Sony Finds Defect In Digital Cameras 181
gbobeck writes "Sony announced Friday that it found a defect in 8 Cyber-shot compact digital camera models. 'The liquid crystal display screens of eight camera models might not display images correctly, images could be distorted or cameras might not take photos at all.' The affected models were sold between September 2003 and January 2005 globally. According to Sony spokesman Chisato Kitsukawa, 'Sony will repair for free only cameras that show signs of the problems.'"
Is it just me? (Score:2, Interesting)
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It is just you.
Only about four failures in one year and you are ready to condemn the whole company.
Re:Is it just me? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not just the failures, it's what they are. Frankly, after the whole root kit fiasco, I gave up on Sony. The rest is just reassurance that I made the right decision.
Repeat after me... (Score:2)
Let's not forget the head of SONY has gone on the record as saying that he thinks music downloads are overpriced, he'd prefer the 25c mark and higher volume.
That is complete rubish and you know it. (Score:2)
It is that simple.
Only four failures? (Score:2)
-Infecting their users computers.
-Making batteries that may explode in your lap (watch your crown jewells).
-Making cameras that may not work.
-Harrasing enthusiats developping for the PSP with constant firmware "updates".
-Killing the Aibo.
-Recognized the bet in the worn technology (plasma) in the plasma vs LCD TV wars.
-Not figuring at all in the portable music player market, which the used to dominate.
Honestly man, you are going to heaven, such a kind soul should receive some
Re:Your Fault, not sony? (Score:5, Insightful)
On one hand you want products that costs less and does everything, on the other hand when you invest your money you want maximum returns.
Congratulations, young one. You have taken that important first step towards customer hatred. I think you will have a great future here at the RIAA...
Seriously - human demands are unlimited. If no one makes new cameras, or cheaper cameras, then we have no choice but to buy what's available. Don't blame the consumer because you're not capable of keeping up with the competition.
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The same thing happened with Ford, except in their case they accidently hired seven polar bears. They were responsible for the Pinto fiasco.
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I hate sony just as much as the next guy, but md will never be a good example of something bad coming out of sony
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Whats next, comparing ibm x86 pcs to apple macbooks? I'm just asking.. cause I sense.. fanboism here.. a great disturbance in the force etc etc.
Not even the first Sony digital camera problem (Score:5, Insightful)
It's echoing what others have already said, but there was a time I looked for the Sony name on electronics and bought their brand (or others that used their components) almost exclusively. Sony Walkman, Sony stereo, Sony Trinitron TVs and monitors...
Since my wife got hit by the Suncomm DRM on a Sony/BMG CD about a year ago, I've still looked for the name -- to avoid it. No one I know is buying a PS3 -- everyone wants a Wii and has or wants an Xbox 360. No one I know is buying high-def movies because they're waiting for Blu-Ray to inevitably crash and burn so the format war will be over. Seems like the last year or two Sony has lost it so badly it may be impossible for them to get it back.
We're a long way from "Sony -- because Caucasians are just too damn tall."
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You missed the stories about people trampling each other to get PS3s?
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Let's be honest: you could put a horse-apple in a box, call it by a fancy-sounding name, announce it will be available in limited release on a certain date at a price of $1000 each, and people would line up to buy it just to be OMG FIRST!!!! It doesn't matter that it's (literally) a piece of crap -- to them, it's a symbol of exclusivity, and that's all that matters to some people.
The people I know don't tend to be the stand-in-line-for-a-week-before so
No, but that is created hype. (Score:2)
Lets wait for sales figures over a longer period of time 9once hype has subdued and the machine has to satnd on its own merits.
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You read the tech news or the gaming blogs, or whatever you read (Slashdot apparently).
