
Kingston and PNY using cheaper components after good reviews - nkurz
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/184253-ssd-shadiness-kingston-and-pny-caught-bait-and-switching-cheaper-components-after-good-reviews
======
smacktoward
This sort of thing isn't unique to the storage business. In the auto industry,
they call it "decontenting":

[http://www.autoweek.com/car-
shopping/articles/2012/01/decont...](http://www.autoweek.com/car-
shopping/articles/2012/01/decontenting--what-does-it-mean-for-car-
shoppers.html)

... but it works pretty much the same way: early models of a particular car,
the ones that make that car's reputation, come loaded with all sorts of nice
touches. Then as time passes the manufacturer slowly strips those touches out,
replacing them with cheaper alternatives or just dropping them altogether. The
price of the car stays the same, though, so the manufacturer gets to keep the
difference as extra profit. (Or the price actually goes _up_ , when the
dropped features that used to be standard become optional add-ons instead.)

~~~
mikeash
Interesting note at the end:

"Don't think decontenting is limited to just cars. Next time you're at the
grocery store, stop by the freezer case and check out your favorite carton of
ice cream. Most brands have quietly gone from a half-gallon (two-quart)
container to 1.75 quarts--without changing the price."

I'm pretty sure I've seen the higher-end brands dropping to 1.5 quarts now.
Sodas are pushing 1.25L and 1.5L containers when it used to just be purely 2L.
There are a lot of four-packs in the beer aisle. A fair number of meats are
being sold in fixed-sized packages, invariably less than one pound per
package, rather than being sold by the pound.

At least it's clear enough if you look for it. In the SSD case, it sounds like
they're making important alterations to things that aren't discussed in the
specs. Of course, you shouldn't buy something depending on anything that isn't
listed in the specs, but if all the manufacturers have the same crappy set of
incomplete specs, you don't have a lot of choice.

~~~
profquail
Worse yet, some ice-cream brands (e.g., Breyer's) are _also_ reformulating
their recipes to use cheaper ingredients -- meaning they no longer meet the
standard to be called "ice cream", but instead must be called "frozen dairy
dessert": [http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/17/dining/remembering-when-
br...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/17/dining/remembering-when-breyers-ice-
cream-was-you-know-ice-cream.html?_r=0)

~~~
maxerickson
That's a case of the labeling law working nicely though.

I like it when package prices have to be shown next to sensible unit prices,
it really simplifies the comparison, regardless of any psychology that has
been built into the packaging.

~~~
mikeash
This really makes me hate the half-assed use of the metric system in the US.
It seems like my local stores go out of their way to use different imperial
units for different products, making it harder to compare. Unit prices are
great, but when one package is $/oz and another is $/gallon, it defeats much
of the purpose.

~~~
WalterBright
Oz is weight and gallon is volume. This is not a metric vs standard issue.

~~~
mikeash
Oz most certainly can be used for volume. It's called the "fluid ounce".

~~~
kiiski
But both oz and gallon are still imperial units. In metric they would use
liters. So this isn't caused by half-assed use of the metric system, but
rather by not using it at all.

~~~
mikeash
In your rush to be pedantic, would it kill you to engage your brain for a few
seconds first?

The US uses the metric system in many places. However, adoption has been half-
assed, and non-metric units remain in common use in many situations. I buy
soda and wine in liters but milk and juice in gallons, for example.

The fact that any non-metric units remain at all is due to the half-assed
nature of metric system adoption in this country.

~~~
kiiski
What's with the hostility? I was pointing out that WalterBright was down voted
for the perfectly valid point that the problem you spoke of is not caused by
half-assed use of the metric system. No matter how much I use my brain, it
won't become such either. There may be other problems caused by that (I
wouldn't know; I'm not American), but you specifically brought up one that is
not related to metric in any way.

~~~
mikeash
The hostility comes because you're going out of your way to interpret what I
said in a way that makes me wrong, rather than seeing how I'm right.

And you're doing it _again_. Did you just ignore my explanation above, about
how _any_ use of non-metric units in the US is ultimately due to the half-
assed adoption of the metric system in this country?

~~~
nekopa
Hey, I understand what you are saying. But he did have a point, why use
hostility? You could have made the same comment without the first line saying
'use your brain' and kept everything civil. Even if you are right, do you need
to denigrate others who have gotten something wrong?

~~~
mikeash
Pedantry is an inherent part of nerd-dom. It's often a good thing. Computers
and other such things don't work on "well, you know what I _meant_ ".

However, there's a nasty subset of pedantry which basically consists of
pattern-matching words without truly grasping the meaning and using that as a
launching point for a "you're wrong" reply. This kind of pedantry derails
conversations and wrecks communities.

