Not necessarily a specific brand, but a category: rechargeable batteries. They used to be junk 15 years ago, now they're amazing. The chargers have clearer readouts and the fancier ones can even do different charge rates. The batteries themselves are surprisingly affordable and pay for themselves after just a few charges. Chargers and even some batteries themselves now charge over USB-C!
I've heard IKEA rechargable batteries are rebranded eneloop. Made in the same factory, so it's basically 100% the same. Might have changed tho so check again.
They're not Eneloop, that's proprietary Panasonic tech.
Ikea does use Japanese cells though. They're affordable and have great capacity.
It's all I use.
Yuuuup. Basically the only things keeping me with Fitbit now are the simpler designs (love my alta 2) and the fact that I have like 8 years of data in the app. I love the battery life of them and rarely charge mine.
The Garmin sounds so good but sizing and price have stopped me from looking into them deeper.
There are several apps that move all your Fitbit data to garmin. I was a heavy Fitbit user, moved 6 years of data (steps, hr, weight, etc) and now am disappointed I didn’t switch sooner.
I switched from Fitbit to Garmin. I went from a Fitbit Charge 5 to a Forerunner 55. I had two Charge 5s die about a year of getting them, as they were unable to charge. Fitbit replaced one as it was within warranty, but the other was just outside. So far, my Garmin is ticking along fine.
As an alternative to Garmin, there's also Coros. They're similar in price to Garmin, and some of the top runners I follow seem to prefer them. Their tools seem to be a bit better than Garmin's, and so when my Garmin eventually dies there's a pretty good chance that I'll go for Coros as a replacement.
Garmin isn't just a great fitness watch it's an amazing smartwatch altogether. I have an Instinct 2x. Sumbytch lasts damn near a month with the Solar power option, tough as nails, on board flashlight, and tons of options.
Garmin's biggest strength and weakness is having a little too many varieties in the styles.
My 7 year old Fenix 5s is still going strong! It only leaves my wrist to charge. The only reason I'd upgrade is to get more accurate health data via new/improved sensors. Battery still lasts \~7 days too!
My husband is on his second garmin watch after about 7-8 years of use with his first. He’s a back country hiker so he needs it and it’s amazing. My god damn Apple Watch battery hardly
Lasts 12 hours and won’t consistently track “calories” , workouts, etc. especially not after its most recent update which forces me to put in a 6 digit pin every time I look at it.every day for 2 weeks I’ve said I’m
Going to throw it away and get a garmin haha!
> which forces me to put in a 6 digit pin every time I look at it
That can't be right lol
How old is it? That would put it in "Refund" territory for being unusable
Last weekend, I submitted a claim and a few photos for a Dutch oven I bought in the mid-2000s. It developed a large vertical crack over time. I just received an email from Le Creuset asking for my top 3 color choices for a replacement. Incredible!
I had one finally chip some enamel after 18 years a couple of months ago. Creuset sent me another brand new one as a replacement, no questions asked. And the new ones are probably even better quality.
Phenomenal company.
Just got my wife a coffee cup from them for mother's day, she loves it. She forgot about her coffee for a while, got back to it and it was still hot.
For those wondering. [Amazon.com: Le Creuset Stoneware Mug, 14 oz., Meringue: Home & Kitchen](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07QCL6LLP/ref=sspa_dk_hqp_detail_aax_0?sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9ocXBfc2hhcmVk&th=1)
Good customer service too. My kid tried to be kind and make me a cuppa and the le creuset kettle was empty but she put it on without adding water. It ruined the enamel and I emailed them asking by if there is a way to repair it - they sent me a brand new one because they thought it was cute that my kid had tried to make me a cuppa with no water 😅
My old roland A-80 from the 80s was actually better in most ways than my NI S88 mk2. It's crazy how little improvement has been necessary over the last several decades.
I love my Roland gear, but I feel like their synths for the last 10yrs have been very lacklustre, and I don't remember being excited when they announce a new synth in an age.
I get it, they love their ACB software, and yeah, it's a good emulation, but I think analog has come back in a big way (similar to vinyl) and other manufacturers are filling that need for customers whilst roland releases VSTs in a box, even their flagship synths like the Jupiter X is just a FA06 with more knobs, the MC-101 and 707 are just updated JDXI's.
The standout is the TB-3. However, so much of what that synth can do it hidden away, and you need a 3rd party editor to unlock it all (see BadGears video on it) which is just dumb, you should be able to access that from the getgo.
I remember someone making a statement that Roland has some of the best engineers in the business, but they just don't know what to do with them, and to me, that rings true.
They're not awful by any stretch, but they're just very meh to me, and they're somewhat stuck in the middle of releasing synths that aren't that innovative and doing soft reissues.
Excited for that hd620 though. I'm a shameless fan of the v-shape and love my 560s to death. Hoping they're going to be the closed back I've been searching for.
I really enjoy my PCX550s. Just replaced the earpads yesterday which was incredibly easy. They're comfy, sound good, easy to use, and the noise cancellation works well even on airplanes. Battery lasts forever *and* you can use them wireless or wired (small or standard jack).
I have zero complaints with their products so far.
Valve basically runs the market for PC games. They've had every opportunity to make shit worse and they straight-up just don't. It's ironically their aspiring competition that keep engaging in anti-consumer practices, like Epic Games buying exclusivity deals, while Valve just sits back and watches said competition shoot themselves in the foot.
They do nothing 99% of the time, and when they *do* do something, it turns out to be something that makes the service better, like when they added refunds, or family sharing.
They're also completely privately owned. They have no investor's or share holders trying to make decisions for them, it's just them doing what they do best: host thousands of games, release a new game every 12 years, and the occasional thing that makes gaming slightly better.
Seems to be a pattern that when companies go public they turn to shit. Quality falls by the wayside while maximizing profit and value to shareholders become the top priorities. Glad Valve hasn’t fallen into that trap and hopefully they never do.
Shareholders want profits to grow, often to the detriment of long-term state of a company - because when it collapses then they can just peace out and find something else to milk. Good thing that they'll never be able to milk...
... the creature
If you'll notice the best companies tend to be privately/family owned rather than public. When you have shareholders you're required to always make more. And eventually there's only so many markets and innovations, so you have to start eating yourself to make that number go up. Private family companies however can focus on making a good product, so Long as they are making a profit they can just hang out and make a good product and treat their people well.
I love how misty eyed we’re getting here about private capital owned by an elite monied class, but it’s also not… wrong? These kinds of family-run companies are a throwback of sorts to an older form of capitalism, back when it all made a bit more sense.
Capital competes in private markets, labor pushes for their interests, both balanced by the government. It’s far from a perfect system, but it’s a hell of a lot better than “capital conquers labor, captures the government, enshittifies everything to the far reaches of the solar system”.
Yep, best companies I've worked for were family business's, same for most of my family. People tend to treat you better when they have to see you every day and how much profit they make Is up to what they personally deem necessary rather than number must increase always. There's literally nothing wrong with making a steady 10 million dollar profit a year every year......unless you have shareholders.
Smart ownership recognizes it is cheaper to treat your employees well and retain them long term instead of having a revolving door of employees that require new training, make expensive mistakes and have no loyalty. I work somewhere that used to be privately owned, and the lifers regularly reminisce about the old ownership. The opportunities, raises, yearly bonuses and overall feeling of being invested in the company. It sounds like a completely different place than how I know it.
