What is a product that lived up to it's advertised claims?
What is a product that lived up to it's advertised claims?
The reverse of a question I asked on here a while ago.
Steam Deck
Basically every Valve product and software.
The game Portal genuinely lived up to the slogan "now you're thinking with portals." Soon after I started playing I'd be walking around in real life and thinking "if I put portals there and there, I could get from here to that building rooftop there and on to over there..."
I still regularly replay those games.
The only Valve hardware I'm aware of and haven't bought is the official dock for my Deck. I've yet to regret any of those purchases.
Head-On CAN be appied directly to the forehead! Which was it's only claim.
One of the only brands I would ever promote, Darn Tough socks.
Wear em out, ship them back, order a free pair. It's that easy and they are the most comfortable, durable socks I have ever worn. Won't ever buy another brand.
I've worn mine long and hard and haven't gotten to test out the warranty yet, the first pair I bought is probably closing in on a decade and nearly indistinguishable from pairs that are several years newer. Even if they don't honor their warranty for some reason I feel like I've gotten my money's worth and then some.
I want to point out here, in Australia there is a brand of socks called Darn Tough that is sold at Kmart, Target and BigW, it is NOT THE SAME Darn Tough brand you see raved online. It's a completely different sock brand thats been around for about 20 years in Australia and just happens to have the same name. They are not great socks, very thick but don't last long.
Bought 2 pairs of their normal socks (everyday/sport socks) because they advertised to keep your feet cool during the day. I decided to test them out before I bought a bunch as workout socks.
1 was completely ripped on the sides by literally the 3rd wear (2nd week I had them), only walking around the office a bit.
The other lasted 8 wears before it got a hole on the balls of my feet and was almost worn through on the sides (about 6 weeks), still not one workout done with then
By very far the worst socks I have ever owned. I didn't get a chance to try their warranty because I moved out of the US, but hot damn I will always recommend against their thin socks, only go for the large tube/hiking/warm socks.
Crazy. I have hiked hundreds of miles in the thin hiking socks, and while they weren't nearly as durable as the midweights, they still outperformed every other sock I have tried. Smartwool, rei, carhartt, typical cotton socks etc. I guess as with most things, YMMV
Well, that sucks that your experience was poor, especially at their price point. I would be a bit frustrated with the brand as well.
Bear in mind they're in the EU and don't need a receipt https://darntough.eu/pages/our-unconditional-lifetime-guarantee
Timex: Takes a licking and keeps on ticking.
I licked my watch when I was a kid and it kept on ticking.
Wood glue, no particular brand recommendations, is one of the pew products I trust to do exactly what it claims to - glue wood.
Titebond 3. It's a pretty easy choice; it has one of, if not the highest strengths of wood glues on the market, and it's water resistant. If you want the wood to break before the glue does, that's the stuff you want.
That is usually what I go with, because I normally only keep one bottle of wood glue around and it covers pretty much any use case I could ever have for wood glue being waterproof, safe for indirect food contact, etc.
But honestly, for general gluing furniture together and such, even the cheapest no-name brands of wood glue have always done just fine. Pretty much any wood glue out there is stronger than any wood you're likely getting the be gluing (inb4 some carpentry nerd chimes in with some rare wood that only grows in New Zealand or something that is stronger than steel or something)
Yeah. If it fails it's the wood around the glued joint, not the joint iself.
A face grain to face grain joint will usually fail at least partially along the growth rings in the board(s) rather than at the glue joint, yes. But an end grain to end grain joint (which are rarely made for practical reasons) will typically fail at the glue joint.
Wood is kind of a composite material; it's cellulose fibers bound together with a polymer called lignin. PVA wood glue is stronger than lignin but not as strong as the cellulose fibers, so a broken face-to-face joint will break along the weakest, the lignin.
If you edge glue a panel together for say a table top, gluing boards edge-to-edge, that board will be at least as strong as if it was one wide board; it will take at least as much force as a single board to break.
