Any Skullcandy headphones. Shit quality. They just break
Any AmazFit smartwatches. They look okay and have good battery life (for smartwatches). They’re shit in every other way.
What’s specifically bad with the AmazFit watches in your experience? I’m curious to know.
Any Skullcandy Headphones… they just break
I’ve had 3 pairs of them so far. First one held up really well (I think it was their cheapest model), until the connection got a bit shitty. Second pair, the Casette, lasted for about 2-3 years, until it broke around the side. (y’know, the weakpoint of any pair of headphones?). I’m on a Hesh Evo rn and have no complaints currently. That is subject to change, however, as I’ve only had them for less than a year.
What headphones would you recommend? From what I’ve seen, they all have a weakpoint, making them susceptible to breakage pretty easily.
Sennheiser makes sturdy, and good sounding (IMO) headphones. You can buy anything too if it breaks or wears out to fix it when needed.
This means there are lots on the second hand market too.
Agreed. I have a pair of Sennheisers and I love that the cables disconnect from the headphones themselves-- that way if the cable ever gets pinched, I don’t have to replace the whole unit. The ear cups and head band are also replaceable and have a large 3rd party market.
Any Google smartwatch. I bought 2 at one point. A sport and a dress watch. Both only lasted about a year before the software rendered them useless. I’m now back on analogue watches.
It’s almost aggressive how quickly smart devices get shuttered, being an oldschool techhead I’ve always dreamed of being a walking compute center, but just like smart house gear, you can’t expect a thing you buy today to work next week and we are just conditioned to accept it.
I absolutely loved my LG Android watch from a couple years ago. Used it constantly
But then a major update for Android Wear was released, and it completely changed the UX and UI. It was absolutely annoying to use suddenly
Stopped using it a week after the release. Never had an android wear watch since
I have a pixel watch I bought around its launch (IIRC) and it’s still going fine today. The only issue I’ve had is, since starting farming, the little dial can gum up a bit, but it can be cleaned.
Cloud and “serverless” solutions
I gotta disagree on this one. I cut my workload in half by shifting our infrastructure to the cloud, and now I can spend my time focusing on more worthwhile endeavors.
HP printers.
Really HP anything on principle, but their printers take the cake for anti-user bullshit.
Their laptops are good. But the company is shitty.
That being said, they’re still thriving for a reason. I was trying to convince my cousin to get rid of his HP subscription printer and he won’t. He says it is cheap and easy to pay the subscription and his school aged kids can print the colour pictures they want when they remember they had an assignment at midnight. He just gets ink replacement posted to his house before he runs out and he says it works out great for him.
What a sign of the times. Being subscribed to a fucking printer
I’m told it is not just for ink convenience. Apparently the printer needs to be connected to the internet and stops working if you stop paying the subscription, which you are locked into.
It’s cheaper to buy a new printer then…
That said, if you pay more up-front for something like a Brother laser printer, it should last you a lot longer and be on the order of 10x cheaper per page. People see Instant Ink as “cheap” because they’ve probably never tried the much cheaper alternative, and they see it as “convenient” because they’ve never had a printer that lasts several thousand prints without a cartridge change. It’s really sad seeing so many people who can afford the upfront cost of a laser printer falling for this scam so often.
Brother seems to be the last printer brand to be good. At least on the consumer grade. And they seem to last forever
My mother got an HP 255 G8 laptop on which the webcam just will not work no matter what I do.
It’s enabled in the bios and the correct driver is installed but the built-in webcam is not detected. Also the keyboard got damaged with the space button only responsing to center presses after roughly a year of usage.
I know it’s a relatively cheap machine but the driver issue pissed me off
HP laptops are bottom-of-the-barrel trash and have been for at least 15 years at this point. HP will purposely hide screws underneath rubber skid pads and stickers, requiring you, the owner of said laptop, to damage your own laptop in order to open it up. And you will have to open it up, because it is a piece of shit and it will break. But good luck fixing it, because they won’t even be able to sell you the parts you need, presumably because they’re sourced from whatever Chinese factory is the cheapest at any given time. Fuck HP and fuck HP laptops especially.
I picked up an old HP LaserJet (with the Ethernet option) for free during grad school. It was a great printer — good CUPS/Linux support, reliable, cheap 3rd party toner.
