In the past number of years, I have bought more electronics than I should have. Taking them apart for fun, or trying to fix them has allowed me to understand some aspects of design, assembly and costs.
Unfortunately some manufacturers, or should I say small entrepreneurs, may omit some parts to save on costs. For example, one can easily find a 7-portUSB hub without the capacitors that should be found at each port to avoid a power down of the hub when a new device is plugged in. Sometimes a 12MHz crystal is missing making the hub only USB 1.1. The costs of electronic manufacturing have dropped significantly, but being competitive is only possible if you are not having to recall products.
Ì feel guilty when I have to tell sellers on ebay that the items are defective, plain knock offs or just not working properly. If the products were advertised properly ie. USB N with true range of 15m I doubt that anyone would complain if they knew what they were getting, but sometimes the products just don't work at all.
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