That's the kind of pedantry I got above with this nonsense reply about how "in
metric they would use liters". As if I didn't know that! A moment's thought
would indicate, hey, maybe this guy is not a complete idiot who doesn't know
_anything_ about metric, and he probably _already knows_ that neither ounces
nor gallons are metric, so let's figure out what he actually meant instead of
doing a mindless pattern-matching "you're wrong" reply. _That_ is hostility
too. Especially when you keep on going even after the guy explains it.

And of course I get the usual internet double standard, where it's perfectly
OK to to write a really bad comment as long as you don't outright use
upsetting words, but calling that behavior out is criticized.

I don't subscribe to this idea that "civil" is equivalent to "use nice words".
To me, "civil" is about how you behave. If you curse but treat other people
with respect, that's civil. If you use nothing but benign words arranged in a
way that treats other people without respect, that's "not civil".

~~~
kiiski
I suppose any argument in the internet can feel hostile if you care about the
subject, but my apologies for any distress I may have caused anyway. My
message is not intended to be about whether you are wrong, but whether the
example you gave is valid. I did read your explanation, and I find it
mistaken. Let me rephrase my argument, and you can point out the part you
think is wrong.

If we say that a problem is caused by half-assed adoption of X, it implies the
problem can be solved in two ways: (1) Properly adopting X, or (2) Reverting
back to no adoption at all. The example you gave can only be solved by 1,
because it is an inherent problem of the imperial system. If you take metric
out of the equasion, the situation is not affected. While you may have meant
to say "the imperial system has problems, let's use metric", one can also
understand it as "the transition to metric is causing problems, let's stop
it".

~~~
mikeash
Your mistake is thinking that any statement of the form, "I hate X, for
example because Y" implies that Y can be solved by any action that eliminates
X.

For example, "I hate how they're serving a 50/50 mixture of coffee and urine,
makes the coffee taste like urine." This does not imply that the problem can
be solved by eliminating the coffee.

------
mzarate06
Dell does this with their monitors [1], first by shipping certain models with
IPS panels, then with cheaper PVA panels after good reviews are published.

That bit me w/their 2007wfp, which was a great monitor mostly for 1 reason: it
was IPS at a great price point. Overwhelmingly positive reviews convinced me
to purchase 2 of them.

Then buyers started noticing picture quality issues not described in previous
positive reviews. After some research, it was found Dell had silently started
shipping the 2007wfp with cheaper PVA panels, not IPS. After noticing similar
issues with the 2 I purchased, I eventually confirmed they were PVA monitors.
I was fairly upset.

There's a good thread on Hard Forum about all of this here.[2]

And despite very frustrated customers, Dell never acknowledged any problem. In
fact, a Dell rep can be quoted: _"... a 2007WFP is a 2007WFP ... It does not
matter what panel is installed."_ [3]

I stopped buying Dell products after this experience.

[1]
[http://en.community.dell.com/f/3529/t/18107050.aspx](http://en.community.dell.com/f/3529/t/18107050.aspx)

[2]
[http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1111100](http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1111100)

[3]
[http://en.community.dell.com/f/3529/t/18286693.aspx](http://en.community.dell.com/f/3529/t/18286693.aspx)

~~~
sigterm
> In fact, a Dell rep can be quoted: "... a 2007WFP is a 2007WFP ... It does
> not matter what panel is installed."

Did they ever list the panel type? If they did, isn't this false advertising?

If they never promised the panel type/view angle/color accuracy in the first
place, then I don't think there's anything wrong with what the rep said. After
all, not every one cares what type of panel is used as much as physical
dimension/resolution. Nevertheless, it is very surprising to me that they
didn't specify what panel is used.

~~~
SoftwareMaven
Would you be ok if a car manufacturer put a smaller motor in a car you bought
because car reviews said "it had great ability to get up and hold freeway
speeds"? Is it ok as long as they didn't sell based on horse power? Or maybe
it's handling: reviewers say it corners great, but then you find the
suspension has been massively downgraded. How do you even advertise a spec'ed
suspension?

