What's one brand whose products you can always trust?

mommykink@lemmy.world to Ask Lemmy@lemmy.world – 161 points –

(I'm trying to adjust my shopping habits for quality, long-lasting goods from reputable brands. This isn't some hailcorporate thing)

309

There are tons of great quality brands. Until capitalism kills them and they become the same as the rest.

I remember when Logitech was the stamp of quality in computer accessories.

Now? It's trash!

This is so true and it hurts.

Have a mouse, keyboard and speaker set from 2004-2005. They all still work. I've bought several new Logitech products since 2015 and all have failed or have some defect. I've reached the point where I don't buy anything Logitech.

Recently had to rma my mx master 3 because the rubber was going away.
On the other hand my mx master 2s fared way better in comparison.

Have they gone that far downhill in just a few years? I've got a g502 that I bought 5ish years ago and that mouse is solid as a rock. The g5 I had before that lasted over a decade before I got annoyed at the cord sheath trying to kill the mouse.

They still make some good hardware, but I wouldn't trust the company one bit.

Same happens every time I really take a liking to a restaurant.

Deliver a really good product with quality ingredients and become wildly popular, The shareholders will sell you down the road for a nickel and deliver a piece of crap product under the same name to cash out.

One of my favorite restaurants a couple towns over has been excellent for years, decades. T was always crowded and noisy, well known by everyone I encountered. It became my favorites on road trips from college, continued being my favorite as I dated and eventually married. It was still my favorite as I raised my kids to teenagers.

Then I really hadn’t gone since COViD, so my kids took me for Fathers Day this year. It should have been a red flag that the place apwas empty, quiet. Most of the microbrews were gone, service was horrible, half the menu was missing, they no longer put corn bread on the table. Then we got the food, and instead of home made everything, it all tasted like from a Sysco menu. They. O longer even had real plates or flatware. This all-star bbq place might as well be just dashing ketchup on top of microwaved food and opening a can of beans. What the heck happened?

Aww man, Play sounds like it was awesome what a horrible loss.

Covid destroyed a lot of restaurants. Without intimate details of the actual location and history I can only make guesses.

They might have changed hands due to money or an older generation owner might have passed. They might have just changed their business plan all together to stay open.

When COVID hit the first thing that generally happened was the wait staff was let go. Normally for a business that's not a death sentence, but when it happened it happened everywhere and servers were more or less forced to find jobs not serving food. All the skilled labor exiting the work pool's a big deal. It's still rare, 5 years later, to find a restaurant that doesn't have a now hiring sign out front.

Now you no longer have customer volume but you still have a fair amount of wages. You can raise prices but people aren't going to put up with that a lot of them are out of work. You stop ordering the more expensive ingredients. You cut back portion sizes and stop freebies.

Congratulations you're still operating but you're only operating on the name you made for yourself your current menu is garbage. This is the end downward spiral phase. A mom and pop shop will barely recognize their customer base disappearing. You're not going to go back there now, your kids probably aren't going to go back there now. They're going to struggle for three generations from alienating their current customer base.

Even if they could run a marketing campaign and get people to try them again, they're not making enough money to rebuild the shop as it previously was. At this point you either sell it off or take on a financial partner who now has say in your business. If the financial partner doesn't know what they're doing with restaurants you'll have a hard time convincing them to return the place to its former glory.

The best they can probably hope for is that someone like you comes along with fond memories of the place buys them out at a discount managers to hire a respectable cook and a decent weight staff and pours money into the place to bring it back to where it was. Assuming it was even operating at a reasonable profit back then...

The most memorable example of this for me was a long time ago. I was newly married and very poor. I was just starting to build my tool collection in the apartment.

I needed a circular saw to repair some craigslist furniture. So I carefully went around to the hardware stores looking at the prices. They were all more than I was willing to spend.

Then in Walmart one day I took a look at what they offered. It was pretty much an exact replica of the top of the line model at 1/4 of the price. The box was a bit dusty and next to another saw with the same name and UPC. It was obviously a newer box of the same item. It was the cheapest looking thing I could imagine. Completely different from the older one. It looked like a great way to lose some fingers and toes.

