Reputed vendors/brands super thread

QQQ

Most of us know about car brands and that BMW and Toyota is better quality than Renault and Kia. Same things happen with mobile phones, laptops, bicycles, tyres and clothes - everyone knows their brands and what they worth.
But what if I need to buy smaller things? Who makes good umbrellas, alarm clocks, plastic windows, batteries, lamp bulbs, soft furniture. Of course, if you pay more, you get better but marketroids often exploit this, offering something not the best for the highest price.
And anyway the idea is to get something better for less money, not more.
Shall we start a "product - recommended vendor" table? Or is there already a ready one somewhere?
Currently I am trying to figure out who makes reliable alarm clocks with good usability. I am not going to buy Accumin again

QQQ

So, no one is interested?

steve1980

QQQ wrote: »

So, no one is interested?

Obviously not! This probably isn't the best forum for this.

esuhl

Brands are a poor indicator of quality because as soon as a brand is recognised for the "aspirational" qualities of its products, it will see a gap in the market for products which satisfy aspirational urges, yet are affordable.

There's also no reason to suppose that, because a company produces a particular product of notable quality, that any of its other products will be of equivalent quality.

And brands can simply be lifted and stuck on anything! Take the "Beats Audio by Dr. Dre" brand of headphones. Dr. Dre is a musician. There's no reason to imagine that he knows any more about audio quality than the average person. I'd also wager that he knows absolutely nothing about electrical engineering an has really had very little say in the production of the products that he's putting his name to. In effect, when you buy a pair of Beats Audio headphones, a good chunk of the price you pay is needed just to pay Dr. Dre for the use of his name and for all the marketing.

Objects like umbrellas are probably made by a huge number of companies, and each company probably has hundreds of different lines. One umbrella they make might be perfect, and the next one rubbish. And because of the huge variety of umbrellas on the market, if you were going to set up a database of reviews, you'd probably end up with a thousand different umbrellas each with a single review, which wouldn't really give people a good idea as to which one was "best".

Brands are what companies want us to use to choose products because branding is something that companies can sell (in addition to their tangible products). The smart person ignores brands and (where possible) judges a product by objective measurements/properties, independent reviews and perceived value-for-money.

That's my take on it, anyway!