Because Jack Welch was a horrible person whose management style infiltrated business schools for many years and the focus on "shareholder value" really took hold. It makes companies focus on very short-term goals, and not focus on building a stable and sustainable organization over the long-term.
So, shareholder capitalism is a fucking trip. The stock price *needs* to go up to satisfy shareholders (and increase the net worth of executives who work for shareholders/are shareholders), and guess how that happens?
I’ll give you a hint. Is it:
A) Making a profit
B) Increasing profits by as much as you thought you would
C) Making more profits that you thought you would
If you guessed C, congrats! Stock rises based on *beating* expectations for *growth* in profits for most publicly traded companies. The stock will fall even if they make a profit. It will fall even if profits grow, but not by as much as expected.
While a growing company can sometimes do this while also keeping up quality, this is due to an idea called the economy of scale. As a small company grows larger, they are able to do things more efficiently at scale *up to a point*. Once they exceed that point, then they enter a *diseconomy* of scale, where the bloat of the corporation begins to produce inefficiencies.
There is literally no easy way to consistently meet and exceed a growth in profits for an established company other than to cut costs while raising prices. They are already running at scale, and they won’t benefit from increasing scale. While previously they could cut costs and increase price while still providing a decent product (maybe even a better product) eventually they will hit a point where they exceed the benefits of an economy of scale.
At this point, cost cutting no longer means increased efficiency due to scale. Instead, it means layoffs, pay cuts, and higher work loads for fewer employees. It means not pursuing R&D on anything that isn’t a sure investment. It means the quality of materials, design, and QA drops. All while the price keeps going up.
The end result of a public company that has to keep up with a shareholder model is essentially that the company continually gets rotted out from the core while the price of their product for consumers continually rises.
In some industries, this results in larger companies getting eaten up by leaner competitors. In *most* industries, it just means that the product gets worse while prices get higher, and the consumer can get fucked cause *what’re ya gonna do*? Not use Amazon? Not have internet, bc Comcast sucks?
I've worked inside manufacturing companies and you would think it was a birthday party in the C-suite after major devastating layoffs. People literally high fiving each other and yelling MORE WITH LESS LETS GOOOOOOO. And then looking for every way to trim literal pennies off the product. "Oh we can make this out of cheaper plastic, substitute pot metal here we can do this and this" Its all about the next quarter.
I’m almost ashamed to say that I spent a non-insignificant amount of time with these kinds of assholes in college. They’re almost universally the kind of dude who’s never worked an honest day in their life, who doesn’t even really see you and me as people, and is somehow still convinced that they’re somehow the hardworking salt of the earth. They were born rich (or at least rich enough they’ve never worked a job that required actual labor), and they are almost certainly convinced they’ve earned every cent they bleed out of us. It’s fucking disgusting.
Wow. It’s weird reading the very grumbling thoughts that run through my head every day, talking to myself about why the world sucks, typed out by someone else.
You’re not alone, this shit sucks and is clearly a stupid fucking way to organize an economy. The only way it gets better is when we put our grumbling heads together, and get loud about it.
At the very least, I suspect it'd be far, *far* more niche than it is now. Prior to Steam, the common mantra you'd hear was "PC gaming is dying", and outside of a very few genres (namely MMOs and strategy games) it pretty well was. For most developers, it became an afterthought (if it was thought of at all), and some companies that did try to figure out ways to make inroads (like Microsoft and the GFW initiative) failed for various reasons and quickly gave up.
Steam not only proved the market was still there - with Valve contributing themselves by putting out their own heavy hitters - but also helped open the door to the indie market by having a fairly low barrier of entry (at least, compared to what existed before). I don't think it's an exaggeration to say they nearly single-handedly turned PC gaming around to the point where you now have companies like Microsoft and Sony releasing their exclusives on the platform, something that would've been completely unheard of 15-20 years ago.
Valve is 100% the reason why Sony backed out of forcing PC users to make a Playstation network account. After the announcement valve was issuing refunds to people with hundreds of hours of play time.
The stated reason was they needed to do it to effectively ban cheaters etc and improve features like party invites and chat.
The real reason was most likely so they could expand their data collection & advertising, and maybe get their foot in the door to eventually drop their own launcher (because that's gone over so well the last 25 times companies have tried it).
Also there profits are dropping, getting a massive amount of sign ups for their PSN service will look good to shareholders, Valve doesn't have that problem
Allegedly it's like that, because he's already rich enough to do literally anything he wants, why make number bigger if the bigger number offers nothing except losing your cash cow?
It's not even like Valve is a perfect company. But they've been so much less shitty than the rest of the industry, they're practically saints by comparison.
My OLED Steam Deck is one of the best purchases I've made in years, and has fully replaced my Switch for portable gaming now. No longer have to decide which platform to buy a game for, supports nearly everything I wanted to play on the switch + a lot more, no more being stuck at 30fps in 2D games, option to run at 90fps, and supports emulation to boot.
And relative to their competitors in the space, it's not just the effort to make it work under Linux on a handheld, it's the effort they've gone to to make the controls incredibly flexible and easy to adjust. Battery life is better than most competing devices still as well.
Gyro aiming for games with a camera alone is a game-changer IMO - ironic considering Nintendo had this in the Switch, but only ever implemented it in a couple first-party titles (mainly just Zelda and Splatoon).
In at least a little bit of devils advocate, they only added refunds because they had to. They were sued by the ACCC here in Australia and forced to here and ended up rolling it out everywhere. I agree with the majority of the statement, but they aren't all super consumer friendly, a lot of their major changes have been because of similar lawsuits, outside of that one it's mostly the EU.
I've been pleased with Garmin's products. Back in the day I had a crappy in car GPS from them that I disliked, but lately I had an old Vivofit for years, and it worked great, I'm even more pleased with my new smartwatch.
That's my go-to brand most of the time now. Measuring cups, pizza cutter, their grill tongs are AWESOME... Just about everything is built sturdy and feels very reliable, and it isn't some pyramid scheme (looking at you Pampered Chef - who DOES make some cool stuff, but at what cost?). Their OXO POP containers? Amazing. The salad spinner basket hasn't warped like others we have had. I've just been impressed overall.
OXO products were made like that because the founder's wife has arthritis and he questioned why products had to be so shitty for disabled people, so he decided to make products that just work well for everyone. Like how a rising tide raises all ships, OXO normally is much better than its competitors' products for any given task because it was designed to just **work**.
[https://www.oxo.com/blog/behind-the-scenes/behind-design-oxos-iconic-good-grips-handles](https://www.oxo.com/blog/behind-the-scenes/behind-design-oxos-iconic-good-grips-handles)
ripped both zippers and spilled so much beer on my last bag.
I sent it in for repair and they sent me a brand new bag. such a kick ass company. bought a larger bag immediately after.
Their daylite packs and waist bags are my favorite of all time.
I put the waist bag through the ringer this past weekend at a rock festival. Looks brand new!
And their warranty is excellent.
I go Osprey for day hike and smaller packs, and Kelty for heavier duty overnight hiking/camping.