I grabbed the solid looking one and walked happily out of the store. It's had a lot of use since then, and it's still working flawlessly. I am still the proud owner of all my fingers and toes.

Ya I have found some ultra cheap gems from China that were either equivalent or surprisingly, superior in quality for a ridiculously low price. Makes "you get what you pay for" a little more of a blurred line.

Evaluating products based upon quality not being loyal to a brand ca save you a ton of money.

Brand loyalty is taking advantage of the brain being lazy. It doesn't want to reprocess every little thing. So when something has worked well in the past, people tend to grab the same brand. It takes a lot for people to reconsider their choices again.

Once companies break the brand loyalty due to shit performance, it is extremely difficult to get it back. This is why mismanaged brands that have gone to shit, always attempt to rebrand themselves.

Not the question.
OP asked for what you like at this point in time. OP never asked if you will still like them in 10 years.

Actually OP asked which brands you can always trust trust, and never mentioned anything about "at this point in time". My answers still the same.

I will never always trust a brand, there are some brands that have good trust, but I’ve seen too many brands screw people over for money.

I will say currently, Darn Tough Socks, Keen Shoes, EVGA, Milwaukee Tools, if you are in the cinema / live production world Teradek, and Yamaha.

My only complaint about Darn Tough Socks is that they never seem to wear in. I bought a half dozen pairs several years ago, and all of them are like brand new still, which is great, but they are also stiff and tight like I've never worn them. I wear them predominately for work, and I'm on my feet all day, so that's a testament to their staying power, but damn, I wish they would stretch a little.

I use them too, but I guess I never really thought about socks "breaking in," like shoes would. After 1-2 years of use, they are holding up like new.

Alongside darn tough, I love me some bombas.

Do you have lightweights? I find those to be tighter than midweights, which also seem a bit more plush.

I went through two defective EVGA cards within the original card's warranty period. On the second card, EVGA tried to deny my warranty.

They eventually made it right, after I shamed them on Reddit.

Nah you can't trust Keen anymore as of like 7 years ago. They switched to much cheaper shoe materials on their presidio walking shoe that was super popular, but the price didn't drop at all. At the same time, they started inserting huge globs of rubber in the heel of their hiking shoes so you are forced to use their brand of insert that has a hole to fit said bump.

I’ll be honest, just recently bought new shoes from them haven’t gotten a chance to wear them in yet, the previous pair was pre-covid. But they look and feel exactly like my old pair did when I bought them, so maybe their work line hasn’t suffered yet.

And this is why I’ll never be loyal to a brand, as long as they’re good I’ll keep buying their product, when it’s not good I’ll stop.

I forgot it's already bee n 5 years since Covid fuck. Keen definitely got worse way before Covid so it was probably 7 years ago. Updated. You honestly might just not know what you're missing if you've only had shoes from them after the change. As I recall, almost every component of the Presidio got cheaper and it went from a nice leather walking shoe with a well padded tongue to just another synthetic sneaker with a thin tongue basically for the same $110

You were loyal when you looked for and bought the new pair.
Now you arent anymore.

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I'll start my own thread with OXO for their kitchen goods. After a decade of dealing with subpar containers and utensils, I've slowly started to rebuild my set with OXO stuff and habe yet to be disappointed by anything of theirs.

Seconded with Knipex hand tools. They're far pricier than the competition you'll find on the store shelves, but the quality and engineering is better than anything else you can reasonably find (barring boutique toolmakers).

IIRC OXO measuring cups have raised lettering 1/2c. That’s so clutch, the painted letters seem to come out in the wash.

Le Creuset... but there's a secret... They're SUPER expensive.

So you find your local outlet store and sign up for their mailing list. You'll regularly get 30%, 40%, 50% off deals.

https://www.lecreuset.com/outlets.html

Also thrift stores. The only Le Creuset pan I own cost me $7.

That's a hell of a thrift store find.

2nd trick, they have an outstanding warranty. Bring it in, they swap it out.

