Ask Lemmy

I'm going to name a few as I do a lot of different hobbies.

For tools (hand\power) Milwaukee brand is hard to beat, and for hand tools I'm a fan of Husky generally. Underrated.

For Music equipment: Boss and Roland are always a safe bet and worth at least comparing to whatever you are looking at. (amps, pedals, drum machines, synths... etc)

For inflatable water craft (rafts, kayaks, fishing boats): Sea Eagle is the shit.

For computer components (motherboards, video cards, etc): ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI. (ASRock is an honorable mention) I've built PC's for over 30 years now. Thousands of systems. I stand by this.

For computer accessories (hard drive docks, adapters, misc) Startech makes great stuff for the price and all kinds of useful equipment.

For 3D Printers - I love Ender's due to the amount of easy upgrades\hacks\upgradability to turn a $200 3d printer into a printer that can rival anything out there for it's type. And a lot of the parts you can just print with the printer you bought. You can do this with many brands but I found Ender to be very accessible with a lot of ready made parts on the web you can get started with immediately. Not to mention upgrading the motherboard\step motors and what not. It's a great hobby if you like to tinker.

Cars (vehicles): I've owned many brands at this point in my life. From high end Volkswagen sports cars (2008 Rabbit modded out) to low end beater 96 Ford Escort, Dodge Dakota pickups and Chevy SUVs. And at this point in my life, with all the money spent, accidents, long road trips and broken parts, I'll never buy anything besides a Honda or Toyota. They are the best value out there. Period.

Anker. Every time I buy one of their products, I'm impressed by the quality. It's come to the point that I'm seeing knockoff brands inserting the Anker keyword into their product descriptions, hoping a search will put their product up in view.

Garmin. They have been churning out better and better stuff over the years. Its pricey, indeed, but both hardware and software quality is top.

Been using the Fenix 7 Sapphire Solar watch, which has amazing battery life, amazing sensors, top hardware quality overall and software is perfect for the job. Screen too is amazing (MIPS, not Amoled...).

Also using bike computer and radar (Edge+Varia), where battery life could be better, but easy to remediate.

There are competitors, but at the same price point I wouldn't ever give up in Garmin for them.

Deuter backpacks.

In many years of backpacking I never met someone who had trouble or regrets with a deuter bag.

I broke one of the steel rods in mine after years of heavy use and clearly by my own fault and way out of any manufacturer responsibility and they just replaced it for free. I just asked if there is any way to get spare parts and they were like "Here you go, have a good trip."

Besides that, you have put in serious effort or serious stupidity (in my case) to break them at all. Especially normally easily breakable parts like clasps and zippers, are super sturdy.

JetBlue, I can always trust that their flights will be delayed an hour minimum.

Stanley. I have my grandads original Stanley thermos from around the 40's and its in amazing condition. The new Stanley products are still top notch.

Honestly: The LTT merch store. The product was never bad, support was very good as well as the will to fix problems (albeit at a slower pace than one might be used from amazon).
I was complimented from the family for the quality and look.
It's certainly pricey but alright.

Bonus: The branding on most is very minimal.

Garmin watches, Carhartt clothing, RTIC cups, Crocs, Yamaha guitars, New Balance shoes, Birkenstocks, Murray’s Hair Dressing,

Klein tools. They're just really good through and through.

Shout-out to Raritan Engineering. I accidentally cracked the porcelain bowl of the head that was original equipment in my 1974 sailboat, and needed a new one. Not only is the company still in business, the parts from a model they still sell are compatible, 50 years later! Their support techs were able to tell me exactly what parts I needed to buy.

Actually, quite a few marine brands are always reliable. The harsh environment at sea tends to out cheap crap in a hurry.

3M does tape and chemicals better than most anyone.

If it's supposed to be sticky: 3M over anything else.

Toyota and Honda. I've also had good experiences with Mazda.

Mazda for cars (pretty much anything after 2013)

None. Unless you are referring to the fact you can trust any to fuck you the second you are not looking

If you consider software a product/good then Linux is very good. The kernel still supports systems with security updates that are older than a lot of people here.

You might find this community interesting [email protected]

Peterson pipes are good and IMP meerschaum pipes are good too.

Continental tires for my bicycles. Definitely the best investment I’ve ever made for my bikes. Always recommend them to friends when they get flats.

Look I'm a dad which means cargo shorts are basically required apparel (ok, wore them pre-kids), but Lee Dungarees have always been good to me.

I don't trust brands, I trust their customer support.

Any device/product can fail, no matter how excellent it is. To me, what matters is how efficiently the issue is dealt with by the support.

Like, I trust Apple customer support and now, after approx. 40 years being their customer, their customer support is the sole reason I'm still buying Apple stuff (I don't like at all what they became and how they make their device unfixable on purpose, it's a shame for a company that so much pretend to care about being eco-friendly). I'm also a fountain pen user and a collector, but the brands I trust the most are not the most hyped and expensive, far from it, they're TWSBI and Lamy, because of their amazing customer support. Or, say, I mainly wear Merrell shoes for hiking (because they fit me well, obviously) because they have a fine customer support. And so on.

I have zero brand loyalty beyond that, and will not hesitate to change brand if they ever cut on their customer support.

Comet Cleanser.
Cascade Detergent.