What are your 'name brand only' items?

I had this exact stance until I won a pair of $200 running shoes in a raffle. My occasional backpains and joint problems disappeared almost immediately. I started buying the best footwear I could afford and my quality of life went measurable up after that decision.

The BIGGEST changes were going to a reputable podiatrist and getting shoe recommendations based off of my arch shape, weight and gait. They put me on a treadmill with highspead cameras at the sides and rear to record how my stride landed both walking and running. That and custom molded insoles.

Now Shoes are a part of our yearly budget to make sure we have good condition, supportive shoes at all times. Also re-soleing if applicable.

Side note: Dress shoes can die in a fire.

Like Bronzie said, never skimp on what separates you from the ground. Or on this case, what separates your computer from the ground.

Stop recommending bidets to me, I'm already convinced. It's just that from the three toilets I've owned in my life, all of them were for one reason or another incapable of being retrofitting with one. I envy your guy's clean assholes

I have a vagina and bidets can fuck up your vaginal microflora, so no bidet for me. If I didn't I'd probably use one, though.

I find Charmin tends to shred too easily, even the ‘strong’ kind. Angel Soft is at the right level between firm and soft for me. Might be less of a problem if I had less ass hair.

It's not, its actually wonderful. It's one of the few brands that doesn't shed bits off, and whatever chemicals/softeners they use doesn't irritate my skin like other big-name brands.

I wonder if they're repackaged due to not meeting certain quality control thresholds, but still technically useable

Rechargeables are definitely a good upgrade for most applications where people use alkalines. They have better performance under high load, are much less likely to leak corrosive electrolyte, and you can use them again after you drain them. I'm a little surprised they aren't more popular.

The Panasonic Eneloop is the gold standard for rechargeables, particularly the white ones which are more shelf-stable and have a longer service life than the higher-capacity black Eneloop Pro. Made-in-Japan Ikea rechargeables are suspected of being rebranded Eneloop Pros, but I don't think that's been conclusively proven.

A few years back a guy did agood dive into this on (other website name redacted). He said for things like digital camersand other high draw items, Duracell is still the champ - however, $/hour of use, some cgeaper bands came out ahead. I still have half a giant pack of AC Delco AA / AAAs that have been quite solid.

I've heard certain generic brands are actually just repackaged Duracells

Might depend where you live, I live in Nothern Europe and the cheap generic brand batteries from a popular electronics store chain, rechargeable, are quite shit when I compare them to my 5+ year old Eneloops. Haven't tried IKEA ones though.

Have they changed the joystick material yet? The joysticks off my ol' 8bitdo pro (the original) kept shedding with use, so I stopped using it in lieu of the switch and steamdeck controllers. Gods, the controller was way more comfortable and sized just right than any other 3rd party controller for me. My google fu is weak, so I never found fitting thumbpad covers for it.

They’re amazing, especially with the backbuttons and such

I personally trust Asus, EVGA (Rip), Gigabyte, Palit, PNY, Sapphire and XFX when buying graphics cards.

My current card is a Geforce GTX 1060 6GB from Asus that I bought in 2017, and it hasn't skipped a beat.3A

get the best you can afford

Ah, so the cheapest option available. Got it.

Yeah, same for motorcycle tires.

I want to support them, but I hear it's just not the same. Maybe that could be a good thing, though!

During the huy Fong drought I learned that I actually prefer Tabasco brand Sriracha!

Garbage food is genuinely enjoyable for people.

I sometimes make my mac and cheese with real pasta and Kraft singles. Tastes almost as good as the real thing.

It smells and feels awful, though.

That's what Consumer Reports concluded as well, when they independently bought and tested all the brands.

Dawn doesn’t seem to dry out my hands like Palmolive or every other dish soap. I think they all work good enough but I hate the way they make my hands feel.

Interesting. I have a huge jug of Palmolive at home because it was the cheapest dish soap. Didn't expect it to also be the best. I'm curious, what did you measure to determine that it was the best one?