But, if you glue two long boards end to end, it won't be as strong as a single continuous board of the same overall length. It will fail at and along the glue joint, maybe pulling a couple splinters out of one board. Which is why we basically never do that; if a board has to be spliced it's common to add a doubler so there are fibers crossing the joint line.
But yes PVA glue like Titebond is amazingly good at bonding wood.
I wonder if there is any bad wood glue out there. I use it quite a bit and I don't think i ever used the same brand twice.
My latest bottle is gorilla and it works well enough. But exactly like you said, I don't think I could pick it out from every other bottle I've used in the last 20 years.
I think zippo lighters say they’re wind proof. I did enough professional testing a month ago to confirm this. My neighbors can also confirm there was a man in my lawn with a lighter violently whipping it around in his hand until said man was winded.
Sadly i am not made of zippos.
I think "wind-resistant" would be more accurate.
As someone who used to smoke and had a Zippo, absolutely this. If it was pretty windy, the flame may stay lit but it wouldn't hold still enough to light anything.
I fixed my hot tub with Flex Tape. It seems to be doing the job.
now that's a lotta damage
"Open heart surgery - guy's got an artery going - FLEX TAPE"
I've repaired 2 kayaks and my tiny, flat-bottom boat. That shit is scary.
Bone conduction headphones
Really? I've been dubious of these but...if true...
I worked in a setting where we had to use them because people had to get audio prompts but still needed to be able to hear for situational awareness. They definitely work and work pretty well. You can even use them underwater. They can’t match the sound quality of actual headphones though. But for voice stuff or if you’re not super picky about audio quality they’re great, you can easily hear everything going on around you much more clearly than any of the “transparency modes” that modern noise cancelling headphones have because they don’t block your ears at all
They are fantastic for spoken audio like audiobooks and podcasts by themselves, if you're using them in combination with earplugs they work a lot better for music because you get the low bass sounds that you would miss without the ear plugs.
Have a recommended brand or style?
I use whatever the premium Shokz product was 4 years ago. They have a new model that's supposed to have better sound quality. I think it's the open run pro 2. That's what I'd get if I were buying another pair
My mom bought my backpack 25 years ago and the clerk told her "they'll last for at least five years".
Well I still use mine daily, so yeah. Definitely lived up to expectations. Although I've did get it fixed, but first time just a year or two ago. So lasted without any fixing for longer than the average age on Lemmy, I'd say.
What brand?
Sorry forgot to reply. Hedgren, it's called.
But idk if their current products reflect that level of durability.
Power (not adidas, the brand is power) backpacks are good. Spent like 25 bucks a decade ago and it only needed some stitches. Was daily use for most of that time, too!
I bought a laptop backpack a loooooooong time ago, and still use it constantly. It's been through 3 laptops, and I'm not the type to upgrade until it is absolutely necessary.
I bought a military grade backpack on a Marine Corps base in 2001. I used it for 3 years in the military, then all of undergrad, masters, and phd school. I use it on almost all of my travels, and I use it daily in town. It's still going strong. Hope to get another 23 years out of it.
My MacBook air... Apple bad and all, but the battery life and (CPU) performance meet the claims...
Same with my early-2015 model MacBook Pro. My only Apple product. It just works, what can I say. I'm basically waiting for a reason to switch to the Framework laptop but we'll see. I might eventually just get another MacBook. I gifted my SO a MacBook air around the same time I bought mine and she has had zero issues with that as well.
I got this M3 air earlier this year... It's also my only apple product and so far it's been great. 0 driver issues, 0 slowdown, 0 screwing around. It just works...
I had the same 2015 MBP, and honestly the only reason I sold it was because I was gifted an M2 Air. For the £400 I paid for it, it’s an incredible laptop.
The one apple product I'm willing to buy.
I feel like other brands have closed the gap but there was a time where macbooks seemed like the only great laptop on the market.
Not the 8GB RAM model tho, too low for 2020...
Mine's an 8GB. At least for my use case (web development/design) it's plenty...
