baby ipod

[EDGE]

oh.. for the lo....

oh... never mind....

[HardRockCamaro]

Martin, dude, you have got to stop buying **** from Aldi...

LOL!

Wile some of their stuff is "alright", you get what you pay for.

Cheap drill = crap drill.
Cheap laptop = crap laptop.
Cheap camera = crap camera.


If you want a dirt cheap camera try this:

http://www.currys.co.uk/product.php?sku=791068\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://www.currys.co.uk/product.php?sku=791068

I have no idea what it's like and ok it's an extra tenner but it does say Pentax on it (not Pintox) so it's gonna be better than that "traveller" thing.


Going back to mp3 players, I bought a Samsung one (£250) before they were generally available in the UK and people even knew what an mp3 player was.  I bought another Samsung later (£150) then I finally bit the bullet and bought san iPod (back when they were actually expensive at around £350).  Since then I've bought 2 more iPods (one at £250 and one at £50) and now the iPhone. (which is an iPod Touch in essence)

The first Samsung one broke its feebly made battery cover (nasty plastic), the second one just stopped working (still nasty plastic as well).

The Samsungs are broken and worth nothing.

My original 20GB iPod still works and has a value.


The best way to judge the value of an item is to look at what it costs now, figure what it will be worth in 2 or 3 years (or whatever) and just look at the difference.  That's what it actually costs.
I bought an Apple iBook laptop (new) for £699.  I sold it 11 month later for £550.  So it cost me £150.

A cheaper, £400 cheap name laptop bought and sold a year later (probably with a 20min battery life by then and lots of cracks and broken latches most likely as they're made cheaply) would be worth what £200 on a good day?  So the true cost of that item would be £200.


We've become a nation obsessed with the ticket price (especially if it has a discount off some made up recommended price) and just buy cheap tat which breaks so we go out and buy yet more cheap tat to replace it.

And yes most things are made in china, but there's a difference between engineered in chine and made in china.  Made in china to western design specification and under scrutiny, fine.  Designed(or copied) in china and made in china under no scrutiny not so good...


One of my pet peeves is handing over any money at all for cheap junk.
I do it sometimes and I always feel bad about it and I always find said item breaking on me at which point I figure "I got what I deserved for buying this junk"...

(here endeth the rant)

[F Body]

Quoting: HardRockCamaro

Cheap drill = crap drill.
Cheap laptop = crap laptop.
Cheap camera = crap camera.

Gonna get me a cheap Chinese Mini

[HardRockCamaro]

LOL!

I wouldn't put it past you!


Just try not to hit anything, last I saw those chinese cars had the structural integrity of a house of cards...

[F Body]

Cheap is good

Free is better

Talking of drills the battery on Makita has expired and Lidl have one on special offer :



Trouble is it ain't cheap at £49.99

[Fieldy]

We need to sort you sort you out with FBF....

[art b]

well it has started a good disscusion on the value of things,

i have a couple of batt drills ,one from wickes,made by a major manufacturer and its 6 years old and as good as the day it was bought,another cheapie from home base 39 bucks and its pretty good for odd jobs,
ive had 300 pound drills  by bosch,makita,dewalt and they are great ...UNTIL they need repair then they are beyond economical repair at the dealers,
we have had cheap washers last 10 years,and expensive ones need repair every year,
boilers that were 30 yrs old working fine, new ones that pack up every months,

its horses for courses and some element of good luck with alot of products,

obviously you expect more from a well known top of the range brand ...but often an unknown item with parts sourced from third party makers can often turn up trumps,

we would all want rolls royce quality,but in the real world need to look for a compromise when it comes to spending our hard earned ....

[Fieldy]

Dude, just get an i-Pod for her.....

I could get you one from Tax free if it's A new one you're after, but it's only about £10 cheaper, then it'd have to find it's way to you

[HardRockCamaro]

Quoting: art b

boilers that were 30 yrs old working fine, new ones that pack up every months,

I'm firmly of the belief that the older stuff was better made.
Stuff tends to be made down to a price nowadays (even by the big names) but years ago it was made to last, which helped build their reputation.

its horses for courses and some element of good luck with alot of products,

This is true, it's just like buying a car, you can get one that will do 100,00 miles and never need anything, or you can get an identical one that is nothing but trouble.


Thing is, people who make their living using an item almost always buy the good stuff.  For example, a mechanic will generally buy Snap-On (or an equivalent), a builder will buy De-Walt or Makita.  And business is about making money and these things ain't cheap.

If you can buy a 24v drill from Aldi for £49.99 that's just as good as the  £400 from DeWalt, why don't they do that?

That would be £350 in their pocket! And if you own the firm and you have 50 men on site that's a saving of £17,500 just in drills.  Imagine all the other tools and of course the drill bits.  Look how much Makita or Black and Decker want for a drill bit compared to the unknown brand sets.  You could easily save the firm almost £100,000 by avoiding these brands.

Thing is I bought some unknown brand 7mm masonary drill bits and tried drilling a hole in concrete with them and they expired after just one hole (or less).  I then bought a pack of black and decker piranha masonary bits and they drilled 4 holes each and it was less hassle.

As an aside, I don't like rechargeable power tools, no matter who makes them.  Give me a mains drill and an extension lead any day of the week...


Obviously none of us are rich so we can't always afford the best, but it's real easy to fall into the trap of buying the cheapest and then having to buy it again, and again, and again.  Which in the end costs way more than buying the good one to begin with.