Sony hasn't even come close to losing its 'quality rep' in the eyes of the average consumer. If you don't know people who want the PS3, you probably hang out with a very specific crowd. I know a lot of people, and many of them know I'm a serious gamer with a rep of buying almost all of the platforms. One of the first questions people have been asking me over the last few weeks
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Won't Buy Sony (Score:3, Insightful)
Microsoft, Sony... there are others on the list that I won't do business with unless I absolutely have to. In my work I needed a very high quality portable digital audio recorder and the Sony was the only one who had what I needed (at a cost
Is it just me? ... No, it's Zonk (Score:2, Troll)
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The battery recall costs them about 440 milion dollar. They expect a loss of about 260 milion dollar due to the startup costs for the ps3. Also they sold less PSPs, 9 milion instead of the 12 milion they expected.
They still expect a 440 milion dollar operating profit over the year, though, even though last year it was almost 2 billion dollar. I guess if they take this hit now, they'll still have a ch
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What does the division of sony that does music have to do with the division that makes camera? or TVs?
Nothing, thats what.
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The name perhaps?
The Sony namesake is quickly becoming a pariah across the board.
Why work with Sony anymore? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Overall they still do.
If this turns into a trend, I will be mighty suprised. KNowing how large corpotration can be fractures, an issue in one division does not mean other division will suffer the same issue.
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Bcasue overall sony has high quality for consumer devices. [...] Overall they still do.
They do? Seriously, what does Sony make that's 'high quality' (and not just "adequate") anymore? Their monitors are mediocre. I've had two sets of their headphones in the last year. The noise cancelling ones were a joke and I returned them. Another standard pair were OK, but disintegrated in like 4 months (and the carrying case was unbelievably stupidly designed and a PITA).
Maybe the PS3 has a few good games, but it
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My Slammed Psone works flawlessly (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm baffled whenever i here of overheating playstations (i've played in carpet for at least a few hundred hours although i try to keep it on some platform)
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We used to buy prosumer Sony Hi8 camcorders and VCRs. Got two camcorders and one VCR. We had so many problems with them, versus our older VHS equipment manufactured by Matsushita, that we switched to Panasonic DV camcorders. Never had a problem yet.
Later I made the mistake of buying a Sony DVD recorder. The thing malfunctioned just after the warranty expired. Now I buy NEC recorders.
I should have learned by now, but I got some Sony earbuds. The thing disintegrated in a couple of months. First it was
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When our Dell account manager(s) started to suck (quoting for the wrong thing, not having a clue about technology, weird delays) I made one attempt to get someone who didn't suck and when that didn't go anywhere I dropped them. This saved our staff from having to endure the GX270 train wreck.
Similarly, most Sony stuff bought before the rootkit is okay, with older stuff being better. From what I know of Sony purchases from other people, most Sony stuff bought after the rootkit has at least
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I agree with all your picks. I will add some of my bargain experiences:
I have had 2 Samsung monitors and they so far have served me well. I also like Cherry [cherrycorp.com] keyboards, they are pretty plain but sturdy, never had one break on me and I type pretty hard. I currently use a Logitech mouse after having trouble with a Microsoft Intellimouse which cost twice as much and got broken after the warranty expired.
I also prefer Western Digital as you do, none of my Western Digital disks have failed and they are usu
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Here I am, months later, still waiting for 3 of the 4 batteries I requested.
I wonder how they've managed that. The 4 were ordered at exactly the same time. Only one made it here.
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Thanks to the prevalance of bugs in what has become an essential piece of software which runs on most computers, consumers and businesses have become accustomed to frequent failures in their electronic devices.... Sure, there was buggy software before, but it never captured the business of so many users. Windows was really the first electronic product to become so widespread and accepted containing as many flaws as it
"Honey, Does Sony make me look fat?" (Score:5, Funny)
It makes my gut look small, so I'm keepin' it!
Sony clearly doesn't get the term..... (Score:5, Insightful)
FTA:
"Sony will repair for free only cameras that show signs of the problems, Kitsukawa said. He refused to say how many cameras might be affected."
