Keysight 1200X series "no replaceable parts are available"

[Porama6400]

Also: Most customers will go around boasting about how they "sent in an old one and got a new one in return" so this replacement policy also has a psychological benefit (Fluke owners often justify the purchase price of their meters this way).

It's wasteful but it's the world we live in.

I would not surprised if they do that for product in warranty.
outside warranty, I'd assume that they would charge you for some refurbished unknown-history replacement though? I know at least Apple does that.
like Fraser said

I preferred repair of my unit or ‘new for old’ policies as I take great care of my kit and if it failed soon after purchase I did not want some unknown usage hours unit replacing it.

if for whatever reason something failed and I can't fix it, I'd rather just replace that particular board

[tooki]

Apple doesn’t have separate stock for in- and out-of-warranty replacements. However, their refurb process is so thorough that it’s indistinguishable from new: iPhones (and iPads probably too; dunno about newer MacBooks, but older ones did not get replaced) get a new housing, display, and battery every time, so in essence they’re just reusing they logic board and replacing everything else.

[Fungus]

Apple doesn’t have separate stock for in- and out-of-warranty replacements. However, their refurb process is so thorough that it’s indistinguishable from new: iPhones (and iPads probably too; dunno about newer MacBooks, but older ones did not get replaced) get a new housing, display, and battery every time, so in essence they’re just reusing they logic board and replacing everything else.

Apple has a lot of broken screens and cases so it makes sense to re-use the expensive parts (ie. circuit boards).

Keysights are the other way around: It will mostly be the electronics that fail, not the screens or cases. They won't have the same economics.

[Porama6400]

Apple doesn’t have separate stock for in- and out-of-warranty replacements. However, their refurb process is so thorough that it’s indistinguishable from new: iPhones (and iPads probably too; dunno about newer MacBooks, but older ones did not get replaced) get a new housing, display, and battery every time, so in essence they’re just reusing they logic board and replacing everything else.

I would not doubt the exterior will be very good. But the refurb board itself does not get treated well at all. At least the one shown in Louis Rossmann's video.

[EE-digger]

To the OP.

In warranty, you're going to get a replacement unit.  Keysight units are generally in flawless or near flawless condition from my experience with the Ebay store and with repairs, for about 10 products in total.

I have the same concerns as Fraser in that I keep my equipment in near perfect condition.  I've never been disappointed by Keysight.

Out of warranty, you better have a service agreement or be prepared to fix it yourself (without documentation for the most part).

I dodged an expensive bullet when my 4000A scope failed.  The main board (almost $6k) was replaced under a service agreement I had recently put in place.

Keysight service agreements are in some cases, around 10% of a one time event type of repair.  I don't know what they are for the 1000 scopes.

I would no longer purchase ANY multi $k piece of equipment without availability of a long term service agreement after warranty runs out.  With ASICs, large BGAs and lack of documentation, your unit may become a cool looking door stop.

At home, NO service agreements except for anything with a compressor (ac, frig, dehumidifier).  They are very short lived.

[Porama6400]

Out of warranty, you better have a service agreement or be prepared to fix it yourself (without documentation for the most part).

They also actively strip out schematics from products that previously had one.

I guess Keysight is going the Apple direction.
It's disappointing to see what they become.

[EE-digger]

The root cause of this is US (not me, I don't hold many stocks), the investors, stockholders and mutual fund owners.

While I would love to return to the good old days with full schematics, BOMs, assembly drawings and in some cases (way back) PCB trace drawings (part of old fashioned assembly drawings), it will NEVER happen.

Here are a few of the reasons, which are pretty easy to see:

Schematics - costs
* additional cost to produce publication ready documents
* additional cost of handling, managing, revision control, updates, notifications
* to many, this would be a blessing by themselves but for others - cost of producing full circuit descriptions and theory of operations

Schematics - dangers
* design can be cloned in a few hours of work
* one schematics are cloned, netlists will be generated and IF a sample of the product is available, PCB layouts cloned in hours (except or layer topology)
* IP (which I think is a double edge sword and do not like lawyers and courts) which may have cost tens of millions of dollars is now laid bare for all takers

Assemblies and BOMs
* thousands of man hours in component specification, searching, qualification is also laid bare for the taking
* when the components are known, what is not know is the reasons why they were used but WHO CARES.  The fake copy now performs like the original as all mechanical, thermal, power dissipation, aging, etc. have been copied, the thieves not even knowing why.

All of the above costs and costs and costs which leads to the "us" (i.e. stockholder, etc.) part of the business.  What do we want from our investments?  Pretty simple and common:

* constant growth
* constant profits and dividends
* in many cases, the above can be achieved by any means possible, WHO CARES?  certainly not most of the stockholders.
* your management will be out on the street if they can't dance to the stockholders beat, but not before bailing out with multi-million dollar umbrella clauses

Automate all you can, script all you can, deal with individual issues as little as possible, charge for anything you provide, etc. etc.

