I saw this post and wanted to ask the opposite. What are some items that really aren’t worth paying the expensive version for? Preferably more extreme or unexpected examples.
I will go the opposite route here, and tell people to instead make an exception for certain things, and never go for cheap unknown brands.
- highly reputed Oxymeter in medical establishment (do not buy inaccurate smartwatches, Apple is 20x ripoff and still subpar)
- Victorinox for Swiss army knife
- Victorinox or Leatherman for multitool
- reputed branded batteries (Maxell, Duracell, Sanyo, Sony, Eneloop et al)
- reputed battery/device chargers
- PSU/SMPS and UPS for computer (APC, Emerson, Schneider and other brands)
- reputed brand watches (Casio, Citizen, Seiko have affordable BIFL options)
- ThinkPad for laptop (user repairability, third party parts, open schematics)
- Levis for jeans, they are almost BIFL
- a good weighing machine for kitchen/home use
- a good mixer grinder WITH safety lock (atleast 750W)
- quality stationery pen, mechanical pencil, leads, eraser and other items (Uni, Pentel, Sakura, Staedtler et al, refer to JetPens website)
Edit: fuck you GrapheneOS, for almost 2 months now, they are mass downvoting my comments, and doing voting manipulation, also abusing federation
What is the problem with GrapheneOS?
Sorry I really don’t follow what you wrote in that comment. Can you write something coherent and with references to sources?
Not worth the effort, if you cannot follow instructions simpler than most YouTube tutorials.
Maybe the downvotes are because you wrote your post in the opposite route. Of you read OP again, you will see that there is a whole post for that.
Thank you for your quality post anyway!
See https://lemmy.ml/comment/7103845
They want to rely on people’s ignorance so that I start looking like a lunatic, and unreliable for 5 years worth of documentation I have on the shenanigans of “security” cultists in FOSS/privacy community.
Well, you’re doing an admirable job at making it look like that.
Surely not if anyone can look at my comment history from the past month and a half, with a weird downvote pattern. But go on, whatever makes you look cool hipster (with 2 digit IQ) on the internet.
Your last sentence isn’t helping you any.
EDIT: Making it explicit; making derogatory remarks towards others does not make people seem less like a lunatic. And claiming that a group of people are downvoting you to make you look like a lunatic is itself more likely to make you look like a lunatic than if the group actually were downvoting you.
Help yourself first.
Hahaha, I don’t think you understand.
I’ve heard before Graphene is toxic. What did they do?
I do not think that the user above you is being brigaded by GrapheneOS.
Look into their history to see if they might’ve said to see if there was anything in their “most controversial” that could elicit a retaliation, and I found nothing.
I did find them often strongly saying unpopular opinions (or sidestepping a question), which people then downvote, and them sometime blaming the downvotes on outside actors.
“I didn’t say something that wasn’t true or not well received, I am clearly being attacked!!!”’
I’ll copy the comment you are replying to so it can’t go away:
I will go the opposite route here, and tell people to instead make an exception for certain things, and never go for cheap unknown brands.
highly reputed Oxymeter in medical establishment (do not buy inaccurate smartwatches, Apple is 20x ripoff and still subpar)
Victorinox for Swiss army knife
Victorinox or Leatherman for multitool
reputed branded batteries (Maxell, Duracell, Sanyo, Sony, Eneloop et al)
reputed battery/device chargers
PSU/SMPS and UPS for computer (APC, Emerson, Schneider and other brands) reputed brand watches (Casio, Citizen, Seiko have affordable BIFL options)
ThinkPad for laptop (user repairability, third party parts, open schematics)
Levis for jeans, they are almost BIFL
a good weighing machine for kitchen/home use
a good mixer grinder WITH safety lock (atleast 750W)
quality stationery pen, mechanical pencil, leads, eraser and other items (Uni, Pentel, Sakura, Staedtler et al, refer to JetPens website)
Edit: fuck you GrapheneOS, for almost 2 months now, they are mass downvoting my comments, and doing voting manipulation, also abusing federationReasons people might downvote:
- They are not answering the question that was asked
- They give lots of brands/products that people may disagree are high-quality.
