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> Moreover, consumer items beyond a price point are both very well made and backed by long term warranties anyway. Except that there isn't a good way to distin
by MereInterest 5y ago
> Moreover, consumer items beyond a price point are both very well made and backed by long term warranties anyway.
Except that there isn't a good way to distinguish between something that is expensive because it has quality construction and something that is expensive because it is a brand name.
Searching for information online is nigh-useless due to aggressive SEO on the part of advertisers. Sometimes I can get lucky and find an enthusiast forum, but those are harder and harder to find.
Online reviews in general are effectively anonymous. Amazon reviews might not even be the same manufacturer, let alone the same product. Newegg lists different firmware versions under the same product ID, so compatibility reviews are useless.
The best thing I've found is to reach out to a group of friends and hope that one of them did the research previously, or can at least steer you towards/away a brand. This doesn't scale, and any approach that does scale is at risk of being overwhelmed by advertisers and other bad actors.
- Tijdreiziger 5y agoThis is what consumers' associations do all day. You usually have to pay to read their research, which helps them maintain their independence.
- bombcar 5y agoThey can be notoriously bad at their job however - an example can be found in toilet testing, as they do weird substitutes that don’t match actually plugging the thing with toilet paper. Who cares how many golf balls it flushes?
- kovvy 5y agoResearch is also hampered by non-obvious changes in the product. Even when a good, reliable product is released, it can be modified to be cheaper to make/more expensive to maintain with no external indication. This isn't even necessarily about cost-cutting, a component may no longer be available and is swapped for something that claims to be identical but is not as reliable.
- theshrike79 5y agoCase in point: AvE dissecting a Made in Japan Makita drill, made for the Japanese market: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2EpdRN2h6A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2EpdRN2h6A This thing is built like a fucking tank, it will never ever ever fail. Compare that to the same model sold outside of Japan, and it's most likely made in Indonesia and the quality is nowhere near.
- bayindirh 5y agoFor some head to head testing, Project Farm has done a similar video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7hd4rKf2us https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7hd4rKf2us Except being built like a tank, Japan made one also vibrates less and more comfortable to use.
- ksec 5y agoHoly Shit! Thanks for introducing me to his Channel. Lots of exciting stuff. ( And somehow he is Canadian but speaks a little Cantonese )
- theshrike79 5y agoAvE is a jewel in the cesspool that is Youtube :) He's a private dude, but I think his wife is french-canadian and he's at least bilingual. And from what I've gathered he has to have done some kind of mechanical engineering for a LONG time. Dude knows his stuff about anything mechanical. His teardown of the Juicero is pure gold: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Cp-BGQfpHQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Cp-BGQfpHQ It's an amazing insight into a startup with endless amounts of money, bunch of really smart people, but no real business model. =)
- cpr 5y agoAndrew Camarata is another jewel in the cesspool. Love watching his heavy construction videos. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUujfNBK9uv3cIW-P5PX7vA https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUujfNBK9uv3cIW-P5PX7vA
- alasdair_ 5y agoreddit.com/r/buyitforlife is a pretty good source for long-lasting goods, as are the hyper-specialized subreddits for (e.g.) safety razors, vacuum cleaners or telescopes.