HP printers.
Really HP anything on principle, but their printers take the cake for anti-user bullshit.
I picked up an old HP LaserJet (with the Ethernet option) for free during grad school. It was a great printer — good CUPS/Linux support, reliable, cheap 3rd party toner.
It’s sad how the mighty have fallen. Would never recommend one for someone today.
I still use a LaserJet 4N, but not a chance I’d buy a new HP anything.
I think the M477 and M479 were good, but those are business class laser printers. So far I’m less impressed with the 4301 that replaces them.
Their laptops are good. But the company is shitty.
That being said, they’re still thriving for a reason. I was trying to convince my cousin to get rid of his HP subscription printer and he won’t. He says it is cheap and easy to pay the subscription and his school aged kids can print the colour pictures they want when they remember they had an assignment at midnight. He just gets ink replacement posted to his house before he runs out and he says it works out great for him.
That said, if you pay more up-front for something like a Brother laser printer, it should last you a lot longer and be on the order of 10x cheaper per page. People see Instant Ink as “cheap” because they’ve probably never tried the much cheaper alternative, and they see it as “convenient” because they’ve never had a printer that lasts several thousand prints without a cartridge change. It’s really sad seeing so many people who can afford the upfront cost of a laser printer falling for this scam so often.
Brother seems to be the last printer brand to be good. At least on the consumer grade. And they seem to last forever
HP laptops are bottom-of-the-barrel trash and have been for at least 15 years at this point. HP will purposely hide screws underneath rubber skid pads and stickers, requiring you, the owner of said laptop, to damage your own laptop in order to open it up. And you will have to open it up, because it is a piece of shit and it will break. But good luck fixing it, because they won’t even be able to sell you the parts you need, presumably because they’re sourced from whatever Chinese factory is the cheapest at any given time. Fuck HP and fuck HP laptops especially.
My mother got an HP 255 G8 laptop on which the webcam just will not work no matter what I do.
It’s enabled in the bios and the correct driver is installed but the built-in webcam is not detected. Also the keyboard got damaged with the space button only responsing to center presses after roughly a year of usage.
I know it’s a relatively cheap machine but the driver issue pissed me off
Any Apple product, mostly the iPhones. If you live in Latin America, those things are more a burden than something useful. They are too expensive, too fragile, and too Eye-catching for burglars.
They eats up your phone plan in hours just by existing, you can’t borrow a charger because everyone around you has Android. The simplest things to do on Android are an ordeal on Iphone.
The only way it can be worth it is if you have all Apple products (iMac, AppleTV, iPad, etc). But for that, you better be prepared to pawn your soul.
The first paragraph, I can get along with and understand where you’re coming from.
The second paragraph, could you elaborate what you mean by “eat up your phone plan just by existing”? I personally use an iPhone and have had very normal data usage rates that is accurately tracked through both the phone and my carrier’s app.
Also regarding borrowing a charger, they just moved to USB-C so that will be a non-issue a few years down the road when lightning is phased out.
Should probably point out thatbthey were forced to move to USB-C
Sure, but whether they were forced to move over or did it out of the (non-existent) goodwill of their hearts wasn’t the point of contention in the discussion and results in a similar outcome. The initial commenter pointed out that they couldn’t share a charger and I just mentioned that this should be a non-issue once lightning is phased out.
Considering they made it so that you need apple issued usb-c, and have problems with normal one (probably fixed now because people obviously complained). I’d say avoiding it is a good choice.
Not true. Check my other comment on this thread where I talked about my experience with 3rd party USB-C cables
Well, it is necessary to clarify that I speak not so much from my own experience but from those close to me (family and friends who have or have had iPhones, I have only had iPods). With regard to the phone plan, the people I know who have had iPhones always tend to have no data to browse, because the data on their phone runs out surprisingly faster than on Android phones. I don’t know what the technical details would be, I suspect it has to do with processes running in the background that require internet.
With the chargers, on the one hand the thing is that most iPhone phones circulating in Latin America are older, so none have the Type-C port that is now Standard. And for the iPhones that do have it, correct me if I’m wrong, but I think those iPhones have a particularity that only cables manufactured by Apple can effectively charge the iPhone, while any other cable either can not charge it as quickly or can even damage it. I think something similar happens with the Nintendo Switch, that its port is Type-C but only cables made by Nintendo work, but I insist in saying that I could be wrong.