It’s sad how the mighty have fallen. Would never recommend one for someone today.
I still use a LaserJet 4N, but not a chance I’d buy a new HP anything.
Not really a specific product but those horrible soaking sharpening stones especially if you’re a beginner at sharpening. It’s just too much hassle compared to diamond. That and printer lubricant papers, just make them with printer paper and mineral oil
Anything from Anker after they cancelled an order with PayPal approved payment because ‘they couldn’t verify payment’. Then they insist that the cancelled order could be reviewed if I put personally identifiable information into a random Google sheets doc.
All complaint handling appeared to be a bot. They refused to explain what was the concern with the payment and always responded with very similar ‘apology’ emails even when I indicated for every email they send i’d inform another person to avoid them.
Hard disagree. That sucks about what happened to you but in my experience, Anker products (especially their USB cables, chargers, and batteries) are the best.
Edit: Just learned about this shitty news regarding Anker’s cameras (didn’t even know they had cameras) thanks to /u/Empiricorn. Personally, I don’t trust any security cameras that are cloud-based.
Anker is off my list because of the cameras. They used to be my go-to for cables and chargers. Completely unacceptable.
Any suggestions for a different company to buy cables etc from? I’ve bought their chargers and cables and been happy with them but I’m fine with trying something different next time.
The suggestion I took was Ugreen for chargers and cables. Cables seem to work, and don’t instantly fray, that’s all I want. I got a compact GaN wall plug and it is reasonably fast for the size. No fires and no fried electronics so far.
I appreciate the recommendation! Thanks!
Also, Eufy is owned by Anker. They claimed they weren’t transmitting images until hackers proved they could access your “smart” cameras…
The problem is, in order to view the cameras in their app, the video has to relay through their cloud servers, and they had little to no security. Since then they have added encryption which hopefully helps.
Best practice is to avoid placing any cameras, especially big box store cloud cameras, anywhere sensitive. The two cameras I have online right now are outside where hackers won’t see anything my neighbors can’t see.
This was the same company that refused to ship to Rhode Island, suggesting you had their product shipped to a friend on “the mainland” who could then forward it
On Christmas 2023 I was given an Anker charger. By March 2024 it stopped working…
I really wonder if their product quality fell off and why. I have chargers/cables/batteries from Anker that I bought in 2016 and not a single one has failed.
That’s interesting, I’ve always had a very good experience with Anker.
I have bought a couple of products in the past also. I searched up my recent scenario and found others with the same experience
I have never had a good time with Asus anything and their customer service is abysmal.
This is so sad. I remember a day when Asus was known for making a quality product. Nowadays it’s overpriced garbage.
Who should I buy routers from
No one, put OPNsense on a micro PC and get a Ruckus AP that you can flash Unleashed to.
I’m honestly about to smack OpenWRT on this old laptop. But I have two catalyst 2960-S switches in a rack to extend it. MSI has a garbage UI for theirs but its what I have until I move and properly setup my home network.
I’ve been pretty happy with my stuff from TP-LINK.
Their after sale support (both warranty and technical support) is absolutely abysmal. If you need support for one of their products you’re best off dumping it “as is” on fleaBay and buying something else to replace it.
Don’t ever buy Sony wireless buds. They stop working right around the one year mark. Customer service is horrible.
Frank’s cancer pills. They gave you cancer.
I don’t get how he’s made them for so long
That guy is such a wiener; the wurst kind of shit sack.
A real jerk.
“Old Spice” flavored candy
I don’t think that means what you think that means
I hope to God you mean black licorice
And Old Spice flavored candy would be absolutely dimented
Any computer mouse, frankly.
The sad thing is when I bought my first gaming mouse in the mid 2000s it was a Razer and that thing ran great for almost 10 years. I only replaced it because after handling it for that many years it was worn and kinda gross.
I replaced it with a Razer that went sure enough went faulty after a year. I then tried other brands (name and no-name). I’ve never had a mouse last me 18 months before it started to go faulty. It really feels like they all colluded a planned obsolescence. Even my current mouse, a Zowie FK3-C, has begun to drop the mouse input when i click and hold the left button. I bought this in June 2023!!
