Epic epidemic breakage

In the past three weeks four relatively new devices I own with a combined worth of well over 500 euro broke down, and there’s nothing I am going to do about it.

The IKEA alarm clock is probably still under warranty, but it will cost me the price of the damn thing alone to even get to IKEA to make use of the warranty, so I’ll skip that. This will teach me for not buying HEMA, I guess.

The Philips DVD-player cost me about 50 euro. Taking half a day off to turn it in and then another half day to pick it up may cost me more in lost turnover (depends on whether I can fit the pick-up moments into a quiet time). I guess I’ll just buy a new one.

The Samsung 19″-monitor has developed a nasty, vertical, 1-pixel wide, green line that is only visible in dark images (against white it disappears). I don’t know what I am going to do about this yet. Getting it fixed is worth my time: I don’t want the rare visiting client to see me working on broken equipment. That means reduced productivity while the monitor is in repair though. Getting a new one was on my agenda anyway, but that means spending time finding good 19″-screens for businesses. (Regular computer shops are aimed at consumers, and consumers seem not to buy 19″-screens anymore.)

Finally, the 3.5 year old Canon Powershot A620 camera that has led to many a photo on this website developed a fault in its shutter, which now refuses to open. The warranty has run out, but I am pretty sure I can have the store fix it for me, simply because a camera should not break down after only 3 years. That probably does mean that I will have to start a fight with a shop assistant during a humid Saturday afteroon, and I am not sure I want to waste my time that way. Since I needed a new pocket camera anyway (I wanted decent video, which the old one doesn’t provide), I bought a Canon Ixus 300 HS to replace the Powershot.

I know some readers are interested in buying a new camera, so I include a photo of some pigeons (taken at about a distance of 4 metres) with this post. Click on the photo for a 100% crop. The 300 HS has a zoom factor 4 starting from a 35-millimetre equivalent 28-mm focal length. In layman’s terms: it don’t zoom much.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 15th, 2010 at 9:12 pm and is filed under Black Book, Life blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.