6 ms·
Sorry Mont Blanc, I will not be purchasing any product from you in the future
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Y_Y 3y agoWhy would you buy a watch from them anyway? It's really lame business practise, but hardly surprising from a "luxury" brand. The good news is that there aren't proprietary electrons yet so if you can get something that fits and gives the right voltage you should be fine.
- sschueller 3y agoIt's actually a good watch. Vanilla WearOS and a nice design. A crown that let's you navigate and it's made out of titanium with sapphire glass. I have a battery that fits but the connector is different. It is too small for me to replace and the risk of destroying the connector in a such tiny flex pcb is very high.
- illwrks 3y agoCould you not cut the wires and connector from the existing bad battery and solder it onto the new one?
- sschueller 3y agoIt's not wires but a flex pcb. The connector is microscopic and plastic. If I nudge it with the iron it's destroyed.
- illwrks 3y agoAh, such a shame.
- hammyhavoc 3y agoIs it? It's a grand, and it isn't repairable once the battery goes. I'd say that's a pretty shitty smartwatch (not priced to be disposable), and an even worse general watch.
- sschueller 3y agoI wasn't aware of that. I didn't want an apple watch and the other android watches all felt cheap. I also didn't want to spend what a TAG Heuer Connected would cost (which I believe has much better service). Yes, CHF 1000 is a lot but compared to an iPhone or a Samsung Fold which I do not own, I didn't see this watch as being too crazy.
- mikestew 3y agoThe good news is that there aren't proprietary electrons yet so if you can get something that fits and gives the right voltage you should be fine. The battery maker is under NDA, I'm sure Mont Blanc made sure you're not going to find something on AliExpress. And, yeah, I hate to blame the victim here, but who buys high-tech electronics from a maker of...fountain pens? (And maker of fine fragrances, too. sigh)
- pavel_lishin 3y ago> And, yeah, I hate to blame the victim here Then don't.
- syntheweave 3y agoMont Blanc's pens have been quite competently cloned by Chinese firms. I have a Jinhao x159 which performs well at a fraction of the cost. So I can see how this is a way of making a moat for themselves, it's just also a terrible way of doing so.
- bluesquared 3y agoYes, the Jinhao's of the fountain pen market make pretty decent pens, but that's not a fair comparison. That's like saying a Timex and a Rolex both tell time just as well, so why does Rolex exist?
- hammyhavoc 3y agoRelative to what you can buy from other more reputable brands for a similar price point, it's actually not great. Nib usually needs work due to poor QC, they creak, and they're just generally a lacking experience. I'm also not endorsing spending a grand on a mass-produced pen, but there's a sensible middle ground of not buying junk nor overpaying for something that doesn't enhance your writing experience. Equally, price isn't a reliable indicator of quality.
- AHOHA 3y agoThe only watch brand I buy is Casio, nothing smart, nothing for show off, it’s reliable, cheap, and certainly you can change its battery:)
- purpleflame1257 3y agoIf you go with solar you don't even need to do that. +1 for Casio
- jack1243star 3y agoThe rechargeable batteries still need to be replaced, and it's hard for non-Casio dealers to get them AFAIK. Best option is a watch with a common battery type (e.g. CR2016) and accessible battery compartment.
- SamReidHughes 3y agoThey're standard rechargeable batteries in sizes like CTL1616, which are easy to get. AFAIK they don't need to be replaced on a comparable time frame if the watch regularly gets light.
- AHOHA 3y agoExactly!
- iancmceachern 3y agoMy wife and I absolutely love Monte Blanc, for their Fountain pens, Inks, leather and luxury goods. They are wonderful products and add a great deal to both our lives. That being said, I would never, ever, buy electronics from them. They simply aren't an electronics company. You wouldn't buy a fountain pen or leather bag from Sony and expect it to be a premium product would you?
- mft_ 3y agoThat’s not really the point though, is it? Irrespective of whether a company is expert or not in a particular domain, they can choose (independently) whether their policy is to engage in customer-unfriendly business practices.
- handsclean 3y agoI’d expect it to be mediocre quality, not an outright scam. Legitimate businesses don’t randomly decide to run a scam, so the fact that Mont Blanc did it here makes me strongly suspect we’re just not seeing how they do it elsewhere. Maybe you like their products, but are you familiar enough with the competition to know that you shouldn’t be getting more or paying less?
- iancmceachern 3y agoAbsolutely do. My wife and I regularly attend pen shows, own many different brands of pens not just monte blanc pens, in fact monte blanc are the minority in our collection. In the fountain pen world Monte Blanc is like Rolex or Tag is to the watch world. One od the foundational brands of the genre.