I still like the Zowie a lot, it has great features like a button to toggle the refresh rate without the need for installing dumb software to set it. But it’s been 10 years of this shit, for me, so I will never recommend a computer mouse to anyone. Just use the one that you get from your office job, I guess.
For me it was the Microsoft intellimouse, the led one. It had 5 buttons, one on each side so it was also ambidextrous. Now I have a mouse graveyard box.
The only ones that seem to last for me have been Logitech, and even then its not even close to the 10 years. Maybe around 3 years, a couple more replacing the switches
Man, Logitech all the way. I’ve only had to replace one or maybe two with 8-hr/day, 5 days a week constant usage
Always been happy with Logitech. But I switched the software to SteerMouse since Logitech jumped on the AI train.
“Any computer mouse” guess I’m not using my computer anymore, thanks for the advice.
It’s about never recommending, not never buying. You can buy something unrecommended ;)
Middle mouse click is indispensable but it seems to be first to fail on my mice
I’ve been using logitech for years and they’ve all been holding up well for me. The only issue I had was an older trackball mouse design. I owned two and one had some issues but the other lasted almost a decade.
I got a Kensington trackball. I’ll never use a mouse again.
Been using a cheapass dell mouse we got free with our servers for about a decade now and it’s great.
I’ve had Razrs, expensive assed MS nostalgia grabs, Kensingtons of every configuration, Logitech of both gaming and office models and nothing has been as accurate and problem free as this cheap assed dell server mouse.
Well that’s cause one is made to look fancy and make money, the other is meant to do its job
I’d argue that it’s more of a ‘If we don’t send them something to get bootstrapped, the customers will complain, so throw in a cheap kbd and mouse and stick our logo on it’, but they JUST happened to be SLIGHTLY less cheap than everyone who makes ‘gaming’ mice.
I’m under no illusions, it’s a really cheap mouse, just its one that has a good sensor.
Mainly I have it because it was free and we had a closet filled with a few hundred of them.
I used to have an old MS Pro mouse that was literally my favorite pointing device EVER made but it was SD resolution so useless in modern machines, and the cash grab piece of crap that MS just re-released a few years ago to get a piece of that sweet nostalgia pie was worse than any razr I’ve ever used.
I just want to click on heads and it’s crazy that gaming mice are so poorly made nowadays that free server mice are objectively better.
Logitech mouse. They keep making them worse in order to sell more overpriced usb adapters. The software is hilariously bad. The world needs a Logitech alternative. Please China, I’m begging.
Exception should be made for the MX Master range. I have had all models: 2, 2s, 3 & 3s. They were always great, but have got better and better with each iteration.
I feel like their MX series is still very good.
I swear by the marathon mouse. And I love the scroll wheel unlock of logitech mice. Scroll wheel goes brrrrrrrr
Yes I love that too. I got the MX Anywhere 3 to replace to 2 I had. I’ve had a bunch. They all fail in the same way, they start doing double clicks for single click. But usually after a couple of years, I’m fine with that part.
The bullshit is when they make the new mouse incompatible with the old USB adapter OR THE SOFTWARE! And you have to install Options PLUS! And doesn’t work often and needs to be reinstalled.
They make good stuff but the bullshit is bullshit.
Any guitar under $700 with any feature you’d expect to be standard in medium to high end guitars. If a brand new guitar has a floyd rose but is $300, it won’t hold tuning, and the screws will strip easily.
Not saying expensive guitars are good by default, but there’s very little room for innovation in the guitar world, and corner cutting will happen in cheaper guitars.
Harley Benton Fusion 3 owner here… €450. Nothing at all wrong with this thing.
Hm, yeah that might be the case. Last guitar with a FR I bought was well over 10y ago.
This guy guitars
Huawei, Xiaomi and Samsung phones
- main reason: anti user freedom, and locking you in to their system, it’s extremely hard to wipe out your phone in order to sell it if you have a Samsung account linked to your phone, and they make it hard to flash a custom ROM, imagine buying a phone with your own money and you still need the manufacturer consent to do what you want with it…
- confusing and slow UI
- Ads everywhere on the UI
- bloated with games and useless apps
- they don’t take security seriously at all ( slow updates )
- short update period
- they lie in their marketing by giving big numbers ( battery capacity and camera quality for example )
And last but not least, they kill your apps
I’m still waiting for a viable competitor to the Galaxy Tab S line. Literally no one makes a flagship tablet that can compete with Samsung’s build quality on those, they’re pretty much the only ~11in OLED game in town too.