Liqueurs, not liquors. I don't buy big name brand liquor (unless you count Plantation rum, or stuff that happens to be owned by Campari).

You have the tenth dentist!

I asked my dentist about that, too. The physical act of brushing is the most important part and the toothpaste is just to apply some fluoride, essentially.

Nothing quite so disgusting, they're the usual sorts of flavors you would expect to find in a cough drop. I taste mostly menthol and a bit of licorice, but they are definitely something that was made to be an effective cough drop first and foremost and tasting good was not a major consideration

They are kind of ugly brown tablets that don't look too dissimilar from maybe a pellet fish food for a koi pond or something. I have a hunch that I haven't tested that you could probably get carp to bite on them if you tried to use them as bait, carp will go for some weird stuff

It's been a while but I think primewell is Firestones bargain brand. They're shit but compared to anything wal-mart was selling they were tolerable. I never saw as many broken belts as when I was working there starting out.

My information may also be out of date, it's been years since I was so broke that I had to just buy whatever cheap tires I could afford.

I had a set of "Sentury" tires I put on a Mitsubishi Mirage, and they were worn to the wear bars in 9,000 miles. They were carrying a 1,900 pound/860 kilogram car, and that was heavy enough to wear all four tires down in less than 1/4 the tread warranty period.

Pilot is king

I've had the same stainless steel Parker jotter for over 20 years. I love it.

Yeah true, but last time I went to the doctor they charged me $200 for just the office visit, so it's not really sustainable for me

I do feel I could break my xbox controller easily if I twisted it. It's got some heft but not much. The 360 controller did feel a bit more solid.

The series x controller is also nice. Disturbingly light but I appreciate that it's good for long sessions to have a light controller. It's just the damn button sound. It makes a nasally little twing-click sound each time the button is pressed. Drives me nuts.

It’s extremely loud. Once someone tells you about the loud click that every button press makes, you can’t unhear it.

Sorry.

Yeah, you can’t really get “name brand” orange juice that’s that fresh, so I think you’ve found a good exception.

Also, the maximum amount of pulp possible! 😂

Maybe a wireless ISP?

The one who provides your wifi connection. Technically ISP but without internet through SIM

It's cheap AND all your friends in China can easily keep tabs on your life. I call that a win!

for dumb tech no-name is fine, we have that stuff figured out to the point where you can kick it around a bit without it breaking. But high-tech is weirdly robust and fragile at the same time. You can cheap out on the circuitry and you'll be fine for a while but eventually the low grade circuits around the chipp will damage it, causing it to lose performance. With bigger price gaps you usually get some reduced performance in a key part on top of it (usually memory or the processor) if it goes even beyond that then we enter the territory of "this device would be selling at a loss if they truly ship what's wrotten in the specs, where tf do they get the money to compensate for that?" (spoier: it's either spyware and selling customer data or lying about specs)

Obviously there are exceptions here, most high-end tech products for example are vastly overpriced to generate as much money as possible from whale customers. But with the mis- to low-high-end stuff you usually fall on your face with some aspect or another after a few years with cheap no-name devices.

Not to mention the very real problem of credibillity: it's very easy for unknown players to just fake reviews of their products, you won't ever know because there are not enough real users of these devices to punch through the fake reviews

Oh, better than anyone!

Right you are!

I think it's because the more expensive brands actually use more tomatoes. The cheaper the brand, the more additives!

Got his doctorate in Pizzaeolgy.

I've never had that happen, within the same type. I had some loose-fit Levis 568 which were very different, but the 501s never change. Just switched from 40w to 38w, got exactly the size change I expected.

I have Kirkland boxer briefs and Kirkland undershirts (and love them both), but I don't recall ever seeing Kirkland socks. I always get the Puma brand socks from Costco.

They seem pretty light on the merino wool options though.