- toadi 3y agoMy personal favorites are waterman just because during highschool this was my favorite tool to write. The one I had at that time was expensive for me at that time ;)
- 3y ago
- leashless 3y agoIf you fancy some petty revenge, Mont Blanc refills fit a variety of cheap pens beautifully. I don't see them "NDA"ing that away anytime soon.
- hammyhavoc 3y agoWhat's vengeful about buying their product?
- MaxPengwing 3y agowhat many rollerball users dont know is that you can take a Mont Blanc roller ball refill, which is by most rollerball users considered to be one of the best rollerball writing experiences, and place it in a Pilot G2 with out any issue. you'd get a 200+ dollar writing experience for about 8 dollars. https://unsharpen.com/pilot-g2-montblanc-hack-200-pen-for-7/ https://unsharpen.com/pilot-g2-montblanc-hack-200-pen-for-7/ You could also do this with a fountain pen buy buying a gold Diplomat 149 replacement nib and put on a Jinhao 159 Mont Blanc "homage pen" (pirate copy). and use mont blanc ink in that pen. Gold Nibs are not cheap but they are about 150-200 usd, but when a pen could easily be 1000-10000 usd in the extreme high end then that's a bargain https://www.instagram.com/p/ChJSq-Iv6HE/ https://www.instagram.com/p/ChJSq-Iv6HE/ Why would you do this? Because some people like to have good writing tools without paying an extra premium.
- hammyhavoc 3y agoThe Mont Blanc inks are all hype, IMO, as is pretty much everything they sell by modern standards since the acquisition and treatment of it like a luxury brand in the '90s rather than focusing on innovating in tools. Plenty of other decent inks for less. It's like saying Tiffany makes great jewellery and has great quality stones because the pricing is high. The Jinhao 159 is creaky junk and buying it supports the CCP. As with the ink, it's people kidding themselves that just because Mont Blanc charges x for y then that must make x somehow special and worth having in 2023. For the same price point, you can do much better, and probably even go Japanese-made, and not support the CCP. It's a century later, with modern manufacturing techniques, don't you think someone can do better than a Meisterstuck or Meisterstuck clone?
- worldsavior 3y agoI thought he was talking about the mountain... Why? I don't know, coffee is expensive there?
- mft_ 3y agoI feel your frustration. After the shenanigans I have experienced with my 2017 MacBook Pro (screen connector failure not warrantied on the 15”, premature battery failure, and obvs the butterfly keyboard) I’ve resolved to never buy another Apple laptop. Assuming the 16” Framework stacks up, that’s where my money will go - I like (very much) all that they’re trying to do.
- aksss 3y agoHere's a simpleton's plug for Bertucci field watches. https://ultimatefieldwatch.com/ https://ultimatefieldwatch.com/ You won't impress anyone except other fans, but they are simple, comfortable, durable time pieces. Not 'smart', just hours, mins, sec.
- doctaj 3y agoGarmin also doesn’t expect users to change the batteries on their smart watches. Not sure if they’d sell you one or not, though.
- robswc 3y agoThis will sound silly but I don't understand the appeal of expensive watches. I can understand collecting or being interested in unique ones... but to an untrained eye (me) its hard to tell the difference between expensive and "fancy" ones. At least with cars, you know when one is a sports car or expensive lol
- hammyhavoc 3y agoThey're status symbols. As with most things in life, the quality isn't necessarily reflected by the price. "A fool and their money" et cetera. Cash circulating is a good thing, and provides jobs, even if the products they make are objectively not any better than x.
- AceyMan 3y agoWearing a brand that no normal person would identify makes no sense as a "status symbol". Any Joe Average knows a Ferrari when he sees it, but he's not going to look twice if the guy standing next to him in the Starbucks queue is wearing a Lange & Söhne wristwatch. But I would.
- hammyhavoc 3y agoWho says it's for Joe Average? I have an Artemide Tizio lamp designed by Richard Sapper, Joe Average won't appreciate it, but anybody with a little appreciation for industrial design will at least appreciate what it is even if they've never seen one before, and maybe that's something I'd like to bond with someone over as an enormous lover of Sapper's designs. They're "status symbols" in as much as if someone turns up to a meeting with x pen or y watch, I recognize the value of those things, I think maybe they are successful. Maybe they're also counterfeit, stolen, or what they have to say has no merit, but they do like toys and can't think of anything better to spend their money on. Either way, it's a prop, just like someone's nice suit is a prop, just like their luxury car is a prop. Can someone see through the bullshit? Of course. But in some circles, bullshit is all there is and the props are a crutch for having nothing of value to say or contribute, i.e., they can't possibly be wrong, or worse yet, ineffective, after all they turned up in the German car with a nice suit and nice pen. Spoiler: I love Casio watches, specifically the cheapo G-Shocks. I have an Omega and a Breitling, but the G-Shocks get all my loving. The brand isn't what counts for me, the design is everything. Sapper designed a nice watch... FML.