Often, manufacturers will artificially limit the capabilities/specs of their products in order to create new SKUs on the cheap (no need to reconfigure the factory - it's one same line, settings applied after manufacturing).
For example, thanks to these forums it's no big secret that the FLIR E4 (retail price: usd 949) used to be upgradable to a FLIR E8 (retail price : 3000 dollars) following a list of technical steps that aren't that difficult to follow.
Similarly, there are SIGLENT oscilloscopes that can be upgraded to versions that cost 2x more, again, courtesy of this amazing forum!
I was wondering, do you know of other products that fall into that category?
Would be fun to try and see if we can 'upgrade' them, too!
a PC, it can run every program made for PC it is just "artificially limited" by you having to buy a license for the software you want to run ...
Some years ago, I bought an "emachines" PC, my previous unit having developed some problems.
The bloody thing was supplied with a "dumbed down" version of W7, where I couldn't get administrator status, so when it crashed, which it did, regularly, the normal fixes available to W7 users weren't useable, the only way being to "go back to year zero", losing all my settings & some data.
I could remove
$&€€££¥¥##£€+*!!! Norton, but every time I "fixed" it after a crash, I got the sodding thing back.
I finally "bit the bullet" & bought a copy of W7, uninstalled the "emachines" version & installed the full version.
Now everything worked, including all the "tricks" I had read on the 'Net,.
It didn't crash near as much, either,
AND no more Norton!