If I had one of these cameras, I want a NEW camera. Period. End of sentence. How do I know that the defect is gone if it is fixed? With their track record of late, I don't. Presumably they have fixed the defect in their manufacturing environment, so why not send a new one out (maybe with a free memory stick or something) to get some POSITIVE mindshare?
I guess that would make too much sense or something.
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Customers with strict requirements on visual accuracy that can only be measured using advanced technical devices are probably few as they would not be using a low-end digital camera in the first place.
One might argue that if you can't see the difference it might not be important for most customers. Does the camera have a problem if you don't even notice it?
I hope you do not assume other manufacturers cameras are "accurate" or "correct" just because of th
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WoW banned some linux users, but it realised and then unblocked them and gave them free play time. That seems fair.
If they can afford it why not sony?
Not a good example (Score:2)
Now, I'm no fan of Sony, but your example is a bad one. Nintendo is only replacing Wii consoles that have been found to have issues. They are NOT allowing anyone with Wii to replace their console, even though some of them have been shown to have hardware problems. Same for MS, and same for Sony. It's just a matter
Which models are affected? (Score:2)
Re:Which models are affected? (Score:5, Informative)
F717
DSC-M1
DSC-P10
DSC-P12
DSC-P2
DSC-P31
DSC-P32
DSC-P51
DSC-P52
DSC-P7
DSC-P71
DSC-P72
DSC-P8
DSC-P92
DSC-T1
DSC-T3
DSC-T11
DSC-T33
DSC-U10
DSC-U20
DSC-U30
DSC-U40
DSC-U50
DSC-U60
DSC-V1
MVC-CD400
MVC-CD500
MVC-FD200
I'm not karma whoring, I actually own one of these pieces of shit (DSC-P72). I bought a replacement camera (non-sony) 2 weeks ago. Bastards. I'm still going to ensure they fix the piece of crap.
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Since when did 8 = 28?
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and then the big long list.
I, too, am saddled with a DSC-P72, but sadly the shitness described seems to be a different kind of shitness from that exhibited by mine, so no free fix for me. On the plus sid
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I'd had my F717 for years, and it worked perfectly.
Suddenly, it started doing the weird LCD trick. I kept it for 6 months more, waiting to see if there was some type of common solution - then finally threw it out 2 months ago.
These types of things suck.
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But Sony would charge us shipping (to the
2+ year old cameras getting recalled now? (Score:3, Insightful)
If I had a defective camera, I would not hold on to it for 2+ years, I would have returned it to the store that sold me the piece of junk in the first place.
Meh, I don't get it at all.
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Let's look on the bright side... (Score:5, Funny)
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They plan to "correct" this with the "repair"...
Sony loses face (Score:2)
BOOM! Its a Sony.
Going forward I see Sony increasing its quality further and screening its suppliers in a more tough way, at the cost of higher product prices.
Indeed their products have high quality, but things can go wrong with everyone. Think of Apple, Nasa, Microsoft, Diebold, Nortel, IBM (deskstar), AMD and whoever are the makers of Duke Nukem Forever. Sony really must succeed with the PS3 and hopefully 4 years later I'll be able to buy a used one for $300. Don'
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Sony for teh win! (Score:5, Funny)
Have you never watched Star Trek? Who do you think manufactured all those exploding computer displays?
I may be showing my age... (Score:4, Informative)
Canon has it's problems too! (Score:4, Interesting)
This is getting a bit old (Score:5, Interesting)
About 5 years ago my opinion of them slowly began to sour, like a lot of peoples' it seems. And now, looking around me, I don't have any Sony stuff at all - I gave it all away during my natural cycle of replacements. My new generation of stereo equipment, for example, is heavily informed by the existence of iTunes & iPod, and where I once would have had nothing but Trinitron there's now Samsung and Apple.
