Gizmo with a weight added for extra heft

The IDSA Materials and Process Selection Blog discovered a surprise inside a Pinnacle Video Transfer gadget: a weight seemingly added for the sole purpose of making the device heavier and less "cheap"-feeling:


This added material doesn't appear to serve any other purpose-the components don;t generate much heat and there's no noise to dampen. My conclusion is that while the components on the PCB (other than the connectors) where not all that tall, the connectors were. So this drove the final thickness of the product. I guess when you're spending $100 on a piece of video kit, you probably want it to feel somewhat solid in your hands. So this is a cheap way to add some "heft" to the product.

What's That?: Adding Dead Weight