- They recommend products that are outdated
- They gave a website that people should buy from (which may be seen as spammy)
Reasons people are probably not downvoting:
- They are GrapheneOS
You can check my history for the past month and a half, all with 4-7 downvotes. They habitually downvote when they sleep and wake up according to Canadian timezone. I ruined their non-existent careers by constantly recording and dishing out proof of their brodude asshole attitude, voting manipulation, targeted witch hunting that the “lead dev” told people to do on Matrix, and so on.
Some people will think that may be conspiratorial, but my comment history with consistent downvoting speaks volumes, apart from a very few 4-5 comments people did not generally like. And they want that I look deranged, conspiratorial and get out of their way to do nasty things, which they keep failing at. 😂
I mean, you did do the opposite of what an AskLemmy post asked. And the post itself is a follow-up or response to a previous post that asked the question you wanted to answer…
It would sound plausible but is not, and its more like I told people to just focus on not cheaping out on this small list of goods, rather than all the people trying to list the goods people should cheap out on. Infact, my answer was in line with what’s being proposed as some famous quote, that buy cheap option of any good first until it breaks, and so on.
People can safely cheap out on most goods, its the ones that should not be, that are important. Concise knowledge is far easier to store in head and apply. And I have a tiny brain lol. I missed OP mentioning this is an opposite of that AskLemmy, and I kinda wanted people to know in this easier way.
ThinkPad for laptop (user repairability, third party parts, open schematics)
My fully decked out ThinkPad T16 Gen 1 I got for work last year is a piece of shit. Lenovo keeps messing up the BIOS (sometimes it took up to 2 minutes to reach the Windows loading screen), it sometimes has trouble with the Lenovo Monitor (which has a docking station with USB-C), or a colleague who had the same model it refused to charge.
Don’t get me started on thermals, that thing either sounds like a jet engine or throttles down to 1.4 GHz on a damn 6 core CPU. That’s partly Intel’s fault too of course (The AMD counterpart would likely run cooler/faster).
I always thought ThinkPads are awesome, now that I actually use a $3000 one I’d never buy one myself.
You should buy AMD ones, but some of the newer models need to be selected a bit more carefully, as unfortunate as that sounds. ThinkPads were the gold standard, but they are now becoming the least bad one. That is all I can say, with my L470 pretty strong after 6 years, a HDD change, battery change and base cover change.
Unfortunate to hear you got a bit burnt.
Well, my new workplace selected it and paid for it, I just have to use it.
Personally I’d have gone with the AMD CPU, at home I rock a 5800X3D :)
Intel’s power consumption is off the charts unfortunately. Those e-cores didn’t help at all.
Intel is a joke, and it will only stop when they actually use lower nanometre node process, instead of stacking a + every year on top of +++++++ marketing stack.
I’d say for the oxymeter it depends on what you want it for. If your health depends on it, yes spend more for a good one. If it’s just for general interest the cheaper ones will likely be “good enough”.
For batteries, generally true. Except the Kirkland non-rechargeable packs are very good batteries and good value too. Not that I often need non-rechargable. Just for those few devices that are not happy with the lower voltage of rechargeable batteries.
Otherwise, definitely a good list. I’d also say in general for electronics, be very wary of Chinese brands you’ve totally never heard of selling items for less than half the price a reputable brand sells the same thing for. They are generally putting fake CE/FCC labels onto devices that are definitely not certified and will almost certainly be underrated for the requirement in a best case scenario. I am currently especially suspicious of the 100w+ PD supplies that are ridiculously cheap compared to known brands for the same rating.
An important exception to electronics are Chi-Fi audio IEMs and audio gear/accessories, and most kinds of cables/adapters. A lot of Chinese electronics are good if you know how to look for it, and any type of electronics has an enthusiast community that notes down a lot of good Chinese brands, that simplifies the job for anyone.