So I've got pretty strong feelings about Sony. I used to love them, before they started going wrong. They used to be the best in so many categories, now I couldn't name any area in which I think they are. It's a kind of bitter feeling for me at least, watching a company you used to love go bad. I've often wondered about what really caused it
But no matter how bitter I feel about them, I'll never dig this kind of overenthusiastic schadenfreude that I see here, gleefully revelling in every little misstep, like a bunch of stupid little brats in some playground. Sony used to be great. What's happened to them should be a sobering study in corporate cancer, not an opportunity for some cheap yuks at any possible bad news.
I think there's a lot of entrepreneurial wannabes here, maybe like me. Sony used to be the kind of company I aspired to. Maybe not realistically expecting to mirror their successes but, you know, "if I could have any company, it would be Sony" kind of deal. But now, seeing what's happening to them, I wonder if any company can keep its integrity or whether companies that get too big just inevitably rot from the inside, as seems to be happening here. I'd love to have intelligent discussions about what the hell went wrong at Sony, how and if other companies can avoid this kind of cancer, try to find the inflection points where decisions were made that were critically wrong in hindsight.
But fuck this childish mocking! Are there really people here who take actual pleasure in seeing once-great companies falter? If so, that's just pathetic.
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There have been a number of reports of Sony making what seem like very arrogant comments. Do a google search with Sony, arrogant, and PS3 for starters. People tend to feel some pleasure when an arrogant showoff finds out he isn't all he made himself out to be. Childish mocking can be found in nearly every slashdot thread but I think the perceived arroga
Kudos to Sony (Score:5, Insightful)
Compare this to Microsoft and the Windows OS.
Microsoft fanboys (including Zonk) may bash Sony like they're getting paid, but this is can be considered a positive for Sony's customer service.
On the other hand, Sony's hardware with the exception of the PS3, has been disappointing because all the company's resources are being diverted to the content and media side of the business. You can blame Howard Stringer and the rest of his media group for this.
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How do you know they knew about it? Who exactly threw PS2s out? You have somthing to back this up or you just talking out your ass? All I know is they are willing to stand by their products, which is more than can be said about 99% of companies. I owned a lot of sony products over the years and I can't say I was dissatisfied with any of them. I own a camera on that list and I see this
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sometimes these things happen (Score:2)
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i suppose emissions inspections are not uniform country-wide. i would not have passed the PA emissions for Philadelphia if the cat was that far out of spec. i know that from experience. hmm, there may even be parts of PA t
2 year old electronics gone bad. (Score:2)
Man, I am really grateful for their due care and consideration.
Eh? (Score:5, Insightful)
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You are not good at pattern recognition, are you? (Score:2)
As for your sorry tirade about the complexity of Sony, well, that is not my problem.
If they want to have their fingers in all the pies they should be up for it or get out of the kitchen.
Beware Sony Warrenty (Score:2)
Beware of sending anything into Sony to have the warrenty work done on it. Fuck that, beware of anything having to do with Sony.
Let me tell you a tale of my Sony PDA, a Th-55. As far as PDA's go I though sony made the best, the sony th-55 was great. Well I had mine for a few months then it died. It was still under warrenty so I shipped it off to Sony to be fixed. A few MONTHS later they told me it was going to cost 695 bucks to fix it. Fix something still under warrenty.
After fighting through the
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Every company does something to surprise us every now an then. Even one as evil as sony. I think with the root kit, the drm, and other bullshit sony has pulled we can safely say that sony is now an evil company.
Sony quality (Score:2)
I have several Sony products here which work perfectly well, and always have. One is a VAIO PCG-FXA36 laptop [amazon.com] with a 1 GHZ AMD cpu, firewire, 15" screen, tv out, dvd/cdrewriter, and floppy drive, which I bought in december 2001. Another is a DCR-PC9 miniDV cam [amazon.com] with nightshot, steadyshot, firewire, usb, memory stick, tv-out, 10x optical zoom, 120x digital zoom. bought at roughly the same time.