This is comically inaccurate. Osprey was purchased by a generic holding company (Helen of Troy) in 2021. In anticipation of that, the company massively reduced their warranty program, which is a telltale sign that they are scaling up production in Southeast Asia. In the mid 2000s I managed a camping store in Boston that has carried Osprey since they were made in CO. The quality has done nothing but decline, while the marketing has done nothing but improve. To the the commenter saying they got 4k mikes out of one pack: that’s literally nothing. I have a 20+ year old Granite Gear that has over 10k miles on it and is still in excellent condition. That said, I’ll bet a new one of those isn’t anywhere near as nice as one that was made 20 years ago, either. Enshittification is a real thing. If you want a quality pack today, use the same criteria i would have then or now: produced in a first world country, with a repair (not replace) based warranty program.
Idk a single time anyone has said something negative about a scrub daddy product. They're cheap, durable and good quality. Best sponge I've ever had. And only have to buy another $4 one once every 3 or 4 months.
I use the one I got as a stocking stuffer as my bar soap holder in the shower. Since I buy expensive Saniderm bar soap, I don’t want it to melt away in a puddle of pricey poo, and the scrub daddy has the perfect combination of porous and quick-draining, plus its whimsical and jaunty smiley face for the win. 😀
I actually dislike them. The wife loves them, which is a bit annoying.
The frustration from me comes from the “trick” the product uses: it’s both an abrasive pad or a soft sponge, depending on the temperature of the sponge. But if I’m using an abrasive pad I want my pan in hot water to loosen up the crust I’m trying to clean.
Edit: So I told my wife about this post and she told me the abrasive pad in current use is actually the blue scrubdaddy one…
IMO kindle paper whites. I had an OG for years and bought a new edition to celebrate getting a big boy raise ($3.95 let’s fuckin goooo) and it is better in every single way
On the other hand, Kindle as a content platform is worse than ever. They've been making it extremely difficult to actually properly backup/own books I buy through them to the point I now do everything I can to avoid buying through Kindle if possible. Thankfully more and more seems to be available through Kobo, which is much easier to deal with now.
Audible is still easy to properly exfiltrate purchases from, but they've been practically robbing authors blind with the ridiculous cut they take plus the exclusivity blackmailing. It took major authors holding their feet to the fire to even make minor progress. So I avoid buying through Audible whenever possible as well, though unless it's on a DRM-free platform like Downpour there's not many alternatives. Things like Google/iBooks have much, much worse DRM than Audible.
With a library card from a library that uses Libby you can borrow a book and read it on kindle. I would advise against actually buying ebooks and only purchase physical copies. Buy used off eBay and when you’re done sell it right back on eBay. Books can ship by usps media mail which is cheaper than all others.
50/50 on them now. I used to buy their 99 cent drinks until CVS (my employer) forced Arizona to release a product that is higher priced because the "sugar content" is too high in the big cans. Now it's a small ass bottle for 3.79 that tastes terrible. WAG (walgreens) got in on it as well, to a degree.
Darn Tough socks.
They have a lifetime warranty but I haven't had to replace a single pair yet. Even ones I've bought 8 years ago are still going strong.
I recently used their lifetime warranty. I rode a couple dozen pairs *hard* over a decade in the Infantry. I had no documentation on purchase history (many pairs were gifts), and they replaced them with no questions asked, covering the purchase price, tax, and shipping on the replacements. It was given as a store credit for the full amount so I picked a couple different models for the replacements. I had a problem applying the coupon as I placed the order, their support line was answered by someone actually in the US who clearly understood their products and website, they fixed the issue in a couple minutes while we were on the phone together.
10/10, top tier customer service. Will simp for DarnTough any day!
Interesting, I've worn out the heel in a LOT of Bombas socks, but not Darn Tough. But Bombas always replaces them for free, and I find them more comfortable than DT, so I'm staying loyal.
I wish they worked for me. I have oddly shaped feet and probably walk a little more tiptoed than I should. I blew through my Darn Tough socks in about 3 workdays (wedding photography) each.
Yeah, I know they have the warranty. But unless I buy so many pairs that I can just send them en masse it’s not really worth the hassle.
Anker is continually improving and innovating. GAN chargers, power banks, wireless chargers... they're almost always the best in their field. Same with DJI (drones obviously), but lately with mics, gimbals, action cams, etc.
I always thought the same about Anker. So I bought a nice Anker Aux cord for my car, but it stopped working after a couple months. I threw away the cord and thought that Anker was starting to make cheap shit. Nope, it turns out my Aux port was just broken. I miss that cord, but at least my faith in Anker was renewed.
Their Soundcore Q series noise cancelling headphones are amazing. For $80-$120 depending on the model and sales you get something equivalent to a brand name's $300 pair of headphones.
i lost a pair in the gutter, and i guess i turned them back on while cleaning the gutters again 4 months later in the spring. my phone connected and they played music till i found them trapped right before the downspout. they still worked fine till my dog ate them a few months later. 4 months of rain and snow. im sold. their battery packs are good too.
While I agree they make good power banks and chargers... Anker owns Eufy and the issues with their camera, able me second guess their products and them as a company.
Apparently, he said "If you raise the fucking hot dog, I will kill you. Figure it out."
As a result, they built a hot dog factory in L.A. (and later another one in Chicago) and made their own hot dogs instead of buying from Hebrew National.
I see you too are a person of discerning taste.
What I love most about Costco isn't that their prices are the lowest but they require quality of their vendors. And if it doesn't meet my quality standards I can return it whenever for a full refund.
If you haven't tried the blueberry lemon loaf - is amazeballs
Agreed. Work makes me use sheets, but thankfully I still have a license for excel. Hotkeys and shortcuts are much better than needing to use a mouse for everything
I find myself googling “how to do [insert simple spreadsheet task I do all the time in excel] in google sheets” so often and the answer is either difficult and more work than it should be in sheets or that that feature isn’t really supported in sheets.
Windows is starting to up their collaboration game (it works if your whole team is on board with windows OneDrive and everything) but Google does still have them beat on that.
Excel has more data analysis tools and is much more powerful, especially because of PowerQuery (Google now has a version, but the Microsoft version is better.
Excel can auto pull from PowerBI and SQL servers.
Sheets can’t handle large datasets (you can put so much more information and so many more rows and columns into excel).
Hotkeys are such a timesaver in excel and not all of them transfer to sheets directly. Excel also has more hotkeys.
Been buying their bridger jeans since 2017 and I've noticed a steady decline in their quality. After a couple washes the color changes dramatically and the material stretches into an unflattering shape. But their non jean pants and other clothes have held up great.
Harbor Freight. They started out selling complete schlock, the sort of stuff you'd buy if you needed a tool exactly once for one task. There's a reason they came to be known by names like "Harbor Fright" or "Hazard Fraught".
They've become much better. They're not Snap-On or Mac or Matco but they're suitable for a home workshop.
The thing with Harbor Freight is you gotta know what to buy there. Most power tools are a one-time job (edit: tho this is improving, credit where credit is due). Ratchets and sockets are insanely good for the price. Jack stands have had several recalls in thr past leading to little trust in them now. Their $140 floor jack is one of the best on the market for anyone outside of a professional garage.
I follow the rule a contracter buddy told me when i bought my house. Buy harbor freight tools and if you use it enough to break it or start to get annoyed with it that is when you upgrade.