Infact, Omron certifies a Chinese medical equipment maker Contec, and their Oximeter is accurate for medical purposes. Just an example.
China has colossal logistics and manufacturing ecosystem, where $1 earbuds are produced and in the next factory, some $5000 headphone or 6 figures car is being built. Its all about being smart.
Yeah it’s why I qualified it with the “too good to be true” prices and names you don’t recognise. The odds are far greater that a brand name you’ve never heard of undercutting at more than half the price of a brand you do recognise is very likely cutting corners somewhere and stamping invalid certifications. With electronics that can end pretty badly.
Not writing off all Chinese companies. Just the ones that have a new name every month and are selling at too good to be true prices. I think they’re suffering the same as Japanese electronics did in the 80s. There were enough bad examples to make people assume it was the same for all (you’ll see it in movies of the era, with people referring to “jap-crap”). But as we know, some very big companies today rose from that situation to be extremely trusted today. I suspect over time the same will be true in China.
The big reason for that kind of bashing for Japanese electronics in 80s and Chinese since a few decades stems from xenophobia in West, and their hatred towards them creating cheaper and/or more resilient, better goods.
Japan became an electronics pioneer back then, and many of us know what USA did to Toshiba in late 80s, crippling them forever. Same story with French company Alstom because they were crapping on GE, and recently, Huawei because they crapped on Apple, Google and Samsung (SK is US vassal). Japan no longer competes in goods territory that USA makes, and Japan is also a US vassal state, so they are left alone, but now China has already surpassed USA economically, and by next year militarily, so I doubt it will ever end. China ensures democratisation of goods and the near-abolition of fat capitalist margins with cheap mass goods.
Huawei has also been found to have back doors in their 5G towers. Now, I’m not saying western companies don’t have back doors, but since I live in a western country (which has also likely suffered from political interference by China) I’d rather not be tracked by yet another nation more than I already am.
Can you source your claims of Huawei 5G tower backdoors? US government has given none in years.
There were numerous articles in 2020 and earlier talking about vulnerabilities in their products, including hard-coded encryption keys. Vehement denial isn’t a good look with such flagrant and obvious failures. I have yet to see any announcements or articles saying this has changed. Until I do, I will assume Huawei doesn’t have anything substantial to add to the discussion.
In the UK, baked beans.
In my work we did a blind taste test of 10 different brands of baked beans, with participants ranking them in order from best to worst. The name brand options such as Heinz, HP, and Branstons ended up in the middle, with the cheaper options from Aldi and Asda being the best. The most expensive beans were from Marks and Spencer and were voted the worst ones.
If you’re paying more than 50p a can its not worth it.
Dogs, rescues are just as doglike and mostly free compared to the Hapsburg simulator known as breeding
Cats too! I like to say I get all my animals used.
But look at the chin on that dog!
Phones; the latest and greatest is the middle range phone in just 2yrs and half the price.
Medicine. The house brands and generics are the exact same, tested the same, made the same.
Not exactly. Just a fun fact and disclaimer that I use generics if at all possible. But my pharmacology class taught that generics can have higher tolerance of error in % of active ingredient. Not usually a big deal unless the drug has a very narrow therapeutic range, meaning too little doesn’t work and too much will harm you. 99.9% of generics is fine. But if you ever wonder if one batch of your med doesn’t seem to work as well this it’s likely that batch was on the lower end of acceptable.
Depends on the meds. I take concerta for ADHD and as I understand it, the generic doesn’t use the same release mechanism.
I’m also on concerta (ADHD highfive) and I’ve found lower efficacy with the generic… I sure wish it was the same though.
But real Advil has the candy coating on the outside, and I haven’t found a generic that does =(
Otherwise 100% identical yes.
Problem with the candy coating is you can’t enjoy it, unless you want to suddenly learn what pure poison tastes like. It’s such a tease. Doesn’t help that they look like scrumptious little caramel-y morsels.
Oh I suck on them first. It lasts long enough.
