Are You an Electrical Appliance Brand Snob?

[peteastra]

bit of a snob. i try and buy the best i can afford and what i know will last me awhile. Sony for TV's, Pioneer DVD/CD and a Sony amp, it just happend to be that they came in brushed gold finish.

[Rob Fairbrother]

Very much a snob. If I'm out buying then I will only buy good items.
A few years ago when I was looking for a good Hi-Fi I went to a local specialist (Audio Excelence in Gloucester) and spent a fortune on a Denon system with Mission speakers. But to top it off I was not happy with the cables supplied so I spent a fair few hundred making sure I had decent interlink cables instead of crappy bell wire.
IIRC total spen was in excess of £2200

[BlackIce]

Very much a snob. If I'm out buying then I will only buy good items.
A few years ago when I was looking for a good Hi-Fi I went to a local specialist (Audio Excelence in Gloucester) and spent a fortune on a Denon system with Mission speakers. But to top it off I was not happy with the cables supplied so I spent a fair few hundred making sure I had decent interlink cables instead of crappy bell wire.
IIRC total spen was in excess of £2200

Was it worth it? Does it sound better than the £29.99 Bush system from Argos?

[Jasovanooo]

[QUOTE=shavenwookiee] Take their cameras, they can only take sony memory sticks, cutting out any chance of buying them cheaper off another company... [QUOTE=shavenwookiee]

actually yuo can get some "san disk" ones at ebuyer like half price got some for mine there equally as goo das the sony ones ...look like theyre from the same factory yunno

[Ronin]

I used to lurve Sony stuff.... until I bought a digi camera and it's pretty crap.
Coulda paid half the price and got a better bit of kit.

That's cos Sony know fu ck all about photography, shoulda bought a Nikon or a Canon!

I too am a Sony whore, everything in my room is Sony, all separates, everything bar to my decks n mixer which are Technics and Pioneer, and the speakers which are B&W - I'm afraid I live by the rules of "get what you pay for"....... which is why I bought a VW...... DOH!!!! lmao

[Andy K]

Yes and No.

Depends what it is.

Sometimes it's the best, other times it's value for money

[Mike007]

There is an important difference between buying the best (that you can afford) and buying something just because of the name.

Mike

[tomstickland]

Middle ground here. Sony are overpriced. Really cheap stuff can be rubbish.

For hi fi I go to Richer Sounds and spend abour £100-£120 per item.

[the_fbi]

I like AIWA stuff. Got a huge stacking stereo in the lounge, looks mean and sounds good. Although the tape deks have sufferef from non-use. AIWA video because it was cheap and looked good compared to the other ones that were trying too hard to look expensive. Got an AIWA telly too, not that common at all. Not the best TV by any means, but again I liked the simple look of it and the features for the price.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but afaik Aiwa is the low end brand owned by Sony.

Got an Alpine in the Mk2, this has been going strong for well over 5 years, again, has a nice simple design with easily accessible features.

Bought an Alpine 7524R for my Christmas present to myself when I'd just passed my test when I was 17. I'm now 29 (so its 12 years old nearly exactly) and its now in the Calibra and still going strong.
Great interface, and great tape/cd performance. OK so it didn't have dolby C and the ambient noise auto adjuster of the 7525R but it was the dogs nuts then and is still fine now. Clearly doens't play MP3 CD's, only has 1 pair of pre-outs and is 4 x 25w but does the job. The 6 disc changer I picked up for £150 new about 6 months later and that also still works.
Can't say its not great value for money.

My digi cam is made by Fuji, and they are pretty good at cameras I think.

Sony DSC-P12 here, can't fault it.

I will only buy Intel processors for example.

Pair of AMD 1800+'s in here, had them for a couple of years or more and still plenty of power. Invest in the right kit and it'll serve you well.

Nokia phones, too. Haven't liked the other makes.

Can't agree more. Had Nokia's since I was 17 till I got an Ericsson R380 a few years ago. Lasted 6 months before I got fed up of it crashing and having the slowest user interface aver.
Changed to a T68i, again it was unstable and crashed if you dialled out and recieved a call at the same time. Also very slow processing key presses. The more SMS's you had in its memory the slower it was. Anything more than 2 and it was a snail.
Back to a Nokia now, 7250i, not the greatest phone but its small, great battery life and reasonably fast.
I'll be getting a C500 soon though. Just got to hope its as good as a Nokia....

Had my Technics hifi (full size no micro/mini) since I was about 17 too. All still works, although I've upgraded the Receiver from a DPL to a DTS one about 5 years ago. Again, buy decent stuff and it'll last. (although Technics isn't really decent, its certainly not the cheap stuff).

