Michael Kennedy wrote:
"SMS" wrote in message
...
Jeanette Guire wrote:
On Mon, 15 Oct 2007 17:12:34 -0700, SMS wrote:
The problem is that it's not the battery door that breaks, it's the
whole camera body that breaks.
SMS is right. This tiny flimsy piece of plastic holding the stress of the
battery door is part of the body of the camera. So when it eventually
breaks (within weeks in some cases, within a year in others - but given
the
design, it just has to break sooner rather than later) - the camera is
kaput.

Now, I wonder why Nikon didn't just put a paperclip-like metal pin in the
camera body. It would have cost pennies (how much can it cost) per camera
and they'd not have the ruined reputation that the entire coolpix series
has now.
The body is injection molded, they are not going to start adding bits of
steel which would add significantly to the production cost. The big
mistake they made was to make the part that is most likely to break a
non-replaceable part.

For all the complaints about the iPhone, at least they have no flimsy
doors over battery compartments or memory slots. They have no buttons that
will break after extended use.

Well the touch screen is a giant array of buttons so there is potential for
them to stop working.

Not it isn't. There are no mechanical buttons in the iPhone. I've been
to manufacturing sites for items like cell phones and PDAs. The "button
tree" is something that is almost guaranteed to be the first part inside
to fail.