Yes, Apple have become a steaming tower of shitheads, but fuck me, their hardware is (generally) incredibly well built.
I have a 2011 13” MacBook Pro that I bumped up to 16gb RAM, and replaced the DVD drive with a second hard drive. I had it running Sonoma through OCLP until a few weeks ago when I threw Linux Mint on it. Damn thing won’t die. Same for the 2011 and 2014 Macs mini that I also use regularly. I also have a 15” M2 Air, which is legitimately the best computer I’ve ever owned. I don’t imagine I’ll get the same life out of that, not with macOS at least. Asahi Linux seems to be very, very promising though.
Louis Rossman enters the chat.
Knipex ♥️
A Knippix Kombi-Zange. Well played! Good tools are worth every cent.
Their flush cuts are the shit. Next time I break a tool I'm going to see if there's a knipex version.
people with really wide toes:
my 260 euros hiking shoes with extra wide toebox. i had size ten. with these shoes i have size 8.5 (i had to go longer, so i got more widht to fit my toes)
no pain anymore, no more infected nail beds. best shoes i ever had. model innsbruck
Noted. My frog toes are always busting out the sides of my running shoes like british POWs from a german prison camp
Believe it or not, Oxyclean. That stuff works wonders. RIP Billy Mays.
Those magic erasers turned out to be pretty effective, too.
Miele washing machine. Doing my laundry since 2001 and still as good as new.
A $250 Epson ink tank printer.
500 full colour 10x15 photos and still half full.
LASERJET COPIERS ARE SUPERIOR!
Instant pot. I mostly use it for batch cooking, making homemade stocks and rice now. But, I used to make yoghurt in it weekly and proof dough in it every 3 days or so.
It advertised a bunch of functions and it only sucks at slow cooking, but pressure cooking is faster and better imo, it does suck at slow cooking though.
I have a different brand of multicooker, and it's excellent. The "boil" function goes down as low as 40C so I use it to sous vide things fairly often
Instant Pot
Mr Clean magic bathroom erasers. Holy shit. They literally melted the soap scum from my bathtub when every other tile cleaner did next to nothing. I was completely blown away.
This 100%. Here's a life pro tip: Mr. Clean Magic Eraser is the trademarked brand. The generic product (which is exactly the same thing) is "melamine sponge".
Depending on where you live, the Magic Eraser is an 4-5X more expensive than the equivalent generic on Amazon or eBay.
This was a very pro tip
I bought like 300 off Amazon 10 years ago for something like 30 bucks. They arrived in a large (like 55 gallon) black garbage bag. We still haven't used them to this day.
Edit: I had to go look, looks like I wasn't quite right, was 100 for 11 bucks, and was only in 2017.
USMYTHA 100Pcs/lot Magic Melamine Cleaning Sponge Multi-Functional Foam Eraser Pads 10x6x2CM(4x2.4x0.8 inch) https://a.co/d/fytlPA1
any they work incredibly well at putting micro plastics in the environment too!
Dude, foaming oven cleaner is similar. If you have a jacked up oven, get the foaming stuff and you'll have a nearly brand new oven.
edit: oops, misread the parent post as the scrubbing bubble cleaner. going thru a colonoscopy prep, so im all funky. the foaming oven cleaner is good af tho. also, get melamine sponges. theyre the same thing as the magic sponges but much more cost efficient.
PSA to carefully read and follow all usage directions on any oven cleaner product. Some of that stuff can destroy your lungs (and more) if not used properly.
Darn tough socks, lamy pens, Ibanez guitars, and crumpler bags have all been very solid quality products I consider well worth the value.
I have a Lamy pen and it’s wonderful. I put a more fine nib on it and it writes beautifully, despite me being a lefty. I know you can get a lefty nib for them, but can’t really justify buying one and they only come in medium width.
i had like 10 of them since childhod, goddamn loved them. loved the colors and how smooth they were.