A few years ago, I wondered why that was and googled it. I came to an Advil site with an expandable FAQ, and one of the questions was “why does Advil taste sweet?”
So I expanded it out to reveal this shocking answer (or something similar): “Advil tastes sweet because it is lightly coated in sugar.”
Thanks, I guess. I just closed the tab in mild irritation and moved on with my day.
Yep
There may be a difference in things like pill shape, texture, release mechanism / time to absorb (if it’s not very important for how the medication works)
So it’s ok to have a preference for one brand over the other when one of those points is relevant to your situation. I know some people also prefer the generic brand version over the regular (even if prices were the same)
Wait, what? I have no idea what advil is, but sugar coating any drug is a recipe for disaster.
Sugarcoating pills is fairly common, especially for pills which are frequently ingested or target older demographics. It’s because sugar coatings are much gentler on the esophagus (i.e.: less likely to cause esophagitis, “pill burn”). Advil (i.e.: ibuprofen) is a cheap, well tolerated, and non habit-forming pain reliever – it’s about as safe as such a thing could possibly be, so hopefully that helps to explain why a sugar coating might be warranted given the aforementioned upsides (for the love of all that is holy; always read the directions on the label, it’s still quite possible that Advil is not safe for you specifically). FWIW: the bottles also have childproofing mechanisms built into the caps (… at least in U.S. markets. Not sure about elsewhere?)
I’ve never heard of sugarcoating pills, is it a US thing maybe?
I think you have a wrong image of how this looks/works. It’s not like there is a cany-shell or something. It’s a regular, smooth pill. You usually do not notice this coating because you don’t keep a pill in your mouth. If you were to, the pill would taste sweet.
If you ever have gotten a pill of some sort that dd not feel chalky on the outside but smooth and looked kinda shiny, that probably has been a sugarcoated pill.
I think you’re right then, and honestly I can’t say I’ve noticed.
many birth control pills are sugarcoated for example. Or anti-histamine allergy medication like Cetericine
Often made by the same.
Aspirin and paracetamol I don’t think are patented by any one company now. Supermarket brand is super cheap.
Also, a cheaper alternative is to eat less and eat healthier. I know we can’t all afford expensive healthy foods but just simply cutting out excess fats, sugar and empty carbs from your diet will add years to your life and also add better years to your life.
Fashion accessories. For most fashion (not workwear), the expensive stuff is made from the same material and in the same factories as the cheap stuff, they just market it harder.
Body wash. It’s watered-down soap. Just buy a bar of soap.
Amazon Prime. Amazon used to be space-age Sears. Now it’s just Aliexpress. Fake reviews and bribery are rampant, dangerously nonfunctional products get top recommendations, used and broken products get resold as new while untouched returns get thrown into landfills, Amazon Basics violates IP, and they’re putting ads in Prime Video now.
Microwaves and space heaters. The boxes may try to convince you otherwise, but the amount of heat these devices can deliver is bottlenecked by the power outlet. Every 1100W microwave is just as effective as the others. If you’re paying more, it’s for looks and for features you’ll never use like popcorn mode.
Electronics, for most people. Most people won’t get more use out of a new $1500 phone than a last-gen model from the same manufacturer for $500. Do you really want a $200 smart coffee maker, or a $20 dumb coffee maker with a $10 plug-in timer?
Software. Obligatory FOSS plug. I don’t blame people for sticking to what’s familiar, but if you have the time and energy to spare tinkering, most software out there has a good free or open-source equivalent these days. At least for personal use. In my use case, LibreOffice beats Microsoft Word, Photopea beats Photoshop, and Google Sheets beats Excel.
Hard disagree on body wash vs soap. Soap always leaves a weird filmy feeling on my skin no matter what brand I use. Plus having to lather up the bar is annoying and I don’t want to deal with wet washcloths in the shower. Give me a poof and a bottle of body wash any day.
The advantages of being hairy. I have out evolved the need for washcloths.
