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.
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.
What a sign of the times. Being subscribed to a fucking printer
I’m told it is not just for ink convenience. Apparently the printer needs to be connected to the internet and stops working if you stop paying the subscription, which you are locked into.
It’s cheaper to buy a new printer then…
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
I’ve had a decent run with their 4K monitors. They haven’t worked out a way to monetise them yet.
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.
Huawei, Xiaomi and Samsung phones
- main reason: anti user freedom, and locking you in to their system, it’s extremely hard to wipe out your phone in order to sell it if you have a Samsung account linked to your phone, and they make it hard to flash a custom ROM, imagine buying a phone with your own money and you still need the manufacturer consent to do what you want with it…
- confusing and slow UI
- Ads everywhere on the UI
- bloated with games and useless apps
- they don’t take security seriously at all ( slow updates )
- short update period
- they lie in their marketing by giving big numbers ( battery capacity and camera quality for example )
And last but not least, they kill your apps
I’m still waiting for a viable competitor to the Galaxy Tab S line. Literally no one makes a flagship tablet that can compete with Samsung’s build quality on those, they’re pretty much the only ~11in OLED game in town too.
Mi pad-s exist, which are near flagship, but of course mi unlock and no oled.
Well, I have lineageos on my XM phones (rmx4x and mi11lite5g) and they’re great except for the reliability of the 11 lite. And before you ask about it, yes the mi unlock is terrible, but after you sell your soul to Xiaomi, you can unlock it and have a good enough phone.
I can’t wait for LineageOS to be available for my Samsung phone.
Yes, I find that is the only way to use these phones, AOSP makes them usable again, but like I said they’re constantly implementing and improving their digital locks to keep you from running away to a different OS… It’s so anti user freedom
Idk if it’ll ever be for mine (Samsung Galaxy A51). Hopefully one day, if such a phone exists, i’ll have a phone that is more open and also supported by something like LineageOS.
S24:
UI not confusing at all imo, just your typical Samsung Android. And obviously not slow since it’s a flagship phone
No ads
Not really bloated (comes with Samsung’s own apps + Google’s apps but you can uninstall most of them)
Decently fast updates
7 years software support (not only security updates but also 7 years of new Android updates)
Wouldn’t say 4000 mAh 50 MP sounds that fancy, but it works very well (lots of optimisation for the battery and good software for the camera)
Downside: expensive (~600€ new currently)
also Huawei laptops. Jfc what a trashy counterfeit of a MacBook and if you get an AMD one, better also get a good cooling stand. The keyboard is terrible and costs a fuckton to replace and generally the repairability is like with macs, the USB ports are built in a way that just begs for either them or your peripherals to be broken, they might overheat while charging, they ship bloatware and the speakers are ridiculously quiet. My friend’s mom bought her one contrary to my advice to get a second-hand thinkpad or just any other business-line laptop and it she had to return the first shipment because the screen got bent during shipment.
MIUI… don’t even get me fucking started on this garbage. It literally removes numerous features from vanilla android, presumably to relocate some performance budget to the bloat they add.
Yep I’ve seen Huawei and Xiaomi MacBook copies and you only need to take one look at the keyboard to know they’re trashy.
I got a second hand ThinkPad and it’s fast and robust. Designed to last like a proper MacBook.
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.
Plus how can you hold “borrowing a charger” against a phone company? If you don’t have a charger on hand that’s your fault.
Because they insisted on using the inferior lightning connector instead of using USB C like everyone else.
Yes, that would’ve been a very valid reason for that person to not recommend an apple product. But to not recommend it because they can’t borrow one from everyone around them is such a weird way to put it that I didn’t even consider Apple’s absurd reasoning for using the lightning connector
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.
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.
I absolutely loved my LG Android watch from a couple years ago. Used it constantly
But then a major update for Android Wear was released, and it completely changed the UX and UI. It was absolutely annoying to use suddenly
Stopped using it a week after the release. Never had an android wear watch since
Your experience is so common that I don’t understand why manufacturers keep doing it. Sure I get people want updates, but major UI changes should be optional.
I have a pixel watch I bought around its launch (IIRC) and it’s still going fine today. The only issue I’ve had is, since starting farming, the little dial can gum up a bit, but it can be cleaned.
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.
Cloud and “serverless” solutions
I gotta disagree on this one. I cut my workload in half by shifting our infrastructure to the cloud, and now I can spend my time focusing on more worthwhile endeavors.
Care to elaborate? Every cloud “solution” I’ve been pitched is just a super expensive way to bottleck everything at the router.
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.
I have never had a good time with Asus anything and their customer service is abysmal.
This is so sad. I remember a day when Asus was known for making a quality product. Nowadays it’s overpriced garbage.
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.
Who should I buy routers from
I’ve been pretty happy with my stuff from TP-LINK.
Same here. They’re terrible with security updates, but their hardware is actually pretty solid. I flashed OpenWRT on my router and I’m golden.
I’m honestly about to smack OpenWRT on this old laptop. But I have two catalyst 2960-S switches in a rack to extend it. MSI has a garbage UI for theirs but its what I have until I move and properly setup my home network.
