A reader wants to buy a tablet for your partner's birthday, but prefer something more ethical than an iPad
My partner is very interested in having a tablet with Wi-Fi and I decided to buy him one for his birthday. We are both very concerned about the shameful practices of Apple in China and therefore do not want to buy an iPhone, even if the price of the iPhone 2 and the performance is similar to what we would be looking for. However, I am well aware of that are downloaded to the cart can mean an alternative (Samsung, Amazon Kindle a fire, etc.) that can not be ethically better, but just to escape media attention. Have a suggestion for a consumer to try-to-be-ethics? Is there such thing as a bar of ethics?
name is omitted
do not think any pill is "ethics" in the purest sense, and not even possible to decide which pill might be considered less harmful. Too many things to consider, and do not know enough about either of them. Neither, depressing, do most companies that manufacture and sell.
problems extend well beyond the factory where cell phones, tablets and computers are assembled. The supply chain extends to thousands of small factories that supply components, and raw material suppliers. This includes minerals mined in the Congo, Rwanda and Burundi, where occupational hazards may include rape and murder. (The Enough Project has classified the suppliers for the use of conflict minerals.)
Once all these brilliant gadgets were shipped from the factory, there are many other considerations. How long will they last? Can be upgraded or repaired? How will they be deleted? The manufacturer to support a recycling program? (E-waste is now a major global problem.)
From this perspective, smartphones, tablets and laptops are some disaster. Were sealed batteries and some are designed to be difficult to open, let alone upgrade. Papers should last five years can be discarded after 18 months or less, either because the user has a "free" upgrade, or are too costly to repair. The gadget current boom could soon be in the dumps most expensive in the world.
When it comes to ethical treatment of factory workers, the Apple brand name has suffered the worst effects, for two reasons. First, Apple has been involved in a series of suicides in the largest factory of Foxconn in Shenzhen. Second, the New York Times published a harsh critique of society in China, the human costs are integrated into an iPad. I think this article, which quotes former Apple executives finally asked Apple to start taking the problem seriously. On Apple joined the Fair Association, based in the labor (AFL), and CEO, Tim Cook, made a highly publicized visit to the factory.
Apple has been criticized because of its huge profit - with over 100 billion (£ 62) in the bank - and because of its high-end marketing of the brand. It may well be that people work in the worst conditions in factories producing small "white box" (unbranded or branded off) tablets, but they are making products that are sold at very low profit margins minimum. The point is that workers in the assembly plant of Apple products are getting a very small fraction of the total. Apple can and can not afford to do better.
The result is high staff turnover. In 2010, according to SACOM (Hong Kong-based Students and researchers against corporate misconduct), 220,000 of the 420,000 workers had joined Foxconn in Shenzhen over the last six months, and the turnover rate is about 35% per year , according to the Shenzhen Federation of Trade Unions. There are always thousands of jobs at Foxconn, because thousands of workers to leave. This is not a good sign.
course, I could avoid buying products assembled by Foxconn, which is expected to produce nearly 40% of Chinese exports of technology products. However, as mentioned, I find no substantial evidence that Chinese workers to contract manufacturers rival Quanta, Compal, Wistron, Pegatron, Inventec and so on - are much better treated. This is a market price, and many companies cut a corner to save 10p. When you make tens of millions of units, such as accumulate.
Companies using 
Only contract manufacturers can change that. The New York Times quoted a former Apple executive said. "Suppliers would change everything tomorrow if Apple said they had no choice" Companies that establish their own factories with their own employees, as Sony did, could be even better, but economic trends are strongly against it.
Overall, Hewlett-Packard seems to be the best of a bad group. In 2004, Bonnie Nixon Gardiner, HP has helped create the Code of Conduct of the electronics industry (DART) to establish standards for the basic work of subcontractors and the environment, the model FLA. In 2005 she went to inspect the factory Foxconn in Shenzhen, according to Business Week, and establish a system to inspect hundreds of factories owned by major suppliers of HP.
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Diablo 3 
similar and different to each time? 
