Dodge the Perils of Early Adoption
Buying a hot new product shouldn't feel like paying to be a beta tester.Yardena Arar is a senior editor for PC World. E-mail her at consumerwatch@pcworld.com. Find links to previously published Consumer Watch columns below.
Yardena Arar
Illustration by Michael Klein
But all too often I'm reminded that it is a job. Case in point: A few weeks ago, I tested a very neat-sounding new product from Linksys, the Wireless G Music Bridge. I couldn't wait to bring it home. It's a small box with Wi-Fi and ethernet that connects to a stereo receiver via conventional audio cables and then lets you stream music from a Windows PC over your network to play through the stereo instead of the computer's speakers (you can read my review of the device, from the May issue).
But when I tried to set it up one night, I couldn't get the darn thing to work. I spent some 3 hours on the phone with a well-meaning tech support rep in India, reconfiguring and rebooting ad nauseam, before I gave up. Eventually, Linksys determined that the Music Bridge was incompatible with products--such as my Belkin Pre-N Wireless Router--that are based on first-generation MIMO chips from Airgo Networks.
Good fodder for my review--but what if I had been an early adopter who had paid $100 for the Music Bridge? I might not be so philosophical.
That's the thing about diving into uncharted technology waters: The earlier you try something new, the more likely that you'll be paying top dollar to find bugs the vendor missed. If this sounds familiar, read on to commiserate, and to get a few tips on avoiding or dealing with the glitches and bugs that even vendors acknowledge you'll probably encounter.
Inevitable Glitches
"Anytime you have a new category of product, such as the Music Bridge, there are risks of running into problems," concedes Eric Deming, senior product marketing manager for Linksys's Home Networking Unit.
This isn't always the fault of a careless vendor. Due to the huge diversity of PCs and peripherals, it's all but impossible to test a tech product in every environment in which it's likely to be used. And bugs are a fact of tech life: It's a major reason many IT departments and individuals hold off on getting new versions of Windows until months--or a couple of years--after they're first released.
But what if you do jump in early, and you encounter problems? Linksys's Deming says your support call would eventually get transferred to a product marketing manager, and your feedback would be incorporated into future versions. "It may make [early adopters] feel like they are contributing to how the product develops," Deming says.
Realistically, however, most people won't stick around long enough to have their issue moved up to the product manager level--or be willing to suffer for the greater good of improving the device or application for those who buy later. Instead, an early adopter who runs into difficulties will more likely get steamed and return the unsatisfactory purchase.
John Kelley of Richmond, Virginia, a production support manager for a tobacco company, is one user who knows how it feels to "pay good money for a latest-and-greatest product that's missing many pieces, or... doesn't work as advertised."
Last year Kelley upgraded from Mac OS 10.3 (Panther) to the first version of Mac OS 10.4 (Tiger). In the upgrade he encountered numerous bugs, including a driver for his multifunction printer that didn't allow him to scan documents.
Within two months the first update, 10.4.1, fixed some of the problems. It was a mixed bag, however: "A few steps forward, but many steps back," Kelley says.
Another drawback of being the first to try something new: the early-adopter tax, or the premium you pay for tech gear that's first off the line compared with its price a few months later. "You kind of know that's going to happen," says Mark Mendel of Netcong, New Jersey, whose early-adoption addictions include high-end graphics boards and fast new PCs.
Having patience is one way to avoid the expense and hassle of early adoption. Do you really need to be the first person in the neighborhood with a dual-core PC or a Squeezebox? At the very least, try to pick and choose the objects of your hot-gadget affections. Maybe a video-enabled iPod is worth buying the first week, but a dual-core computer can wait.
Tips for Taking the Plunge
But for people like Kelley and Mendel, waiting is not an option. "A lot of it is just being able to say 'I have it'," Mendel says when asked about the appeal of being first on the bandwagon. In that case, how can you minimize the chances of disappointment, or get help with problems?
Linksys's Deming says to start by checking the vendor's Web site for drivers and firmware upgrades. "I don't even use the installation CD," he says. Software upgrades to fix bugs can occur anytime, even if a product has just shipped.
And while you're at it, check for a new version of the manual, often available as a downloadable PDF. The manual of a Windows Mobile GPS device I recently received failed to show all the contents of the packaging--a minor mistake, but a confusing one. The vendor, Pharos, said it had changed the manual, but the new version didn't make it into my package.
Check the product maker's support site for solutions, of course, but don't stop there. Some vendors procrastinate indefinitely in providing vital information.
Take RealNetworks, for example: When I tried unsuccessfully to play tracks I'd purchased from its Rhapsody music service using the Listen Rhapsody 3.01 software on a different PC, I found no useful suggestions in its knowledge base. Only after extensive research in user forums did I uncover a bizarre but effective remedy (involving a DRM-related software download you could initiate only by trying to play the tracks on a Real player, not on Rhapsody's Listen client).
Search for Answers
The moral of that story: Be untiring in your willingness to search online forums. Start with the vendor's own forums, if they exist; otherwise, find third-party forums via a search engine. Simply enter the product name and a few succinct keywords describing the problem (error message excerpts sometimes work). If you were the first person online to buy the product the day it came out, such a search will be a long shot, but it remains worth trying. At the very least, you will quickly get a sense of where other users of your product category hang out.
If you don't find any helpful posts, don't be shy about pushing for escalation of your complaint to a product manager or senior support rep--and then posting the solution, when you get it, on whatever forum you deem appropriate. Personally I get a lot more satisfaction from fixing my problem and then helping other users than from simply providing feedback to help a technology company put out a better version next time.