Talk Portables

I just found a recent article that explains more about the Apple iPod’s somewhat proprietary nature as described in my previous post (for those who may not know what I was talking about). You can read it here:  http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=1133 

Interestingly there is an update at the end of the article that says French lawmakers passed the bill to require Apple to open its proprietary format. I am curious to see whether Apple will comply or leave France altogether in order to protect its trade secrets and tight grip on the market.

When it comes to small consumer electronics, sometimes you might have to choose if you really want to put form over function. Basically what this means is, sometimes those little shiny gadgets look real nice but they don’t really do much for you. Ideally, we should be able to have our cake and eat it too right? Sometimes this happens, as in say the case of the Apple iPod, which gives us the best of both worlds. Although some may argue with its somewhat proprietary nature this is not necessarily the case, I think it is a great example of something that not only looks good but has some great functionality (e.g. does what it intends to do, unless it breaks - but then you can always fix it yourself right?!). 

Some products though may look nice, but not have all the functionality we want or need. And of course this can often be subjective. The fact is each person has different wants and needs. I just found this example (http://wiredblogs.tripod.com/gadgets/index.blog?entry_id=1463650) of something that may be geared a little more towards form than function. However, for some (women mainly who just want a phone to talk on and maybe take a few basic pictures), the functionality may be enough and it’s the style that really matters. For others, such as heavy business users, this would not be a good choice. 

My point here is that before you just buy the next new cool shiny gadget, first think if it’s going to meet your functionality criteria. Just because it looks good and a lot of people are buying it, doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily right for you. I just heard the other day a guy complaining about his Motorola V3 Razr cell phone because of its lack of functions and short battery life (which makes sense considering how darn small the thing is!). He was a business user and now wishes he had never bought it. For many the Razr is a nice, cool phone to show off and works fine. But for someone like him, who just bought it because of the form factor, he ended up making a bad decision. So learn from his mistake and just be careful that the next time you buy something small and nice the shiny exterior doesn’t cloud your judgment!

Like relationships, consumer electronics are sometimes prone to “breaking up” before maybe they should (or anyone thought they would). As a consumer, there’s nothing much worse than purchasing a nice expensive gadget only to have it break six months or even two years later (when you expected it to last maybe for three or four). Sometimes you have a manufacturer warranty still on the product or purchased an extended warranty and you are taken care of. But what happens when the warranty has expired or you bought a used/refurbished product that had no warranty? Do you just have to toss it and buy the next gadget out there? 

The answer, as with many things in life, is it depends. Depending on the product, you might just be able to get it fixed, and sometimes cheaper than you may think. Now some companies, such as Apple and Sony, may charge you almost the price of a new iPod or Playstation to fix your old one (if they even fix the product at all). Depending on the problem, such as a busted LCD, they may tell you it is not fixable (or cost effective to fix) and to just buy a new one. Of course this is beneficial for the big company, but what about you - the poor individual consumer? Relax - all may not be lost. Not only are there sometimes small businesses that will repair the product for you at a reasonable price, but you can even fix it yourself for fairly cheap (relatively speaking) in certain circumstances. 

If you search around eBay and Google for certain electronic spare parts (such as LCD screens, new laser heads, refurbished hard drives, etc.), you’ll often see there are a few vendors selling them. You can also often find detailed instructions for repairing your product (sometimes you have to pay for an eBook, and other times you might find the information free on a forum). If you are just a little tech savvy, you might repair your electronic gadget in under an hour and for a lot cheaper than the big boys charge if you do it yourself. 

At Micro Portables we have realized there is a need for this, and thus our main focus is to carry the actual spare parts for repairing many portable electronic products. In addition to providing you with help for self-installation, we also offer professional installation by a Micro Portables technician at very reasonable prices. Repairing a portable gadget not only saves the consumer some money and lets them salvage the product for awhile longer, but it also keeps more electronics out of the landfill and in use (which is a fairly big issue considering how much we dump in broken and old electronics every year). 

So next time your portable electronic toy breaks, try seeing if you can repair it first before you toss it and fork over another $200 for a new one. You might just be surprised!

Hello everyone! Welcome to my new blog about portable electronics. If you view my about me page, you’ll see that I run an online store called Micro Portables (http://www.microportables.com), which sells repair parts and accessories for all of those little shiny and mobile gadgets that we all love. The website is fairly new, so expect many more products to be added in the months and years to come. We plan to perhaps be the only website on the Internet to have all the repair parts you need to fix your portable electronics in one place (although we all know how big the Internet is so I could be wrong. But this is the first website of its kind that I have seen at least).  

As for this blog, I just plan on using it to discuss the world of portable electronics and maybe post the occasional comment on running an online business. This will not however be just a forum to market my business. True I may occasionally mention a new product we get in and what I think about it (because I love gadgets too!), but mainly this will be to share opinions on current news and better ways to use your portable devices.  

Now for whether I’m qualified to talk about consumer electronics or not, well you can be the judge of that. But I think three years working in almost every department at Best Buy, five years of computer programming, running my now second successful Internet business mainly selling electronics (I do have a few other websites as well), building computers and fixing various electronics for many years, and just my love for the coolest new gadgets and my use of them myself all provide a pretty good resume.  

Ok so enough with the introduction (I’m actually new to writing my own blog - I guess the first post is the hardest). Now stay tuned - tomorrow we’ll actually start discussing all of the gadgets.