Mi pad-s exist, which are near flagship, but of course mi unlock and no oled.
I can’t wait for LineageOS to be available for my Samsung phone.
Yes, I find that is the only way to use these phones, AOSP makes them usable again, but like I said they’re constantly implementing and improving their digital locks to keep you from running away to a different OS… It’s so anti user freedom
Well, I have lineageos on my XM phones (rmx4x and mi11lite5g) and they’re great except for the reliability of the 11 lite. And before you ask about it, yes the mi unlock is terrible, but after you sell your soul to Xiaomi, you can unlock it and have a good enough phone.
S24:
UI not confusing at all imo, just your typical Samsung Android. And obviously not slow since it’s a flagship phone
No ads
Not really bloated (comes with Samsung’s own apps + Google’s apps but you can uninstall most of them)
Decently fast updates
7 years software support (not only security updates but also 7 years of new Android updates)
Wouldn’t say 4000 mAh 50 MP sounds that fancy, but it works very well (lots of optimisation for the battery and good software for the camera)
Downside: expensive (~600€ new currently)
also Huawei laptops. Jfc what a trashy counterfeit of a MacBook and if you get an AMD one, better also get a good cooling stand. The keyboard is terrible and costs a fuckton to replace and generally the repairability is like with macs, the USB ports are built in a way that just begs for either them or your peripherals to be broken, they might overheat while charging, they ship bloatware and the speakers are ridiculously quiet. My friend’s mom bought her one because her consumerist boomer mind was so hell-bent on buying a new thing, contrary to my advice to get a second-hand thinkpad or just any other business-line laptop and it she had to return the first shipment because the screen got bent during shipment.
MIUI… don’t even get me fucking started on this garbage. It literally removes numerous features from vanilla android, presumably to relocate some performance budget to the bloat they add.
Yep I’ve seen Huawei and Xiaomi MacBook copies and you only need to take one look at the keyboard to know they’re trashy.
I got a second hand ThinkPad and it’s fast and robust. Designed to last like a proper MacBook.
Boox Palma. Got one for myself as a treat and upgrade to my aging Kobo and the screen broke within 24 hours. I have never broken a screen. Support immediately told me it was “pressure” and that it wasn’t covered. I was very careful with it so no…I really don’t believe them. If the screen is THAT fragile…no interest. Planning on selling the ewaste at a yard sale. No way am I giving them money to fix an already flawed product.
They’ve had screen breakage problems since about 2-3y ago for some reason. My OG Nova Air has survived about half a dozen short drops without any issue but more recent devices are just spontaneously breaking in people’s bags or sitting on a counter.
I think they’re dealing with some kind of design failure where they haven’t accounted for display stresses in the newer thinner screens but they’ll never, ever, admit to it. That would open them up to replacement liability and drive them out of business.
If you do buy one of their newer devices I strongly encourage you to buy a 2-3y aftermarket warranty with it otherwise it seems like you have a decent chance of just being shafted at random.
They are in China and I am in the US. It is not worth my time. My best recourse is to spread the word so others aren’t burned as well.
I appreciate it. I’m trying to find an ereader now and I can cross them off the list. I wish I had leapt on the Pine64 one while it was in stock but I desired the color screens too much.
I have been happy with my Kobo Libra Colour I picked up after the terrible experience with Boox. I wish a phone sized option was available from Kobo but I have been enjoying the option to use a stylus more than I expected.
Oh yeah, I’m not saying you did anything wrong I’m just telling people to protect themselves when they buy their products.
They make nice eink devices, they just have a tendency to implode fairly often so definitely have buyer protection for a couple of years if you’re going to spend on one.
There’s really nothing you can do to go after them either, I doubt they have enough of a presence in the US to make a small claim worthwhile.
I’d you bought yours with a credit card take a peek at your card agreement and see if you have any coverage for electronics purchases. You might have coverage for 1-2y for phones, tablets, computers, etc and could make a claim through your CC company.