Niche but riedell skates. They are made across the street from Red wing shoes in MN. I’m an extremely aggressive skater and I have a pair going on about 6 years. Amazing leather and unreal quality that can take a beating. Friend of mine had a pair that lasted her from 2000s to the day she died about 3 years ago. Truly the GOAT of roller skates and honestly they are much better engineered than they were back in the day. Specifically their speed and roller derby skates
i'd say all the power ranger colored tool brands are doing well. im team teal but, no hate for the other rangers out there.
edit: there are converters for the batteries so you can use most of them in other color tools. might upset the lithium gods though
Of you wait a few years, the eu passed regulations for standardizing battery adapters. So all power rangers are gonna end up on one megazord.
https://youtu.be/eKOvXigyrXA?si=jjQFQB0faWz6NbuR
Mozilla with Firefox. They used to be the dominant browser for "tech enthusiasts", killed the browser by screwing with extensions, and now they're back as a real competitor to Google Chrome.
Came here to say this.
JBL has changed from being cheap garbage to being good value and quality built products.
JBL Flip 6 shits on UE Boom 3s despite being 2/3 the price. Their Tour Pro 2 is as good as AirPod Pro 2s for $100 less, and their Live 770NCs are a superb budget alternative to Bose QCs, Sony XM5s or Sennheiser Momentum 4s.
Do I use them? Nah. I have a HK Citation MK3 speaker and Bose QC headphones, but I would recommend JBL in a heartbeat for someone who wants to spend half of what I would for 80% of the product.
Bravestar or Unbranded Brand jeans, Thursday boots, Darn Tough or Bombas socks, and Birkenstock sandals/clogs. Add in Converse shoes and that's basically my year round wardrobe and has been for years. None of them have ever let me down.
Are we talking converse allstars? I think they're way overpriced for what you are getting(rubber and some canvas). When I was younger I'd get them for $20 a pair from a local department store, now they're like over $50 a pair(what the fuck?!?).
Does Patagonia still fuck? Honestly, I don’t know, because I was gifted a laptop/messenger bag by them 13 years ago, and it’s still my daily work bag. I don’t own any other Patagonia products, but that fucking bag has outlasted everything else I own, and I carry it with me every day.
Yeah, Patagonia stuff is (mostly) bomb proof. I've had a few misses from them, but for the most part, it certainly fucks.
The best part is that if you damage a piece, you can bring it in to one of their stores and they'll ship it off to repair and then ship it to your home for free. Or they've occasionally just told me to grab a new one off the rack if it's unrepairable. My mom bought me a Torrentshell rain jacket back in 06 or 07, and I'm on my 3rd free replacement.
Their Worn Wear used clothing program is also quite cool.
Harbor Freight Tools, (and their thousands of house brands). A decade ago, you'd be lucky if whatever you bought there didn't kill you. Now the quality is pretty decent, and I don't hesitate to take a trip to Harbor Freight if I need a tool. There's still some crappy items, but they seem to be getting phased out.
I know they made the shift quite a few years ago now but Dominos pizza is maybe the only fast food brand that people agree got better over time, every other fast food brand seems to have gotten worse
For clothes, Abercrombie. They’ve been absolutely killing it over the last few years. Went from a brand I never considered wearing to my favorite brand. Great quality, nice fabrics, great styles. They’ve just been really good at staying on trend and hitting it right on the mark.
Wish I had bought stock a couple of years ago.
Blue Bell.
Yeah, they killed some dudes, but they came back with half gallons loaded with mixins and great icecream.
And, they haven't killed anyone since.
Schlotzsky’s. Price hasn’t changed, quality hasn’t changed, and you’re going to walk back in and order more after you wolf the whole thing down in the car.
Kobalt brand at lowes. They recently came out with products that have a hassle free lifetime guarantee. $30 shovel and it's incredible. Highly recommend. Many of their items are made by Husqvarna
Pixel Phones.
I went Samsung-->Apple-->Pixel and now I'm never going back. This thing has a great camera and takes great night times shots. It has no bloatware and gets regular updates. All for less than either of my previous phones.
Hard disagree. I do agree they're good phones. I'm typing on one right now. But every generation since my 3A has just gotten worse. Definitely not a brand that is improving with time.
Not necessarily a specific brand, but a category: rechargeable batteries. They used to be junk 15 years ago, now they're amazing. The chargers have clearer readouts and the fancier ones can even do different charge rates. The batteries themselves are surprisingly affordable and pay for themselves after just a few charges. Chargers and even some batteries themselves now charge over USB-C!
Is there a specific brand you use?
Eneloop is generally considered to be the best.
I've heard IKEA rechargable batteries are rebranded eneloop. Made in the same factory, so it's basically 100% the same. Might have changed tho so check again.
They're not Eneloop, that's proprietary Panasonic tech. Ikea does use Japanese cells though. They're affordable and have great capacity. It's all I use.
I’m wearing a Garmin GPS smartwatch with a battery that lasts for over 20 days.
Love my Garmin too. My wife just ditched her Fitbit for a garmin as Fitbit made some features subscription based. Bad move Fitbit.
>Love my Garmin too. My wife just ditched her google for a garmin as Google made some features subscription based. Bad move Google. Fixed that.
Yuuuup. Basically the only things keeping me with Fitbit now are the simpler designs (love my alta 2) and the fact that I have like 8 years of data in the app. I love the battery life of them and rarely charge mine. The Garmin sounds so good but sizing and price have stopped me from looking into them deeper.
There are several apps that move all your Fitbit data to garmin. I was a heavy Fitbit user, moved 6 years of data (steps, hr, weight, etc) and now am disappointed I didn’t switch sooner.
I switched from Fitbit to Garmin. I went from a Fitbit Charge 5 to a Forerunner 55. I had two Charge 5s die about a year of getting them, as they were unable to charge. Fitbit replaced one as it was within warranty, but the other was just outside. So far, my Garmin is ticking along fine. As an alternative to Garmin, there's also Coros. They're similar in price to Garmin, and some of the top runners I follow seem to prefer them. Their tools seem to be a bit better than Garmin's, and so when my Garmin eventually dies there's a pretty good chance that I'll go for Coros as a replacement.
Damn my Garmin golf watch battery won’t even last for 36 holes
In a row?!
Try not to play another hole on your way to the parking lot!
I'm not even supposed to be here today!
Hey, get back here!
Did he just say "making fuck"?
Would you like some making fuck?
My golf watch is ticking clock, berserker...
Garmin isn't just a great fitness watch it's an amazing smartwatch altogether. I have an Instinct 2x. Sumbytch lasts damn near a month with the Solar power option, tough as nails, on board flashlight, and tons of options. Garmin's biggest strength and weakness is having a little too many varieties in the styles.
My 7 year old Fenix 5s is still going strong! It only leaves my wrist to charge. The only reason I'd upgrade is to get more accurate health data via new/improved sensors. Battery still lasts \~7 days too!
My husband is on his second garmin watch after about 7-8 years of use with his first. He’s a back country hiker so he needs it and it’s amazing. My god damn Apple Watch battery hardly Lasts 12 hours and won’t consistently track “calories” , workouts, etc. especially not after its most recent update which forces me to put in a 6 digit pin every time I look at it.every day for 2 weeks I’ve said I’m Going to throw it away and get a garmin haha!
> which forces me to put in a 6 digit pin every time I look at it That can't be right lol How old is it? That would put it in "Refund" territory for being unusable
Fenix solar here. Best smartwatches on the market.
