[General Topics] crobs808:
It is truly amazing what we put up with as consumers of electronic devices. The fact that a certain technology is readily available and has been for years does not necessarily mean that we are allowed to put our hands on it. Instead there is a huge secluded group of executives that meet off the books periodically to decide how long they will string out the public with this specific device or set of hardware spec, and which years in the future they will finally decide to release what they already have in hand and are using themselves as "prototypes".

I have an uncle who works for an integrator who makes all the internals that go inside these cell phones, and laptops, and other electronic devices, and he has showed me again and again the kind of technology that is available, and could be in the hands of the public for pennies on the dollar, but from a sales/profit standpoint it would not make sense to release this stuff. We are talking about phones that exist now, but we will not see until 5 years from now, that can already be as powerful as your 3.0ghz core2duo desktop computer. The same goes with laptops. Just as an example, in 2001, I had a Dell Latitude c840 Laptop, with 2GB RAM and a 2.4ghz processor. Come on, that was 7 years ago! Yet that is still the norm for average/decent computer these days that sells for $1,000.

The intentional slowing down of technology release to the public, and the huge gap between what is easily possible and what is readily available is just getting bigger and bigger. Think about it...allowing a cell phone board to handle 512mb instead of 256mb...come on, that is an overnight programming/hardware fix job...not 2-3 years. We have been trained by these corporations to expect it to take a year or two to come up with new hardware, when in fact it takes weeks, and max 2-3 months to invent this stuff. Companies like Intel and AMD have been providing other companies like SiliconImages with 8-16 core computers for the past 8 years...why are we, the general public, so low on the totem pole to these executives? We have it well within our power to shut down the system in less than a week by refusing to buy this cheap, dumbed down hardware.

Frankly I am sick of it, yet there is nothing I can do as a consumer to change it. We are scum and nothing in the eyes of the giant electronics corps, and right now we are eating up their tables scraps like it is the best invention we have ever seen. Come on - The TouchPro 2 from HTC could have been in my hand 5 years ago, yet we still right now are "waiting" for it, and will pay $500, $600, or $700 for one, a device that costs them $50-$100 to manufacture. They hold on to hardware as long as they possibly can to make as much money as they can. Yes, that is a good business strategy, but in the meantime we are left with crap hardware that just gets repackaged into a new plastic shell and given a different name, and we are supposed to drool over it...? Please. This just blows me away, the fact that we put up with this treatment is beyond me; and, it has gone on for so long that it is par for the course now, nobody can change it. We will continue to get low quality electronics when 10x more advanced devices are sitting on CEO's desks just gathering dust.