To conclude, I must say that this is just my opinion according to a specific context. I am sure that in more developed countries like the United States, Japan or European countries, the experience of having an iPhone is as normal as with any other phone, or even better.
Gotcha. It could be entirely possible that the anecdotal experiences regarding phone data that you’ve heard could be simply because they’re heavier users or that they purchased a smaller quota. From personal experience, I really have not noticed any background processes that suck up data.
Regarding the type-C cable though, I have actually experienced that problem where cheaper cables do not work for charging. This part is PURE SPECULATION on my end, but I suspect Apple stops cheaper cables from charging on the off chance that it increase the risk of a fire (cheap cables = thinner wires = more resistance = more heat) because when stuff like that makes the news, the headline is typically “iPhone caught fire while charging” and not “Cheap cable caused a fire.” I spent a lil more on a third party USB-C cable that was higher quality and rated to charge up to 65W and have had no problems with it. I’m not sure what the economic situation is in Latin America, but where I am (Malaysia), I spent about RM60 (which is roughly equivalent to $13) on the cable that worked compared to RM20 for the cable that didn’t, just to give you a point of reference.
The simplest things to do on Android are an ordeal on Iphone.
Can you give us any examples?
- sigh *
Ok, let me see. Again, this is my experience and my opinion, so some things may not be a problem for you at all, for example:
Testing self-developed games or apps. I develop games. To test them on android I just need to create the APK, pass it to the phone, install and done. I may be wrong, but on Apple it’s not that simple.
File management. Many times I use my phone as a Pendrive, others I want to save my music to listen offline. Of the latter I remember that on my old iPod it was a headache to transfer music from my non-Apple PC to the device, transferring other files was just impossible, and it seems to me that that has not changed in Iphone, but I don’t know for sure, since I don’t handle an iPhone.
Going back. All modern Android phones have three on-screen buttons, the order varies, but in general they are: one to see all open apps and close the ones you don’t need or all of them, one to exit the app completely, and one to go back to the previous tab in an app. The iPhones I have been allowed to handle do not have any of the three buttons, the back button is the one I miss the most.
Adobe Creative Cloud. It’s really expensive, and once you stop paying, you lose everything.
No wonder why it’s some of the most pirated software in the world.
Losing access to a work I put hours and days, sometimes months of my life was the main reason I now absolutely refuse any non-open source products. My advisor/colleagues sometimes say “university gives it for free”, or “we pay all that money for this softwares”, but I am not going to use them even if they are slightly better than open source.
You’re making great progress.
Any Google smartwatch. I bought 2 at one point. A sport and a dress watch. Both only lasted about a year before the software rendered them useless. I’m now back on analogue watches.
It’s almost aggressive how quickly smart devices get shuttered, being an oldschool techhead I’ve always dreamed of being a walking compute center, but just like smart house gear, you can’t expect a thing you buy today to work next week and we are just conditioned to accept it.
I have never had a good time with Asus anything and their customer service is abysmal.
Their after sale support (both warranty and technical support) is absolutely abysmal. If you need support for one of their products you’re best off dumping it “as is” on fleaBay and buying something else to replace it.
Tile countertops. Our house came with them and they are terrible. Who the fuck thought of these?
Can you elaborate on what about them sucks so bad? I don’t know that I’ve ever seen them in real life.
The little grout space between the tiles…can’t clean the fucking things well enough and shit always gets in there
Grout is impossible to clean, kitchens ought not have so many seams to hold bacteria; they also inexplicably had a painted surface that is coming off now. They are so hard they can break a glass if you set it down too hard, and they can themselves also crack.
Kids
Anything from Anker after they cancelled an order with PayPal approved payment because ‘they couldn’t verify payment’. Then they insist that the cancelled order could be reviewed if I put personally identifiable information into a random Google sheets doc.
All complaint handling appeared to be a bot. They refused to explain what was the concern with the payment and always responded with very similar ‘apology’ emails even when I indicated for every email they send i’d inform another person to avoid them.
Hard disagree. That sucks about what happened to you but in my experience, Anker products (especially their USB cables, chargers, and batteries) are the best.