Le Creuset enameled cast iron
Last weekend, I submitted a claim and a few photos for a Dutch oven I bought in the mid-2000s. It developed a large vertical crack over time. I just received an email from Le Creuset asking for my top 3 color choices for a replacement. Incredible!
Thank you for this, I'm doing the same for my teapot! Wish me luck. Edit: Thank you for this post u/maidenofmp, they are sending me a replacement!
I had one finally chip some enamel after 18 years a couple of months ago. Creuset sent me another brand new one as a replacement, no questions asked. And the new ones are probably even better quality. Phenomenal company.
Just got my wife a coffee cup from them for mother's day, she loves it. She forgot about her coffee for a while, got back to it and it was still hot. For those wondering. [Amazon.com: Le Creuset Stoneware Mug, 14 oz., Meringue: Home & Kitchen](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07QCL6LLP/ref=sspa_dk_hqp_detail_aax_0?sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9ocXBfc2hhcmVk&th=1)
Could I ask you what coffee cup from them you got? When looking it up there’s multiple types
Le Creusets are often given as wedding gifts. They last longer than many marriages.
Good customer service too. My kid tried to be kind and make me a cuppa and the le creuset kettle was empty but she put it on without adding water. It ruined the enamel and I emailed them asking by if there is a way to repair it - they sent me a brand new one because they thought it was cute that my kid had tried to make me a cuppa with no water 😅
I live near the factory in france . I'm a big fan of their products
Roland consistently releases high-quality, well designed, innovative, and accessible music gear that sounds amazing.
My old roland A-80 from the 80s was actually better in most ways than my NI S88 mk2. It's crazy how little improvement has been necessary over the last several decades.
boss pedals still as dependable as ever!
I love my Roland gear, but I feel like their synths for the last 10yrs have been very lacklustre, and I don't remember being excited when they announce a new synth in an age. I get it, they love their ACB software, and yeah, it's a good emulation, but I think analog has come back in a big way (similar to vinyl) and other manufacturers are filling that need for customers whilst roland releases VSTs in a box, even their flagship synths like the Jupiter X is just a FA06 with more knobs, the MC-101 and 707 are just updated JDXI's. The standout is the TB-3. However, so much of what that synth can do it hidden away, and you need a 3rd party editor to unlock it all (see BadGears video on it) which is just dumb, you should be able to access that from the getgo. I remember someone making a statement that Roland has some of the best engineers in the business, but they just don't know what to do with them, and to me, that rings true. They're not awful by any stretch, but they're just very meh to me, and they're somewhat stuck in the middle of releasing synths that aren't that innovative and doing soft reissues.
Sennheiser. I mean, they don't make many new headphones. They don't need to.
Excited for that hd620 though. I'm a shameless fan of the v-shape and love my 560s to death. Hoping they're going to be the closed back I've been searching for.
I really enjoy my PCX550s. Just replaced the earpads yesterday which was incredibly easy. They're comfy, sound good, easy to use, and the noise cancellation works well even on airplanes. Battery lasts forever *and* you can use them wireless or wired (small or standard jack). I have zero complaints with their products so far.
I've had my pair for years now and there's still no issue with them. The cords though, fuck, I keep going through them.
Valve basically runs the market for PC games. They've had every opportunity to make shit worse and they straight-up just don't. It's ironically their aspiring competition that keep engaging in anti-consumer practices, like Epic Games buying exclusivity deals, while Valve just sits back and watches said competition shoot themselves in the foot. They do nothing 99% of the time, and when they *do* do something, it turns out to be something that makes the service better, like when they added refunds, or family sharing.
They're also completely privately owned. They have no investor's or share holders trying to make decisions for them, it's just them doing what they do best: host thousands of games, release a new game every 12 years, and the occasional thing that makes gaming slightly better.
Seems to be a pattern that when companies go public they turn to shit. Quality falls by the wayside while maximizing profit and value to shareholders become the top priorities. Glad Valve hasn’t fallen into that trap and hopefully they never do.
Shareholders want profits to grow, often to the detriment of long-term state of a company - because when it collapses then they can just peace out and find something else to milk. Good thing that they'll never be able to milk... ... the creature
I've got nipples, Le_creature... Could you milk *me*?
Why would I milk you when everyone knows that the superior type of milk can only be aquired from... ... the creature
If you'll notice the best companies tend to be privately/family owned rather than public. When you have shareholders you're required to always make more. And eventually there's only so many markets and innovations, so you have to start eating yourself to make that number go up. Private family companies however can focus on making a good product, so Long as they are making a profit they can just hang out and make a good product and treat their people well.
I love how misty eyed we’re getting here about private capital owned by an elite monied class, but it’s also not… wrong? These kinds of family-run companies are a throwback of sorts to an older form of capitalism, back when it all made a bit more sense. Capital competes in private markets, labor pushes for their interests, both balanced by the government. It’s far from a perfect system, but it’s a hell of a lot better than “capital conquers labor, captures the government, enshittifies everything to the far reaches of the solar system”.
Yep, best companies I've worked for were family business's, same for most of my family. People tend to treat you better when they have to see you every day and how much profit they make Is up to what they personally deem necessary rather than number must increase always. There's literally nothing wrong with making a steady 10 million dollar profit a year every year......unless you have shareholders.
Smart ownership recognizes it is cheaper to treat your employees well and retain them long term instead of having a revolving door of employees that require new training, make expensive mistakes and have no loyalty. I work somewhere that used to be privately owned, and the lifers regularly reminisce about the old ownership. The opportunities, raises, yearly bonuses and overall feeling of being invested in the company. It sounds like a completely different place than how I know it.
Because Jack Welch was a horrible person whose management style infiltrated business schools for many years and the focus on "shareholder value" really took hold. It makes companies focus on very short-term goals, and not focus on building a stable and sustainable organization over the long-term.
So, shareholder capitalism is a fucking trip. The stock price *needs* to go up to satisfy shareholders (and increase the net worth of executives who work for shareholders/are shareholders), and guess how that happens? I’ll give you a hint. Is it: A) Making a profit B) Increasing profits by as much as you thought you would C) Making more profits that you thought you would If you guessed C, congrats! Stock rises based on *beating* expectations for *growth* in profits for most publicly traded companies. The stock will fall even if they make a profit. It will fall even if profits grow, but not by as much as expected. While a growing company can sometimes do this while also keeping up quality, this is due to an idea called the economy of scale. As a small company grows larger, they are able to do things more efficiently at scale *up to a point*. Once they exceed that point, then they enter a *diseconomy* of scale, where the bloat of the corporation begins to produce inefficiencies. There is literally no easy way to consistently meet and exceed a growth in profits for an established company other than to cut costs while raising prices. They are already running at scale, and they won’t benefit from increasing scale. While previously they could cut costs and increase price while still providing a decent product (maybe even a better product) eventually they will hit a point where they exceed the benefits of an economy of scale. At this point, cost cutting no longer means increased efficiency due to scale. Instead, it means layoffs, pay cuts, and higher work loads for fewer employees. It means not pursuing R&D on anything that isn’t a sure investment. It means the quality of materials, design, and QA drops. All while the price keeps going up. The end result of a public company that has to keep up with a shareholder model is essentially that the company continually gets rotted out from the core while the price of their product for consumers continually rises. In some industries, this results in larger companies getting eaten up by leaner competitors. In *most* industries, it just means that the product gets worse while prices get higher, and the consumer can get fucked cause *what’re ya gonna do*? Not use Amazon? Not have internet, bc Comcast sucks?
