On 6 Feb 2004 at 19:06, William Robb wrote: > I had one of those Chinese made drills, though I paid > about C$25.00 for it back in July. > I was going to use it for screwing the 3/4 inch OSB down > to my floor joists, and by then I expected it would be > dead, but I wasn't going to use my 100 dollar drill for > this. > I got less than half way into the job and the device > literally caught fire in my hands. > I won't ever buy another 25 dollar drill.
I guess you were unlucky with the drill and lucky with the camera, my mates drill is still going after some home reno work but my *ist D is giving up the ghost mechanically. > Apparently, from what it says on the bottom of my istD, > the product is assembled in the Phillipines, which is not > exactly the same as saying it was made there. > Assembled there imlies that the parts came from elsewhere, > perhaps Japan, which is not so cheap. Parts cost very little in the scheme of things, final assembly and testing are often a large part of the unit cost. > I read on the list a while back that the istD sensor costs > Pentax about 700 dollars per unit. > I was surprised to read that it was that expensive, but > since no one contradicted the number, I will accept that > the little bugger is expensive. I'd be extremely surprised if it cost Pentax 1/4 of that price as an OEM component, however we will never know as it would have been negotiated based on the planed production volumes and production span. > So, it the istD sells for less than a thousand US, I > expect that no, Pentax won't makhe their R&D back, and > probably there won't be enough profit in the supply chain > to make it worth selling. I bet they have plenty of room to move before it costs them and as soon as it does it will be at the dump stage just before the new release. I wonder which camera models paid for the development of the MZ-D? I wonder how they ever justified development of the *ist D after that debacle? Rob Studdert HURSTVILLE AUSTRALIA Tel +61-2-9554-4110 UTC(GMT) +10 Hours [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://members.ozemail.com.au/~distudio/publications/ Pentax user since 1986, PDMLer since 1998