[Aragorn]

yer it totally depends what its used for and how its performance or lack thereof will affect me

the computer thing mentioned above - a few years back intel were ***king ripoff merchants when it came to CPU's, i also have a dual xp1800 system which ive had for nearly 3 years now and its still going strong and was a damn sight cheaper than any intel system that would even come close at the time

my keyboards and mice for instance - i use them a lot and they NEED to be quality items, i have microsfot natural keyboard and intellimouse explorer

car stereo is an entry level pioneer p3600mp - the first model with mp3 support and cost me £120 - i dont want a £60 ****ter, but i dont need a £400 head unit, i feel that in a nova u wouldnt even be able to notice the difference between the £120 pioneer and a £400 jobbie

my alarm clock is a ancient cheap ass ross thing from argos - it works and does its job well enough so its fine

my stereo is a panasonic dolby digital unit i got from work for £90, again its decent enough and with the current setup i have no need for anything better - if i had my own place i'd prolly look at investing in some decent kit, axiom or paradigm or similar speakers, onkyo ht amp etc and spend a decent amount on it

digital cam is an old olympus c2 but it works perfectly and i buahgt it cheap when i worked in dixons, image quality is FAR better than some of these cheap nasty branded cameras ive seen which are 3 or 4 mpixels when mine is only 2mpx

i certainly wouldnt buy summat simply cos it was a "sony" or whatever - but i try to stay clear of downright ****e brands for anything that resembles an expensive purchase because to a point u get what u pay for

[the_fbi]

i also have a dual xp1800 system which ive had for nearly 3 years now

2nd April 2002 here, so approaching 3 years too.

[Astra Dan]

See, that's intersting about the processors. It's like buying french cars. Everyone I know who's bought a french car/ non-intel processor has had major problems somewhere. My mum is the computer resource person for a large ex-MOD establishment and they tried the Athalons and the cheaper Celerons when they came out and had MAJOR trouble, and spent a fortune changing the whole site back to Dells/ Intel. 2 or 3 friends have bought cheap computers with non-Intel stuff and had trouble. I stick to genuine or well known stuff where possible. My Dell laptop with a pukka PIII (which was tricky to find, most laptops are Celerons or AMD I noticed) has been an extremly reliable computer for nearly 3 years now.
But then, like French cars, you get armies of people who swear by them and don't use anything else!

Wierd.

[alex1981]

nope, I dont go for a particular brand, I jsut do a bit of research and buy the best that I can afford. My fav purchase this year are my 2 pairs of Mission M74i speakers

[the_fbi]

See, that's intersting about the processors. It's like buying french cars. Everyone I know who's bought a french car/ non-intel processor has had major problems somewhere. My mum is the computer resource person for a large ex-MOD establishment and they tried the Athalons and the cheaper Celerons when they came out and had MAJOR trouble, and spent a fortune changing the whole site back to Dells/ Intel. 2 or 3 friends have bought cheap computers with non-Intel stuff and had trouble. I stick to genuine or well known stuff where possible. My Dell laptop with a pukka PIII (which was tricky to find, most laptops are Celerons or AMD I noticed) has been an extremly reliable computer for nearly 3 years now.
But then, like French cars, you get armies of people who swear by them and don't use anything else!

Wierd.

The problem happens when people try and cut corners and buy cheap stuff to support the hardware. ie. a cheap motherboard. Also its a case of understanding all the little oddities which you need to to get a stable platform.

I've run dual celeron, dual xeon, dual athlon, dual p3 systems and never had a problem with any of them. Then again, I understand and know more about pc hardware than most "system builders" so probably why it all works for me.

If money isn't an issue buy Intel, may not be the fastest but probably less hassle to get stable for an inexperianced person.

[alex1981]

Pukka and Dell....not two words I would ever put together! :P

I am a system builder, been doing it since 1998. I have never liked AMDs very much. I have only built about 30-40 AMD machines (built thousands of Intels!) and they are still working fine as far as I know, so its not saying that you cant have a perfectly reliable AMD machine, they just take a bit more work. Heat is a major thing and that is where a lot of people go wrong, by getting cheap fans and a case with poor ventalation. Not too keen on the chipsets for AMDs, either.
I think it will be interesting to see wether the new generation of P4s (socket 775) stand the test of time as they run stupidly hot, even with cases designed to the new Intel specifications. I think there are going to be a lot of system buidlers that will use cheapo cases and PSUs that will make them run too hot, with consequences like hard drives giving up etc.

[tomstickland]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but afaik Aiwa is the low end brand owned by Sony.

Aiwa seem to offer the reliability that Sony once promised, along with a decent price tag.