It's dirty business if you are giving reviewers something better than the
people who are reading the reviews. People don't buy computer parts (or cars)
based on the advertised spec sheet, they buy them based on what they can
really do.

~~~
theworst
> Would you be ok if a car manufacturer put a smaller motor in a car you
> bought because car reviews said "it had great ability to get up and hold
> freeway speeds"? Is it ok as long as they didn't sell based on horse power?

If they lie about the engine performance, then its wrong. If they change the
components underlying (admittedly weasel-wording-marketing-speak) marketing
phrasing, then it's not as clearly wrong.

>Or maybe it's handling: reviewers say it corners great, but then you find the
suspension has been massively downgraded. How do you even advertise a spec'ed
suspension? This is why specifications, and often component information,
exists.

I'm not saying that these companies are in the right, or that this doesn't
happen. It clearly does, in some cases. In other cases, it's probably due to
the fact that the manufacturing supply chain is more complex than most people
understand.

In all cases, it's not a great idea to paint with a broad brush. Especially
when creating somewhat comparable analogies than are also pretty general.

------
pling
And this is why I always buy Crucial. Cruial and Micron are the same company
and micron actually make the chips rather than just assemble them. They have
control over the entire process end to end and no motivation to pick up chips
anywhere else as they already have the best deal.

Over the last 10-12 years I've bought about 2000-3000 sticks of RAM from them.
Not one failure or problem ever. I used to buy vendor provided RAM (mainly IBM
and Sun back then) and just got ripped off every time. Zero failures on Sun
stuff but the ECC stuff hurts. IBM sold us crap lots of times.

Only pain is you can't get an 8Mb EDO SIMM anymore for embedded stuff so its
off to a dealer to be shafted repetitively for stuff like that.

~~~
Afforess
I avoid Crucial SSDs like the plague. They shipped the M4 and similar models
with a firmware bug that causes the drive to stop working after 5000 hours of
power on time:

[http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Crucial-m4-Firmware-
BSOD,14...](http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Crucial-m4-Firmware-
BSOD,14544.html)

Not cool.

~~~
kabdib
Crucial, OCZ and Kingston were the favorite failure complaints on the email
list I was on at Microsoft ("Hardware Junkies"). The wisdom a few years ago
was to stick with Intel and Samsung.

I see no reason to change that. I'd rather spend fifty or a hundred bucks more
and get a drive that I'm pretty sure won't fall flat on its face.

~~~
btgeekboy
OCZ is the worst - I avoid them like the plague now. I've had 2 of 3 of their
SSDs fail on me.

------
fridek
I've seen a similar situation about five years ago when I was testing USB
pendrives for a local paper. It turned out it was close to impossible to get
two pieces with the same specs and performance, even though they were branded
with the same name.

I've heard similar stories about HDDs having different controllers, number of
discs and so on.

Luckily in EU one can return within two weeks anything ordered online, so a
simple solution is to order, test and return if it doesn't match expectations.

~~~
ciupicri
Return something that was taken out of the box and used?!

~~~
barrkel
Yes; in UK, it's Distance Selling Regulations (DSR).

You're better protected if you buy online than in a store, ironically.

PS: I looked it up, and actually the DSR has been superseded as of yesterday
(!) by Consumer Contracts Regulations, which ups the UK protection from 7 days
to 14 days, bringing it into line with EU directives.

~~~
tomp
> You're better protected if you buy online than in a store, ironically.

It's the only thing that makes sense, particularly if you want to instil trust
in customers that buying online is "safe" and not prone to scams.

------
kevingadd
I had this problem with PNY with one of their other products - I bought a mid-
tier video card from them (GeForce GTX 570), and after a hardware failure,
sent it in for an RMA. Over the course of _multiple_ RMA mailings, at various
times they would send back a visibly physically damaged 'replacement' card, a
'replacement' card that was a different size/shape (and obviously a different
model), and in one case _my broken card, that I sent them initially_. It was
as if they had a pile of 'works well enough to boot Windows' cards and RMAs
that weren't totally broken got put into the pile, while they pulled other
cards out of the pile to ship to customers.

It was pretty impressive to be able to watch shady cost-cutting in action. Too
bad it cost me around $120 in UPS shipping fees.

------
orbitingpluto
I purchased an ASUS Notebook X550DP-DS101-CA with a resolution of 1920x1080
last year.

Exact same model #, 1366x768 at some stores, 1920x1080 at others. (Same store
franchise.)

I was run around three stores until I managed to get the "real model" that I
was looking for.

Caveat emptor.

~~~
jrockway
Lenovo did this with the last Thinkpad I ever bought.

------
TazeTSchnitzel
Is this something the storage industry is particularly notorious for? I recall
that Seagate and Western Digital's (knowingly) substandard drives nearly
bankrupted Amstrad.

~~~
acdha
It's common in any commodity industry where the differences aren't obvious to
the casual buyer. In older industries we've had regulation requiring things
like standard labels, sealed packaging, etc. to prevent abuses like selling
food with inferior ingredients or lying about a car's fuel economy. I suspect
it's only a matter of time before this happens in the tech industry since the
market pressures give a strong incentive to cheat.

Bunnie Huang had a fascinating, disturbing post about what the MicroSD market
is like in China, eventually disassembling some dodgy Kingston cards:

[http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?page_id=1022](http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?page_id=1022)