Have an Al-Star and a Safari with two of my favorite inks close at hand nearly always. Can't remember the last time I so much as thought about cleaning either, even the one with a shimmer in it. I just keep refilling them, and they just keep working.
Dirt cheap, given the quality, too, IMHO. They could charge twice what they do for the lower end of their products, and there would still be value there.
Second Darn Tough. Best trail running socks I've ever had
PIA wiper blades are pretty amazing. They've lasted me close to 6 years now I think. Way more price efficient than regular wipers.
I had some PIAA silicone wiper blades that lasted like 5 years, but I also kept that car in a garage. Amazing wiper blades!
When I moved to a new area where I had to park my car on the street because I no longer had a garage, I replaced the wiper blades with the same model but they didn't even last a year.
I'm very surprised. I kept my out for the last 3ish years. Let me know if you try them again. I'm wondering if that was a fluke bad purchase? Hope its not quality degredation
Contigo AutoSeal Thermal Mugs. They never spilled their contents, which I could never say about other thermal mugs. They keep everything warm/cold for a good amount of time. I'm just super happy with it, and it still holds up after 8 years of frequent, almost daily use.
We used to get these but over the years the newer designs got cheaper and less well designed. It looks like they still sell the old designs though, so that's nice.
I've been looking at these today. Which autoseal model do you have, some of the reviews on Amazon are bad.
https://www.mycontigo.com/products/thermal-mugs/west-loop-autoseal-travel-mug-470-ml/SAP_2095796.html Well, at least that is the model that looks like mine. The brand name changed from AutoSeal to Contigo in the last years, so it might be a bit different to mine, but function-wise it looks the same.
Same here, they worked well for so many years. They’ve been slowly dwindling as kids lose lids and stuff, and I haven’t seen them in stores for.a lot of years
Those weird brushes that remove pet hair from carpets
My bamboo back scratcher.
Had one of these for years. Would never be without one. Tried a collapsible metal one, cut my back and bled on the sheet. Threw it away and back to bamboo.
Twix. They said "chew it over with Twix" as a joke, but I suck at socializing so it's a lifesaver when people know I need extra time to say something or think of something to say.
This thing is way more expensive than it seems like it should be for what it is, but if you've got a yard full of burrs it's worth the $270 to clear it up and reduce general misery at home.
https://stickerburrroller.com/products/sticker-burr-removal-tool
Bought a Eufy g30 robot vacuum because it advertised that it could climb over thresholds and it does! The accessories are cheap too, especially if you buy knockoffs. Bought it in 2021 and still going strong, no complaints after almost daily use in a home with a cat and a small child.
up to its* advertised claims
Actually, OP is referring to Samuel It's, a famous product reviewer who makes many claims.
Its gonna be OK. Its not really that important.
Fender Telecaster
Similarly, Fender Precision Bass. Hard to go wrong with a classic.
I was given a small food processor and a small bullet blender a decade ago and I still use them monthly.
I have a full size brevelle food processor that gets less use.
Sliced bread.
I still use it to this day. It really do be sliced and bread. Good stuff.
There was a mobile game app that claimed that it actually is the game it is claiming to be(one of the generic mobile ad games)
It actually was the game it was claiming to be*
*every several levels of a different game, the promoted game was just a minigame
Plot twist: What's an advertised claim that lived up to its product?
I tasted the rainbow 🌈
I knew someone who did that at a rave in the 90s. I had to make sure they stayed really hydrated for the rest of the night.
Blundstone boots, they look great and last forever.
i have a mammut backpack from 2007. i love that thing. 25 liters snowboard model, indestructible.
Actually 3 favourites:
-
Brother Laser Printer - it really just works flawlessly
-
Ninja Creamy - it really makes phantastic ice cream
-
Coleman tent - easy to assemble, good quality tent.
-
Litter Robot
Evaporust. Incredible product and reusable so many times.
Coop Home Good Foam Bed Pillows (Eden)
We now own like 6 of them now and 3 body pillows. Such great pillows.