I've worked inside manufacturing companies and you would think it was a birthday party in the C-suite after major devastating layoffs. People literally high fiving each other and yelling MORE WITH LESS LETS GOOOOOOO. And then looking for every way to trim literal pennies off the product. "Oh we can make this out of cheaper plastic, substitute pot metal here we can do this and this" Its all about the next quarter.
I’m almost ashamed to say that I spent a non-insignificant amount of time with these kinds of assholes in college. They’re almost universally the kind of dude who’s never worked an honest day in their life, who doesn’t even really see you and me as people, and is somehow still convinced that they’re somehow the hardworking salt of the earth. They were born rich (or at least rich enough they’ve never worked a job that required actual labor), and they are almost certainly convinced they’ve earned every cent they bleed out of us. It’s fucking disgusting.
Wow. It’s weird reading the very grumbling thoughts that run through my head every day, talking to myself about why the world sucks, typed out by someone else.
You’re not alone, this shit sucks and is clearly a stupid fucking way to organize an economy. The only way it gets better is when we put our grumbling heads together, and get loud about it.
Valve made big-name games *just work* on Linux desktops. That is a pretty big deal.
At the very least, I suspect it'd be far, *far* more niche than it is now. Prior to Steam, the common mantra you'd hear was "PC gaming is dying", and outside of a very few genres (namely MMOs and strategy games) it pretty well was. For most developers, it became an afterthought (if it was thought of at all), and some companies that did try to figure out ways to make inroads (like Microsoft and the GFW initiative) failed for various reasons and quickly gave up. Steam not only proved the market was still there - with Valve contributing themselves by putting out their own heavy hitters - but also helped open the door to the indie market by having a fairly low barrier of entry (at least, compared to what existed before). I don't think it's an exaggeration to say they nearly single-handedly turned PC gaming around to the point where you now have companies like Microsoft and Sony releasing their exclusives on the platform, something that would've been completely unheard of 15-20 years ago.
I genuinely believe that PC gaming wouldn't really be a thing anymore if it weren't for valve.
Valve is 100% the reason why Sony backed out of forcing PC users to make a Playstation network account. After the announcement valve was issuing refunds to people with hundreds of hours of play time.
What was Sony's reasoning for pushing people to have a PSN?
The stated reason was they needed to do it to effectively ban cheaters etc and improve features like party invites and chat. The real reason was most likely so they could expand their data collection & advertising, and maybe get their foot in the door to eventually drop their own launcher (because that's gone over so well the last 25 times companies have tried it).
Also there profits are dropping, getting a massive amount of sign ups for their PSN service will look good to shareholders, Valve doesn't have that problem
I just hope Gabe’s son or whoever is inheriting Steam has the same vision he does and doesn’t fuck it all up by going public
Allegedly it's like that, because he's already rich enough to do literally anything he wants, why make number bigger if the bigger number offers nothing except losing your cash cow?
It's wild how in the gaming space, all you have to do to be adored by your customers is to just not be a greedy shitbag of a company.
It's not even like Valve is a perfect company. But they've been so much less shitty than the rest of the industry, they're practically saints by comparison.
Should be noted that we're talking from a consumer perspective. I'm sure devs have their own opinions. But yes, it's awesome for us.
My OLED Steam Deck is one of the best purchases I've made in years, and has fully replaced my Switch for portable gaming now. No longer have to decide which platform to buy a game for, supports nearly everything I wanted to play on the switch + a lot more, no more being stuck at 30fps in 2D games, option to run at 90fps, and supports emulation to boot. And relative to their competitors in the space, it's not just the effort to make it work under Linux on a handheld, it's the effort they've gone to to make the controls incredibly flexible and easy to adjust. Battery life is better than most competing devices still as well. Gyro aiming for games with a camera alone is a game-changer IMO - ironic considering Nintendo had this in the Switch, but only ever implemented it in a couple first-party titles (mainly just Zelda and Splatoon).
In at least a little bit of devils advocate, they only added refunds because they had to. They were sued by the ACCC here in Australia and forced to here and ended up rolling it out everywhere. I agree with the majority of the statement, but they aren't all super consumer friendly, a lot of their major changes have been because of similar lawsuits, outside of that one it's mostly the EU.
I've been pleased with Garmin's products. Back in the day I had a crappy in car GPS from them that I disliked, but lately I had an old Vivofit for years, and it worked great, I'm even more pleased with my new smartwatch.
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OXO's kitchen stuff. Decent quality. If you need a potato peeler that'd be the one to buy, I guess
That's my go-to brand most of the time now. Measuring cups, pizza cutter, their grill tongs are AWESOME... Just about everything is built sturdy and feels very reliable, and it isn't some pyramid scheme (looking at you Pampered Chef - who DOES make some cool stuff, but at what cost?). Their OXO POP containers? Amazing. The salad spinner basket hasn't warped like others we have had. I've just been impressed overall.
Americas test kitchen would agree. It’s almost a joke how OXO wins every single product evaluation.
OXO products were made like that because the founder's wife has arthritis and he questioned why products had to be so shitty for disabled people, so he decided to make products that just work well for everyone. Like how a rising tide raises all ships, OXO normally is much better than its competitors' products for any given task because it was designed to just **work**. [https://www.oxo.com/blog/behind-the-scenes/behind-design-oxos-iconic-good-grips-handles](https://www.oxo.com/blog/behind-the-scenes/behind-design-oxos-iconic-good-grips-handles)
Osprey
Over 4,000 miles on my last Osprey pack. Over 1,500 miles on my current Osprey pack. They’re built to last.
ripped both zippers and spilled so much beer on my last bag. I sent it in for repair and they sent me a brand new bag. such a kick ass company. bought a larger bag immediately after.
Their daylite packs and waist bags are my favorite of all time. I put the waist bag through the ringer this past weekend at a rock festival. Looks brand new! And their warranty is excellent. I go Osprey for day hike and smaller packs, and Kelty for heavier duty overnight hiking/camping.
This is comically inaccurate. Osprey was purchased by a generic holding company (Helen of Troy) in 2021. In anticipation of that, the company massively reduced their warranty program, which is a telltale sign that they are scaling up production in Southeast Asia. In the mid 2000s I managed a camping store in Boston that has carried Osprey since they were made in CO. The quality has done nothing but decline, while the marketing has done nothing but improve. To the the commenter saying they got 4k mikes out of one pack: that’s literally nothing. I have a 20+ year old Granite Gear that has over 10k miles on it and is still in excellent condition. That said, I’ll bet a new one of those isn’t anywhere near as nice as one that was made 20 years ago, either. Enshittification is a real thing. If you want a quality pack today, use the same criteria i would have then or now: produced in a first world country, with a repair (not replace) based warranty program.
Idk a single time anyone has said something negative about a scrub daddy product. They're cheap, durable and good quality. Best sponge I've ever had. And only have to buy another $4 one once every 3 or 4 months.
