I hope so cause them damn things are expensive.