SONY has suspended sales of six digital camera models that failed quality-control tests and is offering refunds to customers who bought the equipment, Sony China said on its Website.
The models under scrutiny — the DSCH1, DSC-L1, DSCP200, DSC-W7, DSC-W5, DSC-S90 — were taken off the shelves by several retailers yesterday following a report from the Zhejiang Industrial & Commercial Administrative Bureau that camera functions, including focus, screen lighting and exposure, did not pass quality control tests.
In Shanghai, big home appliance chains such as Gome Electrical Appliance, Suning Appliances and Yongle Electronics took the six Sony DCs off their shelves following the report from Zhejiang authorities.
Sony has apologized to the authorities, it said in its statement, and will cooperate in further inspections.
Is Sony selling the same models from the same manufacturing runs in other countries? Are these things in Wal-Mart? What ever happened to Sony QC?
We should lend some of these class action lawyers to China to have some fun with Sony there as well.
The only thing Sony has that interests me now is PS3, and I have a feeling that they may mess it up as well….
I went to Japan last year and I visited the Sony HQ there and I asked about quality of the products. A knowledgeable guide told me, quote, “Whatever Sony manufacturers, they test for quality and the ones that get the highest grades are for sale in Japan only. The remaining, lesser ones are for exports.” So there you go people: We are getting what the Japanese don’t want.
Another thing is that I went to China during the summer and I purchased a PSP there for only 100 USD in the value pack (case, screen wipe, strap, headphones+remote, and PSP). I thought it was a hell of a deal, except when I came back to the States and I started it up. There were a more than 50 dead pixels. How does a screen that sh!tty pass quality control tests?! Well, it would seem that it maybe that it was the screen that drove the price down, but I doubt it, since the package was factory packaged and like I stated before; those are what the Japanese don’t want. Its no wonder the Chinese are boycotting Japanese made products.
Back in the day I was a Sony fanatic. It is all I would buy and I would evangelize to anyone who would listen that they should get Sony as well. Of course, this was in the hey day of the 80s — when they really had a good product and they were class leading.
Then, the proprietary stuff kicked in — Mini Disk, ATRAC, Memory Stick. Not to mention the whole DRM debacle.
At one time they were innovators in the field. Now, an also ran that is doing what it can to play catch up with inferior technology. Sony’s dead — long live Sony.
Mike T
I was told, about 10 years ago, not to buy any sony stuff out of mexico because it was all junk.
I think the varnish shine has left the sony brand.
Rob
My sony minidisc just failed but my sony samera has taken about 8,000 pictures without fail!
Generally, I think sony hardware is good — great even — but their software and firmware IS ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE!
I like Mike T. was once a Sony fan, but the attitude that they have developed after the death of their head man is disgusting.
A visiting physicist brought me his Sony Vaio laptop which was only, like a year old, and needed it’s OS re-installed. We found that Sony’s online support for their computer products is ZERO, you cannot download manuals, handbooks, hardware drivers or even images of their laptops. This poor guy is a new buyer, single registered owner. I think this is a world wide condition, and not particular to Sony in NZ and Australia. We ended up having to ship the original DVD from his home in Melbourne. The most shocking thing to me is that Steve Jobs is holding the Sony Vaio enterprise as a model upon which to build Apple’s next generation of Intel based products.
I think you might be confusing Jobs positive remarks about Sony engineering standards and commercial design concepts — with the crappy Sony management. He’s even hiring away some of their laptop people.
I don’t doubt for a minute the problems with OS in that Vaio — and any other XP laptops — just might have something more to do with the OS than the hardware.
“What ever happened to Sony QC?” — Eideard
They are probably still waiting for a rootkit removal tool so that they can get their machines up and running again! Can’t you just see a head tester typing $sys$ in front of Explorer to see if it really works…
Sony is disappointing. They are losing the console market to microsoft, they are offending consumers with incompetently designed rootkits, and they have been building proprietary garbage forever. Sony, baloney.
Hello! World!