The Elusive Manual

[Stephen]

Of course we all know why they do it, to keep costs down, and no doubt the EU has got it's nose in somewhere along the line as well. But that doesn't help Joe blogs who hasn't got much of a clue what he/she is doing. I'm talking about operating manuals, which seem to be getting as rare as hens teeth when you buy something these days.

Do manufacturers think everyone is an expert with products such as smart phones. I would rather pay a few pounds more and have a manual included, but OH NO, that's too easy. Instead I have to find one online, download it and then get it printed off. Fortunately the good lady prints it off at work so that saves a bit of ink, although a tree takes a bashing somewhere.

it just annoys me when you spend allot of money on a product and the tight bu99ers can't even provide a manual.

Rant over, time for a lay down.

[Mervyn and Trish]

Probably all part of the "green" bo####ks! It's "green" not to print manuals. What they don't allow for is that users often actually need one and printing one off at home is far more expensive and less green than mass producing them professionally printed.

[david63]

To some extent I agree - but another part of me says that most people will, at best, only read a small part of a manual once or possibly twice and then forget where they put the manual - this comes from my time of writing user manuals for a living.

I actually now prefer to have all my manuals in one place on my computer so that I know where they are and I can find what I want relativity quickly.

[Dancing Queen]

This is one of my pet hates too

The other day I had a very simple problem with my laptop ( well simple for anyone who understands them ) if I'd had an instruction book I would probably have found the answer very quickly to the problem, fortunately another member helped me out so it saved me time having to plough through loads of stuff on the net - most of which wouldn't have made any sense to me.

We bought a new tumble dryer a while ago and I think there was something like 100 pages to the manual, the only bit's relevant ( to me ) were listed on a couple of pages and fortunately at the beginning (does anyone really need to know any more than how the thing actually works and which buttons to press) it would be so much better if the information could be included with the product and a more comprehensive manual ( for those that want it ) be available to download if required.

[Stephen]

To some extent I agree - but another part of me says that most people will, at best, only read a small part of a manual once or possibly twice and then forget where they put the manual - this comes from my time of writing user manuals for a living.

I actually now prefer to have all my manuals in one place on my computer so that I know where they are and I can find what I want relativity quickly.

I can understand your point of view David. But it's also down to convenience. When you want to read up on something you normally want to do it from the comfort of your chair with the product in front of you. I don't want to have to keep firing up my PC every time I want to know something.

[Manoverboard]

Mobietta will read the manual but ONLY if there is a chapter entitled ... ' Mobietta '

I personally do like to have a manual, in fact I will not even unpack the related item until I have read it from cover to cover several times BUT I do NOT require it to be in 21 different languages

[towny44]

To some extent I agree - but another part of me says that most people will, at best, only read a small part of a manual once or possibly twice and then forget where they put the manual - this comes from my time of writing user manuals for a living.

I actually now prefer to have all my manuals in one place on my computer so that I know where they are and I can find what I want relativity quickly.

I can understand your point of view David. But it's also down to convenience. When you want to read up on something you normally want to do it from the comfort of your chair with the product in front of you. I don't want to have to keep firing up my PC every time I want to know something.

Not a problem if its your Samsung phone or tablet as they have the manual built in, and you can access it on your gadget. Of course it can be a problem when it stops working!!!!!!!!!!!!!