The percentage of returned gadgets that have nothing wrong with them.
Of the $13.8 billion worth of returned products in 2007, only 5 percent were because gadgets were actually broken, according to a 2008 study.
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Sony is flushing their reputation down the toilet. Sony's quality suffered when they outsourced their audio products, and now many people (myself included) avoid those Sony products because we don't know whether we'll get a real Sony product or a no-name product with "Sony" stamped on. And now the same thing is going to happen to their LCD televisions!
Wouldn't it be a good idea to wait and see what the quality is before assuming these will damage Sony's reputation? Farming out production to another company is often done because you're unable to build what you want at the quality you desire.
Sony and Toshiba have been burnt severely during the HD wars and in order to get back on track they need to cut costs. Spending a fortune running LCD TV factories when you can just rebadge someone else's (and pretty much guarantee a profit) is obviously extremely desirable to both. They'd lose more in reputation if they cut costs making the things, or if they didn't make anything to begin with (just look at the heat Toshiba's getting about not making a Blu-ray player.)