New monitor, limited information

[JDgreen227]

I'm not sure if this gripe has been posted in the past, but it's beginning to irritate me that so little written information is included with many new products. My wife bought me a new Dell flat panel monitor as a gift, and it was sent with an 85 page, 7" by 9" inch manual in four languages. The entire contents deal with conditions of sale, warranties, regulatory information, etc.

I wanted to show my wife how to change the settings on the monitor itself, but Dell includes no written information. Instead they provide you with a CD, which means you have to print out whatever information you want on paper. A $400 purchase of hardware, and they can't include any type of printed manual with it?

The same situation exists with the Wiflier device I bought so we could use our notebook on the decks without having to plug it into a phone jack. (only dial up access out here) The $25 cordless screwdriver I bought at Lowes two weeks ago has more useful printed information included than the two electronic gadgets combined.

Would anyone know why this situation is so common? I doubt if a printed manual would add that much to the cost of a new monitor, etc. Thanks.

 

[Gatorboy]

<font color="blue">( I wanted to show my wife how to change the settings on the monitor itself ) </font>

You can change settings by using the Display Settings (via Control Panel), or by the buttons on the monitor.


<font color="blue"> ( Instead they provide you with a CD, which means you have to print out whatever information you want on paper. ) </font>

You can view the manual on the PC ... not really necessary to print it.

 

[slowrev]

All true Gatorboy, however some of us oldtimers like a printed manual. Sort of hard to but a marker in a CD doc to mark a commonly used page or to use a highlighter to mark a particular bit of info that us oldtimers might not remember but expect to need again.

Ben

 

[Volfandt]

Run into this at work all the time. All the electronics we sell, install & service comes with manuals on CD. PDF's to be exact. They used to come w/optional hardcopies but not anymore. Whats so bad about this is we generally have older slower laptops and only Adobe reader which means makeing notes is a chore. I have to have 3 large resource hogging app's going at times, the equipments programming app, adobe reader and the word file where my notes are stored...
Just about brings the older laptops down to parade rest.

We did talk management into getting our most commonly used system manual's copied onto hard copy for us at Kinko's, and we had to get a release from NEC inorder to do so! Now I at least have my handy notes on the pages where I need them!

I recently upgraded my laptop to a Dell Inspiron and copied all those CD manuals to my HD. This speeds things up considerably and comes in handy when I'm needing some info and I have the laptop handy, saves having to run back to the van which can be a-ways away and thats about the only good thing I have to say about that /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Oh I would spring for full adobe if they wouldn't obsolete the old rev's so quickly, it's like they want you to continually purchase software.... /forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif

I'll leave poor and misleading translations to another topic /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Volfandt

 

[JDgreen227]

YES, I would like a printed manual. So what if I can view the manual on the monitor, well, what if the monitor isn't working?

/forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif

 

[Jagmandave]

My wife bought us an all singing dancing remote control for the tv room, the instuctions were three very small pages long, mostly explaing that to set it up you have to go to their web page. I haven't been able to get it to work yet..............

 

[BobReeves]

Consumers expect and buy cheap electronics and this is one way the manufacture can cut costs to meet market demands. Ya it sucks but the market (you and me) made it happen. My first Pentium PC cost 3 grand and came with printed manuals now I can buy a pretty darn good computer with the manual on CD for 500 bucks.

 

[frank_f15]

YEP a pet peeve of mine also, my digital camera came with a basic manual, just barley touches on the basic operationg of the camera, to get more detailed info, you have to go to the CD, but there are many times i want to do something that i can't remer how to do and i am not near my computer. The manual that came with my camera, is printed in 4 languages, why not get rid of the other 3 languages and use the paper and ink for a more detailed instruction book.

 

[Gatorboy]

<font color="blue"> ( The manual that came with my camera, is printed in 4 languages, why not get rid of the other 3 languages and use the paper and ink for a more detailed instruction book. ) </font>

Hopefully English isn't one of the languages they get rid of.