Both these items were taken on a long trip to various places, like across
Thank you for your anecdotal evidence. (Score:2)
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It also continues the trend of defective Sony components, which extends beyond just digital cameras.
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It also continues the trend of defective Sony components, which extends beyond just digital cameras.
And it follows the press-hated-of-Sony trend. And the Zonk anti-Sony-drumbeat trend. And the groupthink-hatred-of-Sony trend on message boards. Lots of interesting trends.
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wrong.
I'm just not a big fan of hate campaigns. Also, there's no real explanation for this one that I can see. What's the motivation supposed to be?
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Are you serious? You should go back through Slashdot's "hate-campaign" and click on the linkies. You'll find that Sony has made some real stupid and/or nasty moves in the last year. This "hate-campaign" isn't Zonk's invention, it's a reflection of how the media has responded to Sony's misadventures. Here's a little teaser of Sony's fall from common sense:
- UMD.
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So the choices are:
1. Don't buy their stuff or
2. Run a public campaign of hatred against Sony for YEARS, highlighting every negative story about them, even the false ones.
And you're saying choice #2 is the wise, sane choice?
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All that other jibber jabber about it being a "campaign of hatred" is just
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Welp, if I had to choose between that and your suggestion of only reporting the good news and sugar coating the bad (lying), then yes, #2 is a saner choice. Sony screwed up a lot this year. They're accountable for it. Sorry. I'm not claiming that Slashdot isn't biased, but dude, these are the same stories making their rounds all over the place. It's hard to call it a 'hate campaign' when there's little but bad news to report.
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I think you spelled something wrong there. What you meant to say is:
- Rootkit. "We need root level access to your machine to prevent privacy."
Granted, you also spelled "access" wrong, but who's quibbling??
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If you had written "a trend of groupthink-hadred-of-Sony", I agree that it's bad, but if you really mean "a groupthink-hatred-of-Sony trend", it's the Sony trend that we hate, and I think that's quite proper under the circumstances.
Products with quality so low that the occasional recall-crash is to be expected is consumerism at its worst.
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Presumably the latter, cause I can't imagine a nerd buying a Sony consumer camera in the Cyber-shot series. Sony had nerd cameras back when they sold the digital cameras that took floppy disks and ISO mini-CDs, but the cameras in question here are for consumers with more money than ability to examine specs, features and measurements
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cop out.
Many nerds do a lot of things, but that doesn't make it news for nerds.
I had trafixc on my way to work, maybe that should be posted? I hear nerds like to eat, maybe food critics should get a post?
The focus of this site used to be(last millenium) stuff that interest mostly nerds.
A more proper article would probably be a review of ShadowRuns latest system changes. Or a review of the impact of the open d2
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It was [slashdot.org].
Maybe its just me, but a recall or potential recall involving electronics sounds like it involves nerds.
Perhaps the focus of nerds has changed since the last millennium? Computers are no longer just for nerds. The nerd has changed to a more respectable position in society because almost everybody uses computers, but only we understand them.
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Have we gone from the loud but slow adagio of the root-kit fiasco to what...a moderato with this?
Still a ways to go til we hit anything really worth dancing to.
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I'm no fanboy but I think that Sony still makes high quality goods, but the nature of the internet means that every single problem instantly gets blown out of proportion. Sony makes millions of CCDs and millions of LCD displays; a small percentage went wrong and geeks everywhere took up arms.
Sony is still making grea
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No, because I pirate all my... uh.. hang on a sec...
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An example: I'm posting this from a Sony laptop, I'd class myself as fairly tech-savvy (I post on
Sure, If I wanted some audiophile hi-fi I wouldn't buy
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What do you bet there will be an uproar and Sony will be forced to acquiesce and replace them for anyone who asks.
Right now, if you call in and say you have a problem, Sony will say "prove it". So if you don't convince them yours is broken, you don't get a replacement.
I'm glad I don't have one.
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Option 3 (Score:2)
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