And?5
I thought WOTOBEUS was pretty clever and random.
I steer clear of all those dime-a-dozen ripoff brands, especially when it comes to electronics chargers. You have to be careful because crappy USB-C 3.1 implementations can destroy equipment. Anker I trust. Aukey too. That’s about it.
Everything I look for on Amazon these days are just chock full of listings by Chinese companies with seemingly random 6-8 character almost pronounceable strings as names. They’re absolutely everywhere. It sucks.
But we should go with Popplers.
Agree. But why not take a chance on the ULBESORY model that’s 2 bucks cheaper?
I use a holster system for my camera, which lets me carry it on my belt or on the shoulder strap of my backpack while hiking. It getrs a lot of looks, and I was asked about it last time I went hiking. Hanging a camera on a neck strap around your neck is asking for pain.
It cost me $125, but it’s a brand that I trust. There are cheap knock-offs on Amazon, but as I explain to people, your camera and lens easily cost upwards of $2,000 or more, don’t go cheap on the thing that is keeping them from plummeting to the ground.
I thought Aukey was also an Chinese company. Are they excluded from concern because people just have more experience with them?
I was wondering the same.
The funny thing is, I suspect some of these companies make these things for brands we know better. I tend to avoid products where the identical item is being sold by a bunch of different brands with different names if I can help it.
Yeah some of the do. I want to say like a company called RedDragon or something actually advertised that they made products under another brand’s name but never actually stated what brand it was.
My concern is I know some products are just not safe nor compliant to industry standards, so it’s difficult to know what you’re buying from random brands on Amazon.
Here’s a good article on all those random-sounding brands:
Some Chinese brands are better than others. Aukey and Anker have been around for years and have nothing but tons of overwhelmingly positive reviews. And their products come in excellent packaging and material, just as you’d expect from a Western company. And you don’t get any of that weird English in the instructions/warranty you get with a lot of Chinese brands.
And for a long time there was a Google employee who kept track of USB-C chargers and cables that are safe to use. Aukey and Anker were always there.
RavPower = TaoTronics as well
I’ve used Anker myself. Aukey was newer, but you do have to wonder about the people who did the first purchases and then encouraged more and now I guess both are considered gtg.
I’m more likely to roll the dice with something I don’t intend to plug into anything.
This is pretty meaty. It will take a bit to get through. It’s interesting so far though.
Both Anker and Aukey have cheated/falsified USB-C certification according to /r/usbchardware
Oh wow, I hadn’t heard of that before for them.
For
For the occasional model of charger/adapter/cable I believe. Some have slapped so-and-so compliant when the Reddit afficionados have done the math and determined published wattage/power etc exceeds safety spec etc and sometimes can’t look up the certification they claim. It’s not something that permeates their entire product line and the handful of these more-well-known brands have built out North American customer service and generous return/service policies to win fans.
But both have screwed up on the odd product of theirs.
The idea that you can “trust” any of these brands selling various electronic doodads seems like it’s thirty years out of date. They all come from the same OEMs, the name printed on them has nothing to do with the company that designed, manufactured and hopefully QA tested them.
I think ones the hoverboards started burning houses down and some other random electronics that kind of crop up around the holidays, I am just a little more wary of companies you can’t contact and are only found on Amazon. At the same time you don’t want to push new brands/companies out just because others have been around for decades so it’s kind of a…fine line.
“‘Fre’ is cut from ‘Freely,’” the person said, referring to a wish that customers will “buy our products from our store freely.” (One could imagine a similar story behind P vendor .) Asked what sort of store it was, and how he or she chooses what to sell, the person gave an answer that was similarly Amazon-focused: “We sell the products that are popular on Amazon.”
The store is what matters, not the products, not the brand.
So this explains why some stores just seem to sell everything, or anything as opposed to what I grew up with which was a brand or store is known for… something, not just anything. It’s still a little strange to see the same brand sell stone cookware and a single usb charger.
The category of product that’s been causing me grief lately is 3D printer nozzles. My options are:
- No-name brass nozzles at $5/dozen, half of which clog almost instantly, jamming up the innards of the printer.
- Made in the USA Micro Swiss nozzles, which work perfectly but also cost $15 each.
I wish there were some kind of middle ground, but it’s impossible to sieve the good options under item 1 from the bad.