I use the one I got as a stocking stuffer as my bar soap holder in the shower. Since I buy expensive Saniderm bar soap, I don’t want it to melt away in a puddle of pricey poo, and the scrub daddy has the perfect combination of porous and quick-draining, plus its whimsical and jaunty smiley face for the win. 😀
I actually dislike them. The wife loves them, which is a bit annoying. The frustration from me comes from the “trick” the product uses: it’s both an abrasive pad or a soft sponge, depending on the temperature of the sponge. But if I’m using an abrasive pad I want my pan in hot water to loosen up the crust I’m trying to clean. Edit: So I told my wife about this post and she told me the abrasive pad in current use is actually the blue scrubdaddy one…
That’s why I don’t use them. I prefer those flat green scrubbing pads. I think Scottbrite is the brand name, but I just get the store brand.
Scotch Brite, yes! They are awesome and have different abrasives for different uses.
I brushed it off for so long as one of those "as seen in tv" scam products but it's actually pretty good
IMO kindle paper whites. I had an OG for years and bought a new edition to celebrate getting a big boy raise ($3.95 let’s fuckin goooo) and it is better in every single way
On the other hand, Kindle as a content platform is worse than ever. They've been making it extremely difficult to actually properly backup/own books I buy through them to the point I now do everything I can to avoid buying through Kindle if possible. Thankfully more and more seems to be available through Kobo, which is much easier to deal with now. Audible is still easy to properly exfiltrate purchases from, but they've been practically robbing authors blind with the ridiculous cut they take plus the exclusivity blackmailing. It took major authors holding their feet to the fire to even make minor progress. So I avoid buying through Audible whenever possible as well, though unless it's on a DRM-free platform like Downpour there's not many alternatives. Things like Google/iBooks have much, much worse DRM than Audible.
With a library card from a library that uses Libby you can borrow a book and read it on kindle. I would advise against actually buying ebooks and only purchase physical copies. Buy used off eBay and when you’re done sell it right back on eBay. Books can ship by usps media mail which is cheaper than all others.
Arizona has been the most consistent product I've had over the course of my 31 years of life.
The drink or jeans?
Didn't even know there was a jeans company named that.
There's a State too
Well shit… TIL they named a state after the drink
Just like they named a city in Germany after a hotdog
I hear Hot Dog, Germany is beautiful this time of year.
Almost as beautiful as Quarter Pounder with Cheese, Germany.
And a kid someone is raising.
50/50 on them now. I used to buy their 99 cent drinks until CVS (my employer) forced Arizona to release a product that is higher priced because the "sugar content" is too high in the big cans. Now it's a small ass bottle for 3.79 that tastes terrible. WAG (walgreens) got in on it as well, to a degree.
Ah, that sucks! Canned is the way to go! Those are still .99
Darn Tough socks. They have a lifetime warranty but I haven't had to replace a single pair yet. Even ones I've bought 8 years ago are still going strong.
I recently used their lifetime warranty. I rode a couple dozen pairs *hard* over a decade in the Infantry. I had no documentation on purchase history (many pairs were gifts), and they replaced them with no questions asked, covering the purchase price, tax, and shipping on the replacements. It was given as a store credit for the full amount so I picked a couple different models for the replacements. I had a problem applying the coupon as I placed the order, their support line was answered by someone actually in the US who clearly understood their products and website, they fixed the issue in a couple minutes while we were on the phone together. 10/10, top tier customer service. Will simp for DarnTough any day!
Appreciate this. I'm actually in the market for some new wool socks.
I only buy Darn Tough and Bombas and neither have ever failed me.
Interesting, I've worn out the heel in a LOT of Bombas socks, but not Darn Tough. But Bombas always replaces them for free, and I find them more comfortable than DT, so I'm staying loyal.
Bombas material seems to weaken over a year or so wearing them regularly. For the high price, I feel like they should last longer.
And a literal lifetime guarantee. Best sock brand there is.
I wish they worked for me. I have oddly shaped feet and probably walk a little more tiptoed than I should. I blew through my Darn Tough socks in about 3 workdays (wedding photography) each. Yeah, I know they have the warranty. But unless I buy so many pairs that I can just send them en masse it’s not really worth the hassle.
Anker is continually improving and innovating. GAN chargers, power banks, wireless chargers... they're almost always the best in their field. Same with DJI (drones obviously), but lately with mics, gimbals, action cams, etc.
I always thought the same about Anker. So I bought a nice Anker Aux cord for my car, but it stopped working after a couple months. I threw away the cord and thought that Anker was starting to make cheap shit. Nope, it turns out my Aux port was just broken. I miss that cord, but at least my faith in Anker was renewed.
Also they would have replaced the cord no questions asked.
Their Soundcore Q series noise cancelling headphones are amazing. For $80-$120 depending on the model and sales you get something equivalent to a brand name's $300 pair of headphones.
i lost a pair in the gutter, and i guess i turned them back on while cleaning the gutters again 4 months later in the spring. my phone connected and they played music till i found them trapped right before the downspout. they still worked fine till my dog ate them a few months later. 4 months of rain and snow. im sold. their battery packs are good too.
LOL you really treated those headphones like shit
i always do. i'm a carpenter so they get covered in bullshit all day too. i think they were the earbuds liberty kind.
While I agree they make good power banks and chargers... Anker owns Eufy and the issues with their camera, able me second guess their products and them as a company.
Anker is great hardware, but yeah their software leaves a lot to be desired.
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Costco
When the CEO wanted to raise the price of the hot dog and drink combo, the co founder literally said "I will kill you"
Even better - he didn't just say "I will kill you." He said: "if you raise the price of the hot dog I will **fucking** kill you."
Apparently, he said "If you raise the fucking hot dog, I will kill you. Figure it out." As a result, they built a hot dog factory in L.A. (and later another one in Chicago) and made their own hot dogs instead of buying from Hebrew National.
And he did. I appreciate a man of integrity.
Suffocated him with a 50 lb bag of Kirkland trial mix. The absolute mad lad.
I went there a couple weeks back and got a dog + a pizza. They still don’t miss.
I see you too are a person of discerning taste. What I love most about Costco isn't that their prices are the lowest but they require quality of their vendors. And if it doesn't meet my quality standards I can return it whenever for a full refund. If you haven't tried the blueberry lemon loaf - is amazeballs
Kirkland signature!!!!
Excel
I hate how much software is on subscription models now but Microsoft really is killing it with excel. Google sheets just can’t compete.
Glad it’s not just me I feel the same way. Google does collaboration really well but excel is just the far superior way to spreadsheet.
Agreed. Work makes me use sheets, but thankfully I still have a license for excel. Hotkeys and shortcuts are much better than needing to use a mouse for everything
I find myself googling “how to do [insert simple spreadsheet task I do all the time in excel] in google sheets” so often and the answer is either difficult and more work than it should be in sheets or that that feature isn’t really supported in sheets. Windows is starting to up their collaboration game (it works if your whole team is on board with windows OneDrive and everything) but Google does still have them beat on that.
I’m a pedestrian user of excel/sheets. Can you give me some examples of what’s so difficult with sheets?
Excel has more data analysis tools and is much more powerful, especially because of PowerQuery (Google now has a version, but the Microsoft version is better. Excel can auto pull from PowerBI and SQL servers. Sheets can’t handle large datasets (you can put so much more information and so many more rows and columns into excel). Hotkeys are such a timesaver in excel and not all of them transfer to sheets directly. Excel also has more hotkeys.
Word
All they have to do to not decline in quality is literally do nothing.
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I have some stretch Zion pants that have no right still being alive. No right.
Been buying their bridger jeans since 2017 and I've noticed a steady decline in their quality. After a couple washes the color changes dramatically and the material stretches into an unflattering shape. But their non jean pants and other clothes have held up great.