No one, put OPNsense on a micro PC and get a Ruckus AP that you can flash Unleashed to.
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.
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.
Also, Eufy is owned by Anker. They claimed they weren’t transmitting images until hackers proved they could access your “smart” cameras…
The problem is, in order to view the cameras in their app, the video has to relay through their cloud servers, and they had little to no security. Since then they have added encryption which hopefully helps.
Best practice is to avoid placing any cameras, especially big box store cloud cameras, anywhere sensitive. The two cameras I have online right now are outside where hackers won’t see anything my neighbors can’t see.
That’s interesting, I’ve always had a very good experience with Anker.
I have bought a couple of products in the past also. I searched up my recent scenario and found others with the same experience
I had an Anker headphone break within a year or so. I asked for a replacement and sent a picture of a broken hinge. Despite heavy insinuations from them that it was probably because of my rough use (lkely true), they sent me a replacement and asked for my feedback with the whole process. Nicest customer service experience Ive had.
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!
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.
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.
Anything made by Razer, any Google hardware
Chromebooks suck ass but Pixel phones are pretty solid
Chromebooks are amazing for a certain type of low technical skill person. Older parents and grandparents in particular are exactly the kind of people that Chromebooks are for. There’s zero technical support burden and if anything goes wrong a power wash solves it.
That sounds pretty good, why wouldn’t you recommend it then, are there better alternatives?
Oh I totally recommend Chromebooks, they almost entirely eliminate the tech support burden from having a parent/grandparent who doesn’t get computers. It was the dude above me who crapped on them.
You’re the one who replied “any google hardware” though.
So buy Chromebooks from other oems?
Chromium is about 99.5% open source, there’s no real problem with the OS itself. If you’re afraid of Google tracking just use the machine with the guest account.
To be fair, they are just expensive mid-range phones (except the hardware security and build quality), but the tradeoff is worth it for GrapheneOS.
they have nice cameras. but the battery life is attrocious and sometimes will run into radio issues (iirc fixed only one or 2 generations ago)… lack of otg support is also one minor issue
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.
Tile countertops. Our house came with them and they are terrible. Who the fuck thought of these?
Counterpoint: granite countertops. You can’t see when or where they’re dirty.
I do also hate granite countertops. They are ugly! I do keep one granite slab top cart because the cool surface is great for working pastry or chocolate.
Best countertop we ever encountered in a rental was that Corian stuff, I’m sure it terrible for the environment but it was seamless and wonderful. Second place the old old old Formica counters in my old house. Those I could clean with bleach and they survived more than 70 years, so tough.
Granite comes in a myriad of styles. I don’t understand the blanket statement. It’s literally just a type of stone.
In rentals, it’s always a brown gray speckled slab of sadness though.
Yeah, Formica isn’t much to look at, but it sure is functional
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
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.
Any Skullcandy headphones. Shit quality. They just break
Any AmazFit smartwatches. They look okay and have good battery life (for smartwatches). They’re shit in every other way.
What’s specifically bad with the AmazFit watches in your experience? I’m curious to know.
I have an Amazfit Bip 5 with Gadgetbridge and for the most part it works just fine. It even accurately recognizes my bicycle workouts, something my Apple Watch Series 5 could never manage to do. For $80, I am very satisfied.
On the flip side, the Sleep and Do Not Disturb modes let through calendar notifications and sounds no matter what, which is mildly infuriating.
I also deleted the Zepp app after the initial pairing, so maybe that’s part of why my experience is different?
I’m with you on Skullcandy headphones. It’s not just that they’re cheap, there’s better ones for the same or less. Anker soundcore are my go to - pretty good and very affordable. Mpow honestly weren’t bad, I’d get them before Skullcandy. My low-mid range Sony’s have been great and shockingly durable.
But my skullcandies all sounded like listening through a pair of socks, and the controls were awful when they did work, which wasn’t very long.
Any Skullcandy Headphones… they just break
I’ve had 3 pairs of them so far. First one held up really well (I think it was their cheapest model), until the connection got a bit shitty. Second pair, the Casette, lasted for about 2-3 years, until it broke around the side. (y’know, the weakpoint of any pair of headphones?). I’m on a Hesh Evo rn and have no complaints currently. That is subject to change, however, as I’ve only had them for less than a year.
What headphones would you recommend? From what I’ve seen, they all have a weakpoint, making them susceptible to breakage pretty easily.
Sennheiser makes sturdy, and good sounding (IMO) headphones. You can buy anything too if it breaks or wears out to fix it when needed.
This means there are lots on the second hand market too.
Agreed. I have a pair of Sennheisers and I love that the cables disconnect from the headphones themselves-- that way if the cable ever gets pinched, I don’t have to replace the whole unit. The ear cups and head band are also replaceable and have a large 3rd party market.
Beyerdynamic or Jabra are also quite good, depending on your budget. Cheap Sennheisers might have overly strong bass and bad breathability.
Paper drinking straws
Silly, but I like those because I can eat bits of it after using them :3
My guy, pasta drinking straws are for you!
