How to tell revision 1 from revision 2?

In an earlier life (20+ years ago), I had a computer shop.

Most of the printers I sold back then were “decent” quality impact printers (a decent printer for office/small business use at that time was a high density dot matrix with so many pins that it was near-laser quality, but, with the advantages of an impact printer (ability to handle multi-part forms, “green-bar”/fanfold paper, economical ribbons rather than expensive messy toner, etc.); laser printers were very expensive back then, and injet printers hadn’t really hit the street yet).

Most of the printers I sold came from one well-known Japanese “prestige” manufacturer, whom I shall not name (and thus my lack of a pin-count above :slight_smile:

What I noticed was that as they came out with newer generations of their mainstay printer line, the newer printers would invariably 1) look nicer, 2) weigh less, and, IMO the biggie, 3) be a LOT less sturdy (metal parts became plastic parts, stuff was lighter-weight/duty, etc.)

I figured that the Deming-style SPC/TQM/QC/QA stuff was being leveraged to rationalize continuous reduction in manufacture cost (and, indirectly, transport cost) as “continuous improvement.”

But, to my jaundiced eye, the newer printers just did NOT seem to be as sturdy, and DID seem to be easier to break.

But, that was a complex mechanical device.  Ruggedness does NOT seem to be an issue with the V1/V2 stuff that we’re encountering with our players.  (My V1 and V2 incarnation e200 series players seem to be identical in the sturdyness department, and my V1/V2 Clips seem identical, period. (I just got my first V2 Clip today, a $49 Walmart Special, and used the Squaretrade “EARLYSPRING” 20%-off coupon code (would have been 30%-off today only, but that pumpkin deflated at 5PM PST today, a one-day promo, which they gave me only a few hrs worth of notice – and the closest Walmart is a half-hour drive.)

The only thing I don’t like about the V2 Clip is that the firmware download is HUGE, much larger than the equivalent V1 download. I have to use a dialup modem, so it took quite some time to download the V2 firmware update file.