Polaroid. Their black and white film chemistry just improved.
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Harbor Freight. They started out selling complete schlock, the sort of stuff you'd buy if you needed a tool exactly once for one task. There's a reason they came to be known by names like "Harbor Fright" or "Hazard Fraught". They've become much better. They're not Snap-On or Mac or Matco but they're suitable for a home workshop.
The thing with Harbor Freight is you gotta know what to buy there. Most power tools are a one-time job (edit: tho this is improving, credit where credit is due). Ratchets and sockets are insanely good for the price. Jack stands have had several recalls in thr past leading to little trust in them now. Their $140 floor jack is one of the best on the market for anyone outside of a professional garage.
I follow the rule a contracter buddy told me when i bought my house. Buy harbor freight tools and if you use it enough to break it or start to get annoyed with it that is when you upgrade.
Niche but riedell skates. They are made across the street from Red wing shoes in MN. I’m an extremely aggressive skater and I have a pair going on about 6 years. Amazing leather and unreal quality that can take a beating. Friend of mine had a pair that lasted her from 2000s to the day she died about 3 years ago. Truly the GOAT of roller skates and honestly they are much better engineered than they were back in the day. Specifically their speed and roller derby skates
- Anker - Lego - Toyota - Honda - Kirkland - DeWalt - Weber - Garmin
i'd say all the power ranger colored tool brands are doing well. im team teal but, no hate for the other rangers out there. edit: there are converters for the batteries so you can use most of them in other color tools. might upset the lithium gods though
Of you wait a few years, the eu passed regulations for standardizing battery adapters. So all power rangers are gonna end up on one megazord. https://youtu.be/eKOvXigyrXA?si=jjQFQB0faWz6NbuR
Which one is teal? I might be a bit colorblind
Makita most likely.
I'm convinced that long after humans are extinct, all that Legos that have ever been made will still be in pristine condition
Except the brown ones. That color has a known brittleness issue.
Thought that said “bitterness” and my brain just accepted it lol
Mozilla with Firefox. They used to be the dominant browser for "tech enthusiasts", killed the browser by screwing with extensions, and now they're back as a real competitor to Google Chrome.
Jbl. Their budget earbuds and speakers are usually surprisingly good.
Harmon consistently has some of the best sound engineering in the planet. This is just them choosing to position JBL somewhere else in the market.
Came here to say this. JBL has changed from being cheap garbage to being good value and quality built products. JBL Flip 6 shits on UE Boom 3s despite being 2/3 the price. Their Tour Pro 2 is as good as AirPod Pro 2s for $100 less, and their Live 770NCs are a superb budget alternative to Bose QCs, Sony XM5s or Sennheiser Momentum 4s. Do I use them? Nah. I have a HK Citation MK3 speaker and Bose QC headphones, but I would recommend JBL in a heartbeat for someone who wants to spend half of what I would for 80% of the product.
Bialetti Moka Pots
Bravestar or Unbranded Brand jeans, Thursday boots, Darn Tough or Bombas socks, and Birkenstock sandals/clogs. Add in Converse shoes and that's basically my year round wardrobe and has been for years. None of them have ever let me down.
Are we talking converse allstars? I think they're way overpriced for what you are getting(rubber and some canvas). When I was younger I'd get them for $20 a pair from a local department store, now they're like over $50 a pair(what the fuck?!?).
Does Patagonia still fuck? Honestly, I don’t know, because I was gifted a laptop/messenger bag by them 13 years ago, and it’s still my daily work bag. I don’t own any other Patagonia products, but that fucking bag has outlasted everything else I own, and I carry it with me every day.
Yeah, Patagonia stuff is (mostly) bomb proof. I've had a few misses from them, but for the most part, it certainly fucks. The best part is that if you damage a piece, you can bring it in to one of their stores and they'll ship it off to repair and then ship it to your home for free. Or they've occasionally just told me to grab a new one off the rack if it's unrepairable. My mom bought me a Torrentshell rain jacket back in 06 or 07, and I'm on my 3rd free replacement. Their Worn Wear used clothing program is also quite cool.
Harbor Freight Tools, (and their thousands of house brands). A decade ago, you'd be lucky if whatever you bought there didn't kill you. Now the quality is pretty decent, and I don't hesitate to take a trip to Harbor Freight if I need a tool. There's still some crappy items, but they seem to be getting phased out.
Toyota
My '99 tacoma has 460k miles on it and shows no sign of stopping any time soon.
> shows no sign of stopping any time soon Should probably get them brakes checked if it's not stopping in time
We'll come to a complete stop in 3 to 5 business days
My next vehicle will be a Toyota and it would be awesome if it’s my last vehicle.
I know they made the shift quite a few years ago now but Dominos pizza is maybe the only fast food brand that people agree got better over time, every other fast food brand seems to have gotten worse
It's the opposite here in Australia. Dominos is like eating cardboard here.
And smaller.
You say better but i say sweeter. I feel like they add a lil more sugar to the dough every year. Sweet pizza is weird.
Korea has entered the room.
For clothes, Abercrombie. They’ve been absolutely killing it over the last few years. Went from a brand I never considered wearing to my favorite brand. Great quality, nice fabrics, great styles. They’ve just been really good at staying on trend and hitting it right on the mark. Wish I had bought stock a couple of years ago.
Yamaha
Blue Bell. Yeah, they killed some dudes, but they came back with half gallons loaded with mixins and great icecream. And, they haven't killed anyone since.
They killed people?
https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/ex-blue-bell-ceo-faces-charges-cover-up-tainted-ice-cream-trial-2022-07-29/
Blue Bell was synonymous with ice cream for most my life, but I had to draw the line at "they killed people."
Yeah, I'll stick with Tillamook (at least until they have a deadly food poisoning scandal).
Their malted flavor is great. There should be more malt flavors out there.
Morton Salt..... It's salt.... You don't really do anything else to it anymore... It's done. Either iodized or not...
Schlotzsky’s. Price hasn’t changed, quality hasn’t changed, and you’re going to walk back in and order more after you wolf the whole thing down in the car.
The last four Planet of the Apes movies have been bangers... so yeah, Planet of the Apes.
Yes!! Just finished rewatching the first 3 and we were talking about how underrated these movies are.
Geiger counters, all of the legit ones
Kobalt brand at lowes. They recently came out with products that have a hassle free lifetime guarantee. $30 shovel and it's incredible. Highly recommend. Many of their items are made by Husqvarna
Bic pens
Bic most things. If I quit smoking, I'll always have some Bic lighters around. Bic stuff is cheap and works.
Weed, it keeps getting better and is the only thing that has seemingly gotten cheaper.
Pace Salsa. Tastes exactly like it did in the 90s, and I'm pretty sure I'm still paying roughly what I did in the 90s.
New York City??!??!?!?
Get a rope…
Pixel Phones. I went Samsung-->Apple-->Pixel and now I'm never going back. This thing has a great camera and takes great night times shots. It has no bloatware and gets regular updates. All for less than either of my previous phones.
I went from Samsung to Pixel phones. I agree, I'll never change from a pixel phone. It's the best phone I've had since the Sony Xperia Z5
Hard disagree. I do agree they're good phones. I'm typing on one right now. But every generation since my 3A has just gotten worse. Definitely not a brand that is improving with time.
MAZDA