[Roadkill]

I only by reasonibly expensive tools nowadays . . . cheap ones just fail too quickly.  With the use I give them anyway.

For example - I brought a Riobi (sp) Angle grinder for £14.99.  It was O.K . . but quickly burn't out  within just a couple of weeks of active service.

My Hitachi grinder cost £38.99 and is utterly flawless.  I've used it hard and it's still as good as new.

BTW, Martyn - My mum had a "free gift" camera similar to that Aldi one . . . .

It is utter crap . . . really.  Even free didn't justify that.  It's horrible to use and the quality is nasty.

I'd recommend a second hand one instead . . . my Casio Exilim 4.0 MP with Pentax lense is worth about £40-50 second hand now and is far superior to any of these cheap camera at the same price.

I guarantee it'll last longer, even being a few years old already.

[HardRockCamaro]

Indeed.
I have a Casio Exilim which I'm gonna put on eBay now I have the big camera.  It's made of metal (one of the reasons I bought it) and the pictures are ace.  I'd hazard a guess it's worth 60 quid.

[Roadkill]

I'm tempted by the higher MP Exilims at the moment . . but can't justify buying a new one as mine is still 100% fine.



I'll probably, in time, pick up a "decent" camera and keep the Exilim as a "jobber" camera . . .

[F Body]

Quoting: HardRockCamaro

Indeed.
I have a Casio Exilim

Quoting: Roadkill

I'm tempted by the higher MP Exilims at the moment

Most of my pictures are taken with my Casio Exilim  EX-S20

Had you all going though, gotta go.....................to Aldi

[HardRockCamaro]

They have a new one just out (pricey though I would expect):

http://www.casio.co.uk/Products/Digital%20Cameras/Exilim%20Pro/EX-F1BKFDA/Technical_Specifications/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://www.casio.co.uk/Products/Digital%20Cameras/Exilim%20Pro/EX-F1BKFDA/Technical_Specifications/


60 frames per second stills
And a movie mode that can do 300, 600 or 1,200 frames per second.

The faster you go the lower the res though and they end up uber widescreen, but 600 isn't a bad compromise.

Fast forward to 2mins to see the high speed movies:

[Roadkill]

Sweet.

Want one.

[Incursus]

Quoting: Roadkill

but quickly burn't out within just a couple of weeks of active service.

Quoting: Roadkill

I'd recommend a second hand one instead . . . my Casio Exilim 4.0 MP with Pentax lense is worth about £40-50 second hand now and is far superior to any of these cheap camera at the same price.

sold mine to Ferenc David Nemith Henderson for £25

as it had a few scratches on the screen (cheers titsy) and 4-way select button was a bit iffy.

bought a Fujifilm finepix F50Fd. does the job nicely and its metal

[Roadkill]

Quoting: Incursus

No.  I haven't forgotton.

I never even used it !

[art b]

bugger ive just been using my 9" disc cutter,
and all was going well,it started to slip like the disc was loose,checked it out and the gearbox is full of swarf and theres next too no teeth left on the drive....

it only cost 40 bucks 3 years ago and ive used it 2 dozen times....

so its paid for itself compared to hiring one each time

but its the inconvience of it packing up,  that would have been avoided by buying a 200 quid one ....that why tradesmen buy proper kit

[HardRockCamaro]

LOL!

Actually I have an uber cheap Jigsaw I bought from B&Q (£9.99 iirc) just to build a boot install for the stereo system in my old Focus. That's all I bought it for, that one job.  Since then Edge has practically rebuilt his house with it, lol!!!

Then again, it is just a jigsaw, not like they have a hard life if all you're cutting is wood...

I recently had a cabling job to do for a place in the city which involved drilling 1 foot long, 50cm diameter holes in solid concrete.  The only drill I have is my dads old one (metal bodied black and decker from the early 80s which still works) which has no hammer action so I popped down to B&Q.  I *almost* bought a cheapo 8,000,000 watt own brand one but instead spent the money and bought a lesser wattage DeWalt.  Good thing too, the Makita I had borrowed from the building site next door conked out half way through the job, the cheapo would have had no chance.  The DeWalt didn't even break a sweat though.  

Although I did...  

[art b]

them old metal bodied drills frighten me ....

[Senior F Body Kid]

Quoting: Fieldy

I've got an i-River I want to sell, 1gb, ultra cool little thing, works with Windows Media Player......

£30.....

I Saw An I-River In The Which Magazine ,
I Thought Hmmm .. Im Sure Somebody Had One
For Sale Somewhere ! Then I Remembered .
Do You Still Have It ( I Know It's Really Late Now)
And How Much Do You Want For It ,
If You Still Wanna Sell It

[Fieldy]

Quoting: Senior F Body Kid

I Saw An I-River In The Which Magazine ,
I Thought Hmmm .. Im Sure Somebody Had One
For Sale Somewhere ! Then I Remembered .
Do You Still Have It ( I Know It's Really Late Now)
And How Much Do You Want For It ,
If You Still Wanna Sell It

Still got it, it's in A1 condition too, I'll PM you with pics/details when I get home (staying out tonight  )

I really liked it, only reason I stopped using it was because I prefer i-Tunes for music management over windows media + I got A good deal for an i-Pod through tax free (better than normal )

[Senior F Body Kid]

Ok

[Pod]

Quoting: HardRockCamaro

which involved drilling 1 foot long, 50cm diameter holes in solid concrete

50cm diameter?
Can't you just put a door in and be done with it?

[art b]

50mm