Spill the beans... on products that don't live up to the hype

Ben84

Mrs_Dizzy wrote: »

I have a friend who is a pharmacist that only ever buys the cheapest shops own brand painkillers

I agree with your friend. I'm a chemist and I know there is absolutely no difference between the 20p box of aspirin from a reputable retailer and the £2 branded one next to it on the shelf. The generic painkillers, for example aspirin, paracetamol or codeine are all the exact same drug molecules by definition and they usually come in the same strength tablets, so I always buy the inexpensive store branded ones in Boots or Sainsburys. Same for allergy tablets, they're basically either loratadine or cetirizine hydrochloride, after this the only difference is the advertising and how much they cost.

As for other products, for example cold and flu tablets, the ingredients vary quite a bit and some may be better than others, both as a formulation and in how an individual responds to them. However, I don't assume spending more means it will be better. The companies spend the money advertising the formulations and drug molecules they own patents for. Advertising spending is not directed by how effective a product is. Personal opinion is store brand products usually work very well and I have not had reason to suspect they're not as effective.

Mrs_Dizzy

cloughja wrote: »

Almost all food supplements, vitamins, echinacea, homeopathic remedies - pretty much the contents of Holland and Barrett. It's a multi-billion pound industry but there's no scientific proof they do any good.

norfolkmum wrote: »

My daughter has problems with her feet and goes regularly to a podiatrist. He told me NEVER to buy Clarks shoes for her. He said they spend all their money on advertising and their shoes are made out of cardboard. He said you may as well go to one of the cheap shops and spend a tenner instead of the £40+ for a pair of kids' shoes, they'll be about the same quality!

I have always brought my 2 clarkes or startright shoes & never had any problems they last for ages. I purchased a pair from startright that blistered my youngest & they changed them straight away. I also got him some from Clarkes a few years back that he just wouldnt wear as he said they hurt his feet. Clarkes refunded them with no quibbling even though he had worn them

Slimboy_Fat

Skeenfleent wrote: »

followed by Virgin Media's vastly over-hyped, postcode-lottery, oversubscribed, under-honest 'fibre-optic' broadband (ALL broadband is fibre-optic at some point, incidentally).

I have to disagree with you on Virgin Broadband...

I'll agree that they are not the cheapest and some people have complained about their CS (I have had only one problem with their CS, and the next guy I spoke to sorted it out straight away).

"Over Hyped, Over subscribed, Under honest" - I don't require super fast broadband so I have their 10meg connection, I get as near as damn 10meg constantly. You wont get that with ADSL from anywhere.

"Postcode Lottery" - I can see what you mean with this but if you haven't got cable where you live, you can't get cable Would you complain about a shop having a sale just because they didn't have a branch near you?

If you need the other services so can get a bundle and still haggle you will bring the price of Virgin Media to a reasonable price.

msph321

Purchased a sofa in January. kgbdeals had a deal - get a sofa worth £499 for only £199 from a company named Shopperheads. As my other couch is sunken in & uncomfortable, I figured that this was perfect - nice looking, brown faux leather, folds out into a bed for guests.

It had to be put together. Fairly simple but annoying, as there isn't always someone around to help. Then I sat on it. Eh, not too bad. Then I laid down on it. Hard & uncomfortable as hell, to the point that I don't even like going into the living room to watch TV anymore.

Needless to say, I'm annoyed and looking to get rid of it ASAP, whether by selling really cheap or donating. I think that I'll stick to buying furniture from stores and/or looking online & going to the store to see for myself.

What a waste. :-/

msph321

Bought Acer laptop in September 2010. It crashed 3 times in 6 months... the 1st time exactly 1 month after purchase. Got fed up, got it fixed & sold for cheap, and got a MacBook Pro in May 2011. No issues since.

limereason wrote: »

I have a 7 year old Apple laptop that's still going strong, unlike cheaper Acer one my partner had that lasted barely 3 years. Which Apple products have you used to come to this opinion?

Lum

Slimboy_Fat wrote: »

I have to disagree with you on Virgin Broadband...

I'll agree that they are not the cheapest and some people have complained about their CS (I have had only one problem with their CS, and the next guy I spoke to sorted it out straight away).

"Over Hyped, Over subscribed, Under honest" - I don't require super fast broadband so I have their 10meg connection, I get as near as damn 10meg constantly. You wont get that with ADSL from anywhere.

"Postcode Lottery" - I can see what you mean with this but if you haven't got cable where you live, you can't get cable Would you complain about a shop having a sale just because they didn't have a branch near you?

You're kind of missing the point.

Virgin do have one advantage over ADSL. If you pay for a 10meg connection, then your connection between your house and the head-end will indeed be 10meg. With ADSL, the connection between your house and the exchange will vary based on line quality (I'm lucky, I'm on ADSLMax and get the full 8meg as I'm only 500 meters from the exchange)

However this is not the only cause of slow speeds. Virgin will only have so much bandwidth between your local head-end and their data centre, and in congested areas, this bandwidth will be a lot lower than the combined total of all the connections of all their subscribers. If everybody starts downloading at once then nobody is going to get the full speed that their line is capable of.

Additionally, Virgin's data centre(s) will only have so much bandwidth available to the wider internet.

ADSL has similar problems, once your data is at the exchange, the exchange only has so much bandwidth onto BT's ATM network, from there it makes its way over to your chosen ISP and again they will only have so much bandwidth available to the wider internet.

As a good analogy. Pretend that 50mbps connection from Virgin is like having a private dual carriageway installed from your front door directly to the nearest motorway. That sounds awesome in theory, but if your nearest motorway is the M25, rather than the M50, then you're still going to take hours to get to work.

And this is (probably) what Skeenflent meant by a postcode lottery with virgin. That said the same postcode lottery exists on ADSL. I live in a dormitory village so even though I can get the full 8meg sync speed and use an ISP with oodles of bandwidth available, in the evenings everything grinds to a halt because the exchange doesn't have enough bandwidth onto the ATM network. There's no cable where I live though.

John_Pierpoint

I'm only 500km from the exchange - divide by 8 and multiply by five?:rotfl:

Lum

Whoops, edited now. Should have been 500 meters.

nuttywoman

That Cillit Bang All In One Dish and Surface cleaner.I got a free one with the machine and the stuff is rubbish, i would never buy a refill for it.

jenniewb

Slimboy_Fat wrote: »

I have their 10meg connection, I get as near as damn 10meg constantly. You wont get that with ADSL from anywhere.

I'm with talktalk, I have 10meg speed and am not subscribed to any sort of high speed, thats just my bog standard speed and its on ASDL, comes free as long as I have a landline with them.
Sometimes slows to between 7-9 during the day time but otherwise is around 10.

(My mmum has Virgin, I've lost count of the times she has lost connection or had service issues in just the past year alone. She is about 20 mins from me.)