~~~
jws
Just yesterday motor oil, transmission fluid, and antifreeze came up in a
similar lawsuit. Not a lot of details, but interested parties could start
here: [http://fox2now.com/2014/06/13/mo-attorney-general-suing-
five...](http://fox2now.com/2014/06/13/mo-attorney-general-suing-five-local-
retailers-for-bogus-products/)

~~~
darksim905
The unfortunate thing is there are probably so many people who just buy that
shit because they need it. My initial reaction was that piece wasn't necessary
& is more due to companies coming up with shit products & flooding the market,
which happens in IT too.

------
wmf
People shouldn't have bought those brands to begin with since they add no
value:
[http://www.storagereview.com/it_s_game_over_for_most_consume...](http://www.storagereview.com/it_s_game_over_for_most_consumer_ssd_companies)

BTW, Apple does the same thing:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7689180](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7689180)

~~~
sjwright
That's not the same thing.

------
hemaljshah
I hate hearing about these stories from manufactures, it totally kills their
rep for me to ever trust them again. Why do companies go against just building
solid products, even if it costs a little more money. It's exactly how Apple
has gotten away with charging premium dollars for similar hardware - build
quality always wins.

~~~
Omniusaspirer
Nothing is more aggravating than planned obsolescence in appliances. Just sell
me a good product that will last 30+ year with basic maintenance. I'll happily
pay literally up to 5x the price you charge for your 5 year lifetime (if I'm
lucky) piece of shit. Hell, I'll probably buy the replacement parts from you
besides so it's not like you're completely losing my business.

~~~
bitJericho
Because nobody buys 100 dollar toasters.

~~~
Omniusaspirer
I would if it came with an assurance/warranty for the next 30 years from a
company I didn't think would go bankrupt before then.

~~~
bitJericho
If that were actually true they would be making them.

(And they do make them, they're commercial quality equipment and they're easy
to find. Consumer's don't want to pay the big bucks for this stuff. Not even
you, or you'd go find it.)

~~~
Omniusaspirer
I have looked into these things, sadly commercial dishwashers aren't viewed as
being suitable for residential purposes. Toasters perhaps, I'll confess to
having not looked into those yet. Washing machine and dryer I do plan to buy
commercial most likely as soon as the need arises and I don't live in a place
with laundry provided.

I'm not exaggerating when I say I'm fine with paying for these things, I've
learned time and time again that I'm better off paying more for a quality
product than getting the cheapest thing I can possibly find.

~~~
bitJericho
Me too. If I'm buying cheap it's cuz I'm poor atm!

------
poolpool
Dell has also been caught doing this with monitors.

~~~
aet
Were they good to start with?

~~~
Encosia
With a few exceptions (which may be what poolpool is referring to), Dell's
UltraSharp lines have been one of the better sources of consistently good
consumer IPS displays for 10+ years.

~~~
wtallis
And even the models that have used PVA panels have been much better than TN-
based monitors, with their biggest weakness generally being input lag.

------
WalterBright
> The Cadillac DTS initially came with standard heated leather seats. In 2009,
> that feature became an option. "However, the price of the car didn't
> change," he said.

The price actually dropped, due to inflation.

------
raverbashing
Good to know

Kingston seemed to be a nice brand some 10 years ago, but nowadays it's mostly
hype

~~~
judk
Kingston was always the dodgy cheap brand.

------
Sami_Lehtinen
Hardly new stuff. We had horrible problems in production 10 years ago. After
analyzing the situation, we found out that the new servers had same memory as
older ones from Kingston. But when you watched closely, you noticed that even
if the Kingston label with all type information was exactly the same, the
chips on the DIMM weren't. So no new news here.

If you work in the IT department, you'll also probably know, that when
ordering 300 "similar" computers: Changes are quite low that you're really
getting those delivered. After going through the delivery, it's quite likely
that you got at least 10 different computer series in that delivery. Different
power source, different memory, possibly different motherboard, hard drive,
power source cooling fan, cpu cooler etc. That's just normal unfortunately.
That's why many supplier leave the specification quite open on purpose, so it
doesn't matter what they deliver as long as it's something meeting the
specification.

------
saltyknuckles
If you're going to buy a SSD go with Samsung or Intel

~~~
izzydata
I was going to say the same thing. These seems to yield the least unhappy
customers and return rates. Intel more than anyone seems to care about the
quality of their SSDs.

------
brador
Samsung too. Evo 240gb, Half the benchmarked read/write iops on newer SSDs. We
returned 6 before going with a different brand.

~~~
swinglock
Do you have a source for that? I'm looking to buy, that or the Crucial MX100.

------
general_failure
Just get Intel ssds. They are the best

------
aklemm
I've always wondered how this maneuver isn't considered a major free market
failure.

------
dbg31415
What a bunch of cunts.