Edit: Just learned about this shitty news regarding Anker’s cameras (didn’t even know they had cameras) thanks to /u/Empiricorn. Personally, I don’t trust any security cameras that are cloud-based.
Anker is off my list because of the cameras. They used to be my go-to for cables and chargers. Completely unacceptable.
Any suggestions for a different company to buy cables etc from? I’ve bought their chargers and cables and been happy with them but I’m fine with trying something different next time.
The suggestion I took was Ugreen for chargers and cables. Cables seem to work, and don’t instantly fray, that’s all I want. I got a compact GaN wall plug and it is reasonably fast for the size. No fires and no fried electronics so far.
I appreciate the recommendation! Thanks!
This was the same company that refused to ship to Rhode Island, suggesting you had their product shipped to a friend on “the mainland” who could then forward it
Where should I get my phone cables and battery banks from?
The phone cables are shit but I haven’t found any other good alternatives. The battery banks are alright.
On Christmas 2023 I was given an Anker charger. By March 2024 it stopped working…
I really wonder if their product quality fell off and why. I have chargers/cables/batteries from Anker that I bought in 2016 and not a single one has failed.
Ive only used their headphones and chargers, which I bought recently, theyre still working fine. Mostly. Except for my bluetooth earphones. Theres occassional lag and stuttering problems with it on my laptop.
Frank’s cancer pills. They gave you cancer.
I don’t get how he’s made them for so long.
That guy is such a wiener; the wurst kind of shit sack.
A real jerk.
Cloud and “serverless” solutions
Anything made by Razer, any Google hardware
I got a bundle of a Razer keyboard, mouse, headset, and mousepad for all of $50 one time cause it was on sale and we just happened to come across the last one they had. This was about a year ago, because I was needing new ones anyway, and they’ve been perfectly fine ever since.
I try to avoid razer because their products seem so gimmicky and are quite expensive. But i have an mmo mouse for a long time now (longer than any other mouse) and the tartarus, because they were the only ones at the time wgo had something like that. It still works perfectly fine. The s button is almost gone because of usage, but other than that, 10/10
I had a Razer keyboard, mouse, mousepad, laptop. They all broke down in 1-2 years. The Razer keyboard battery bloated until it broke the chassis, so I bought another battery, but that bloated, now I use a thinkpad t14; the mouse’s rubber pads fell off and the paint started peeling off, now I’m using a better mouse, glorious model o-; the mousepad started deteriorating and splitting apart; and the keyboard paint also fell off and the stabilizers were not stabilizing.
A phone plan with a phone. You pay more over time and you get stuck with a contract.
Buy a phone and get a plan from a MVNO. Your monthly plan will be better and cheaper. Also since you own the phone when a better plan appears you can just switch.
“Old Spice” flavored candy
I don’t think that means what you think that means
I hope to God you mean black licorice
And Old Spice flavored candy would be absolutely dimented
I had to choose between “Old Spice” and “Irish Spring”.
I think I chose well
Roku anything
I have a tv from them and one day the PBS kids app just stopped working. I contacted customer support and they just told me it was the app developer’s fault, nothing to be done. Waited months thinking it would eventually resolve but never did.
And recently where they:
- Blocked people from using their tvs until they accepted a new agreement and
- Filed for a patent that defines how they can start overlaying ads on top of other connected devices over hdmi
Glad I shut off wifi to my tv years ago and plugged in a separate smart tv hdmi dongle. And not getting anywhere near anything that says Roku on the packaging again.
I’ve never had a Roku TV, but I’ve been using two of their HDMI connected devices for years.
I’ve never had an issue, but one is too old and needs replacing. What alternatives would you suggest I have a look at?
We’ve used the Amazon firestick before and it worked well. Currently we use the google chromecast/tv dongle for both ours tvs.
Nice thing about the google one is that it makes any Google movie/tv show purchases available, and Amazon movie purchases are still available through the Amazon video app.
But they’re pretty comparable. Depends mostly on what ecosystem you’re in or would prefer to be in.
Any guitar under $700 with any feature you’d expect to be standard in medium to high end guitars. If a brand new guitar has a floyd rose but is $300, it won’t hold tuning, and the screws will strip easily.
Not saying expensive guitars are good by default, but there’s very little room for innovation in the guitar world, and corner cutting will happen in cheaper guitars.
This guy guitars
