I’m pretty sure that every one of you out there has had some experience with products that are just plain horrible, or brands that just don’t deliver on their promises. In my opinion, this is deceitful marketing– creating a hype, making something more than it actually is, and robbing consumers of their money!
Out of respect to all of our fallen consumer comrades out there who have taken a monetary hit by sub-par quality products, this ongoing list of BAD brands and CRAPPY products goes out to all of you. In memory of your long-lost dollars…
This is me venting about some of the branded products, services, etc that just do not make sense or are just plain horrible. Here it is…
——————LOUSY LIST——————
TECHNOLOGY:
- Skullcandy headphones – I spent $20 bucks on one of these cool-looking, very attractive headphones… only to have the jack break, rendering the $20 dollar purchase completely useless, after 4 DAYS!
- Phillips headphones – After the Skullcandy crap broke, I tried one of these out. The clip on both the earpieces broke after about a week. Three words: piece. of. crap.
- HTC Windows Smart Phones – I had one of these phones for a year when smart phones were taking off in the market. Worst year of my cell-phone-owning-life. Sucky internet browsing, no apps, horrible user interface, stupid extra accessories required to listen to music with headphones. I’m never buying an HTC phone OR a windows phone ever again… I honestly don’t care if Windows 7 phones are supposedly really good. Screw that noise, I’m sticking with android phones.
Skullcandy has a lifetime warranty. My headphones finally crapped out after ~3 years because the wiring near the jack went bad (and me wrapping the cord around my iPod). I went to their website and filled out the forms, got credit for an identical pair (or towards the purchase of another). Took 2 weeks or so to get my credit, now I’m waiting on shipping.
As for your crappy old phone, I would have to say that all Windows phones prior Win7 mobile sucked. It wasn’t the hardware that was faulty, it’s the software. Both my Android phones have been HTC-built (the original Android G1 & now the G2), and while the G1 had it’s issues (no standard headphone jack, lack of internal storage & RAM), the rooting community allowed me to continue upgrading the software well past the limitations of the hardware. Not only that, but HTC phones get Android updates much much faster than those built by other manufacturers.
My logic with the Skullcandy headphones is that if the product breaks after only 4 days, which was the case with me, the lifetime warranty won’t mean a thing to me because I wouldn’t want another Skullcandy set of headphones because it’s such poor quality. I would expect the headphones to last at the very least a couple months before any wear and tear. Both my Sony headphones showed signs of wear and tear after 2 years, which is actually not bad considering that I always have my headphones in my pockets (along with other heavy-duty items like keys and coins. In short, it’s too much work to receive credit for a product I would have expected to last a while anyway.
And I know I’m being just a little unfair with the HTC windows phone…. just a little…. but I just had such a bad experience with it, that I just can’t get over it. Like I’m seriously scarred for life by the HTC windows phone. And the Samsung Android phone that I currently have kinda saved my (tech) life. Yeah, I know the Windows 7 phones are actually pretty attractive. But I just can’t do the whole windows phone thing anymore. No way. No how.