The last item there is why Keysight (certainly not alone and no where near the first to do so) now charges for support.  In addition to your service agreement, if you want help after the sale, you better also purchase a support agreement, also by the year or other increment of coverage.

Sorry for somewhat of a rant.  I think I see how we got to where we are and it's not going to change.  Just cover your a$$ with protection for your purchase.

I still think Keysight is the best.  I don't believe the lack of a support agreement will get you a phone disconnect, at least not yet.  And as I mentioned earlier, Keysight has the most supportive and helpful people I've ever met in the business.

[Mr. Scram]

Really? That's certainly disappointing. A large part of the point of going with a big name over a cheaper option is support.

It's quite baffling how the big names think competing with China means cutting out everything that sets them apart from these Chinese competitors.

[bd139]

The real picture looks like this:

On one hand we've got Keysight pissing off private customers on multiple threads by refusing to calibrate or support their products.

On the other hand we've got Siglent providing patched firmware for a bug for a customer the next day without a support contract in place or even any validation that the product is in warranty or not or who the buyer is in another thread.

Pricing for the same specification device:

Keysight £1136 ex VAT

Siglent £300 ex VAT

If the Siglent completely breaks in any way out of warranty (both have default 3y warranty) you can afford to buy another one 3.78 times in the same lifespan.

[Mr. Scram]

The real picture looks like this:

On one hand we've got Keysight pissing off private customers on multiple threads by refusing to calibrate or support their products.

On the other hand we've got Siglent providing patched firmware for a bug for a customer the next day without a support contract in place or even any validation that the product is in warranty or not or who the buyer is in another thread.

Pricing for the same specification device:

Keysight £1136 ex VAT

Siglent £300 ex VAT

The reality for Keysight is that purchases are "trickling up" in a very real sense. As the situation persists, consumers who are used to the Chinese competitors will introduce those in professional environments, or commercial customers will just flat out opt for Chinese equipment for economic reasons, all other things being equal. Most customers don't need 100 GHz oscilloscopes.

Keysight ends up depending on a small group of high end customers which will inevitably wane as the domain of Keysight shrinks due to dropping the lower end of the market. At the same time the Chinese competition inevitably moves up in the world as their capabilities and budgets improve. Keysight is painting themselves in a corner it's almost impossible to get out once you're stuck in it.

[bd139]

Wouldn't be too sure of that. Looks like Apple have had enough of their shit too 

2020 Apple presentation - Keysight



2022 Apple presentation - Rigol



(yes I know this isn't a proper comparison as it's just marketing presentation)

[mikeselectricstuff]

I recall a few years ago I got a replacement rubber membrane function keymat for my Agilent MSO6034A - one phone call and about £6 including shipping - happy days...
I can see that they don't want to get into component-level repairs nowadays, but very disappointing if such a readily-replaceable wear item wasn't available.
 

[tautech]

The real picture looks like this:

On one hand we've got Keysight pissing off private customers on multiple threads by refusing to calibrate or support their products.

On the other hand we've got Siglent providing patched firmware for a bug for a customer the next day without a support contract in place or even any validation that the product is in warranty or not or who the buyer is in another thread.

Pricing for the same specification device:

Keysight £1136 ex VAT

Siglent £300 ex VAT

If the Siglent completely breaks in any way out of warranty (both have default 3y warranty) you can afford to buy another one 3.78 times in the same lifespan.

TBH as it has panned out, I believe Siglent already had a beta firmware to address that problem (but it hasn't 100%) and spotted the thread and contacted us to work with their customer in the US and provide them with the beta firmware. As mentioned it's a work in progress as the beta FW wasn't a 100% fix however for sure you can be impressed Siglent took the initiative to contact us before anyone had even lodged a bug report and provide us with a patch they thought might work.....it didn't. 

Although we are just a tiny distributor for them this is par for the course of late in that they offer great communication channels and are refreshing to deal with....especially their tech support staff that go above and beyond to sort out most any issue.
We keep throwing crumbs their way and while you may not get much in the way of acknowledgement some months later your suggestions start turning up within the UI of models.....that impresses me yet some also comes from relaying suggestions from members here.
Are they perfect, no but at least you can work with them as the several EEVblog member Siglent beta testers can also attest to.

But never forget, without all the recent eastern upstarts we'd all be paying considerably more for our equipment where now you can equip a quite reasonable lab with a SA/VNA, DSO, AWG, PSU and bench meter all new for just $5k.