I agree with everything but using Google sheets. It’s neither free nor open source. You don’t pay with money but with your privacy. Libre office is just as good as a desktop application and is actually FOSS. If you absolutely need the cloud storage, get a provider you can trust, buy the space and sync your files online, after editing locally.
Google sheets isn’t FOSS, right? Is there something comparable in libre?
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salt
table salt, iodized salt, himalayan… they’re all the same for me. I don’t think my taste buds are adapted to the subtle differences so cheaper ones are better.
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show-off jewelry, wallet, purses
showing off jewelry is an invitation to be mugged (again, imo. ymmv) so the cheaper ones are the better options.
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coffee
if only you’re fine with cheaper ways to wake yourself.
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wax-based lip balm
anything beeswax is good. then again ymmv since people can be allergic
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pure or as-is things like land, electricity, internet, water, oxygen cans, gas/ heating, alcohol (disinfectant)
About salt, afaik there is no difference in taste, only in texture (by grain size) and color.
And density. There’s more salt in a spoonful of table salt than a spoonful of kosher salt
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Everything. Just steal.
Electric toothbrushes. Don’t get the cheapest one either, get a mid range one from a good brand but the top end models of the good brands are just scams, they just look a bit nicer and have some shitty “AI powered” app you’ll never use.
I personally do not find expensive wine and liquor worth it. That obviously don’t mean all cheap wines are good, but I find the percentage of bad wine I had at $50 - $70 range is pretty much the same as wine around or under $20.
I find the best way is to research online before you buy or go for couple known-good brands. Most of the results actually tend to be on the cheaper side (around $20 for wine, around $35 for liquor).
IMHO, there are two price bands for wine: under-$10, and over. I have an unsophisticated palette, but I can tell a cheap wine from a not-cheap one. I can’t tell a not-cheap one from an expensive one, though. Some really expensive wines taste like crap to me, worse than the mid-range ones. That’s the only time I can pick out on expensive wine: it might taste bad, but it doesn’t taste cheap.
I can’t tell the difference between wine at all. Whiskey and beer I can definitely tell the difference between cheap and good stuff, but once you hit the 80$+ range it all blends together.
grape wine sucks
there’s more complexity in Shaoxing cooking wine than grape wine
also the best beer I’ve ever had was some artisanal non-alcoholic one, I’ve been trying to find it for 10 years but never succeeded
I’ll disagree to a point on liquor.
I like single-malt Scottish whiskey. I like Islays the most, followed by Speysides, Cambelltowns, Highlands, and Lowlands (in that order). I’ve found that, generally speaking, the longer a whiskey has been aged, the better it’s going to be at mellowing out the harsher flavors in a given distillery’s offerings. Compared to blended whiskeys–which are usually cheaper–single malt, and single barrel are a better experience in my opinion. I’m usually paying $50-200 for something that I’ll really enjoy, with most being in the $100-150 range.
But $5000 for a 40yo bottle of Macallen? Absolutely not.
A lot of generic foods. Safeway’s in-house brand, for example, has better crackers, pasta sauces, a handful of other items than the expensive name brands do. And yes, that includes Rao’s. I’ll never understand why that brand is so popular when Safeway Select exists and tastes better with perfectly good ingredients at a fraction of the cost.
Space heaters
makeup removing coton pieces
Water. At least here in Denmark. Bottled water is less regulated than tap water.
In parts of the Alps, the stuff coming out of the fountains in the town square is cleaner than the stuff that comes out of the tap lol 😂
Pet toys
cheap rabbit toys use A LOT of glue, which is obviously not good for any animal.
Largely have to disagree with you there. The more expensive toys usually last a lot longer with my dogs.
Totally depends on the pet then. My cat is not a good predator, so breakage is not a problem, but she’s very picky with what she wants to play with and most new toys can’t keep her interest for longer than 2 weeks, so it’s absolutely a waste of money to spend more. The only toy that she consistently plays with is still a random piece of rope 😅
So the pet’s personality plays a part, but seeing the other comments, I also see a cat vs dog difference.
