Features You Pay For But Can't Use
Techquickie
·Techquickie
·2022-05-05
·
996 words · ~4 min read
0:00
Man, buying products used to be so simple.
0:02
You pay money for like a hammer
0:05
and then you can use it however you want,
0:06
provided we're not talking about settling a score
0:08
with your neighbor.
0:09
But did you know that many electronics have hidden features
0:12
that for one reason or another, you can't even use?
0:16
There are actual functional parts in your devices
0:18
that you, the paying customer,
0:20
are totally blocked from accessing.
0:23
What's up with that?
0:24
All right, let's start with something
0:25
you might be using right now, your CPU.
0:28
You see, if you've ever looked at a review
0:30
of a newly released CPU or GPU for that matter,
0:33
you might've noticed that certain cores or execution units
0:36
are there in the die shot, but are disabled.
0:39
So you might think it logically follows
0:41
that there's some way to enable them again.
0:43
And suddenly you have an i7 instead of an i5.
0:46
In fact, in the past, enthusiasts have done just that,
0:49
with a famous example being AMD's Tri-Core Phenom CPUs,
0:53
which could be unlocked to quad cores, sometimes.
0:57
As it turns out,
0:58
disabling in this context
1:00
usually isn't just a switch you can flip in software.
1:03
You see, when CPUs and GPUs roll off the assembly line,
1:06
some cores or execution units
1:08
don't function at peak performance,
1:10
or they have enough impurities
1:11
that they might not even work at all.
1:12
And other cores might work perfectly fine,
1:15
but aren't good enough
1:16
to hit the advertised power consumption target.
1:18
Now, it would be a shame to throw out the entire chip
1:22
just because a small part of it was messed up.
1:24
So instead, these cores or execution units
1:27
are factory disabled.
1:28
Sometimes even at a hardware level,
1:30
and sold as lower tier products at a lower price.
1:33
In cases like this,
1:34
there's no way for an end user to get in there
1:36
and enable these extra components.
1:38
And even if you could,
1:40
you might run into serious stability problems,
1:42
and maybe even a crisis of conscience.
1:45
Moving on.
1:45
For another example,
1:47
the reason printers are cheap and ink is expensive
1:50
is because printer companies make most of their profit
1:53
on ink cartridges,
1:54
which they can sell over and over and over again,
1:56
as opposed to the printer,
1:58
which they can only sell once.
2:00
Lure an unsuspecting grandma in with a cheap printer,
2:03
and you've got a sale every time her grandkids come over
2:06
and print 60 copies of their beautiful artwork.
2:09
Unfortunately, it's kind of an open secret
2:11
that the printer companies often take this too far
2:14
by serving users low ink warnings,
2:16
even when there's a significant amount of ink
2:18
left in the cartridge.
2:19
And while it's true,
2:20
ink cartridges that still have a very small amount of ink
2:23
in them are too dry to be usable,
2:25
many users have reported getting lots of extra life
2:28
out of their cartridges,
2:28
even after these warnings pop up.
2:30
And in some cases,
2:31
cartridges may refuse to print at all
2:33
once they get below a certain level.
2:35
But there's ink in there.
2:37
Unsurprisingly, there's been backlash
2:39
against these practices.
2:40
So printer companies have actually thrown customers
2:43
a small bone in offering models with refillable ink tanks
2:47
instead of sealed cartridges that can lock them out.
2:50
For our last example, we'll use a more everyday item.
2:52
A couple of car makers have played with the idea
2:55
of enabling certain pre-installed features for a fee,
2:58
after you buy the car.
3:00
For example, Tesla installs batteries in lower range cars,
3:03
whose full capacity can be unlocked microtransaction style.
3:07
And BMW has plans to sell features like heated seats
3:10
as a subscription for a certain length of time.
3:13
So you could pay just to have them enabled during the winter
3:16
and turn them off during the summer.
3:18
That's horrible.
3:19
That's a bad, that's so dumb.
3:23
It might seem expensive for the companies
3:25
to make cars with features consumers might never use,
3:27
but the justification is that it simplifies
3:30
the manufacturing process to build mostly identical hardware
3:33
and allow people who don't want the features
3:35
to save a few dollars at the till.
3:37
Another argument for this practice
3:39
is that it could make reselling cars easier
3:41
as a new buyer could just enable features
3:43
that the previous owner may not have wanted.
3:45
Of course, the other side of the coin would be to say
3:47
that this is just a way for the automakers
3:48
to squeeze more money out of you
3:50
by getting you to pay again for materials
3:52
that were clearly covered well enough by the price you paid.
3:55
And the truth is, unfortunately, not.
3:57
And the truth is, unfortunately, not.
3:57
Unfortunately, probably somewhere in the middle.
4:00
Of course, you could just refuse
4:01
to play this whole game entirely
4:02
and go back to the good old days of taming wild beasts
4:05
and using them as your steed.
4:07
Speaking of taming wild beasts, here's a wild one.
4:11
Our sponsor, the Drop Enter Keyboard.
4:14
It's a new keyboard from drop.com
4:15
made with enthusiast grade materials,
4:17
including an aluminum top plate and plastic bottom plate.
4:20
It's got white LEDs for visibility in dark conditions
4:23
and PBT key caps using a double shot shine through design.
4:26
Weighing in at 964 grams and available in three colors
4:30
with your choice of mechanical switches,
4:32
it's the Drop Enter Keyboard.
4:33
Buy it today at drop.com.
4:38
Whoa, that was a video for sure.
4:40
I thought it was pretty good.
4:41
If you agree, give it a like.
4:42
If you don't agree, give it a dislike.
4:44
But you know what you should do regardless?
4:46
Give us some suggestions for future videos
4:48
down in the comments.
4:48
Check out our other videos slash channels,
4:51
whatever you want.
4:52
And don't forget to subscribe to this channel and follow.
4:55
TechWiggy.
4:57
Gonna make more.