this post was submitted on 27 Aug 2023
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just had to get that last little snipe in there …
Sheesh, they're still not admitting fault for that. Why on Earth would a company send its only prototype to them as a "we don't need it back" item?
It's not that unusual. I work in the medical device industry and we need to do quite some testing with early prototypes for all sorts of stuff like biocompatibility, cytotoxicity, hemocompatibility as well as pressure tests, drop tests, leakage testing and whatnot. Each and every one of those prototypes is hand made and therefore the "only one".
Even if they pass one test with flying colors and no visible damages, we couldn't use them in another test because they need to be factory new to satisfy regulatory protocols.
Normally we don't ask for those back, we are more interested in the ones that failed a particular test.
Now we wouldn't want our prototypes to be auctioned off, naturally, so the test centers we work with have to ensure they'll be destroyed (we have contracts and NDAs in place). But not wanting a prototype back after a third party played around with it is way more common than you think.
Right, but the cases you’re used to are very different than a small, start up tech company making computer parts.
Indeed, medical devices are often intended to be single-use throw-away items. This was a water cooling block, which is completely reusable. It makes no sense to assume they didn't want it back, and I'm quite sure Billet Labs would have mentioned that they wanted it back.
LTT did something really stupid and they're still claiming "but they didn't tell us not to do something really stupid!" Even though they almost certainly did.
I'm sure they wanted it back, I'm just saying that disposing of prototypes is not as outlandish as it generally sounds.
You're good. You were providing an insight into a scenario most people wouldn't expect. Please keep posting information like that to help build this place up.
Will do, thanks for the encouragement :-)
The snipe in the video is bad form. Selling something borrowed, bullshit reasons why you didn't re-test it. Awful, Yadda Yadda.
A company sending a critical piece of equipment to a YouTube channel is just dumb.
They were done dirty, but if you really truly needed that prototype, you would never send it to the other side of the planet to a known butterfingers.
He always has to. I hate this about him.
I cringed so hard at that.
That's exactly what happened.
It was "keep it for further testing" before it got reamed with poor review, and then it was "ok send it back then".
didn’t qualify as a review much less a “poor review” – lose the provided graphics card, proceed to munge the cooler onto an unrelated card, complain when it doesn’t fit, blast it as a garbage product that no one should ever buy
Yeah and if they're going to mess it up that much the company might just take it back and send it to GamersNexus for a real review.
"Poor review" is putting it lightly after how dirty they did that card. They probably wanted it back to give to someone to do an actual, fair review of.
Also, they were told they could keep it for further testing, but not that they could keep it forever or as a gift. That LTT auctioned the prototype that definitely still belonged to Billet Labs was plain irresponsible.
Yeah that what I mean, GamersNexus would have given it a fair review and not done an absolute ballsup of the process.
And yeah, if they weren't intending to test further it should have just been sent back.
Exactly. Linus seems to interpret their conversation as though Billet were going to let them keep it forever.
It seemed to me much more like, "We don't urgently need this back, so feel free to run more tests if you want"
Which turned into, "Oh, you shit all over our product and refuse to do more testing? Can we get it back then please?"