I have an outstanding warrant ...is that the same?

Not quite, but I encourage you to visit your warrant provider for more details to prevent loss of service.

There's plenty of knockoffs brands that seem to be as hardy; might but be worth the premium anymore.

Lodge is also quite good and a fraction of the price.

Cuisinart makes a dutch oven that's just as good but lighter somehow.

Not everything Le Creuset. They seem to be very similar to other kitchen brands (kitchenaid, Cuisinart, etc) in that they make a few excellent products, but the rest of their line is overpriced stuff that isn't as good as other brands you could buy. Their Dutch ovens are good, for example, but not their French press so much.

OXO quality has tanked over the last 15 or 20 years since Helen of Troy bought them who source all of their products from Mexico and China using shady subcontractors. They had a lot of innovative designs when they started out, but don't really invest in that anymore.

Knipex on the other hand is still pretty solid on quality. They're still family managed and their manufacturing employees are primarily union workers, so they're able to keep the skilled workers around.

The only OXO product I've had issues with is their rotating cheese grater, but it's so nice to use that I just buy a new one every seven years or so.

My OXO kettle's handle fell off during regular use, it's just held on by a tiny clip.

Their conical coffee grinder is as expensive as a bur grinder.

I’ve used my Knipex 5” cobra pliers more than anything else in the toolbox, except maybe a torx set. Solid tools.

They're great. As a line cook, I used to EDC a pair of the 4" minis in my pocket for taking off burner nozzles for cleaning. By the end of my year there, everyone else I worked with had bought a pair because they were so much better than dealing with the garbage Hart brand pliers the restaurant supplied.

A lot of OXO stuff is cheap made in China junk these days.

Why would you trust a brand? The brand that you like wasn't the same people 20 years ago, and that will change again.

there still are brands that make a good quality product and haven't tried to scam customers. Leatherman comes to mind.

You can like the quality the brand embodies and sells.
If you know the quality is a good compromise to the amount of money you spend it's tbh a no-brainer.

Regarding online services, Proton.

https://proton.me/

I love Proton’s mission just like all Lemmy users but I wouldn’t say you can trust them in terms of quality. Apart from Proton Mail and Proton VPN, most of their other products unfortunately have a deep lack of features.

I use Mail, Pass and VPN with no issues.

What lack of quality and features do you refer to?

I’m mainly talking about Drive and Pass. I don’t really remember as it’s been a while since I’ve tested them, but the situation doesn’t seem to have changed. Here’s a good thread for Drive. I remember Pass having problems with auto-fill which made it unusable for me.

I have Proton Unlimited but only use two of their services because of this, it’s pretty frustrating.

Merrell hiking boots.

Until they replaced gortex with a plastic grocery bag for water proofing. Now it feels like I'm walking in wet dog shit while making a constant crinkly noise.

I have a pair of Oboz that have held up for quite a while

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Hopefully they haven't gone downhill lately but I've always gotten good quality products from Anker and one time they even sent me an "upgraded" set of headphones for free because I complained about the pair I bought having poor sound.

My history with anchor is varied. At one point they produced the finest of everything at the cheapest possible price.

Then for a couple of years they produced a bunch of garbage that would barely get the job done.

I was buying a lot of anchor products for work. About half the power delivery chargers I purchased over a three or four month period burned out at least one of the ports. I have a bunch of battery banks where the USBC port stopped working.

Now they seem to be back on top again, but I don't just blindly trust them and buy from them anymore I'll get one or two and test things out before I buy a bunch.

Yeah, i can second the power strip thing. I have three right now, one is completely dead, the usba/c ports don't work on another, third one has been flawless so far.

I might look into the newer options, but I'm a bit skeptical now...

anker has a smart home division called Eufy that has some TERRIBLE software that ruins nice hardware like their doorbells

Wasn't there a privacy scandal involving them a while back?

Edit: for reference, see this link by The Verge or this one by Mozilla and scroll down a little.

We had a Eufy baby monitor that was so bad (replaced three times when trying to update firmware, the fourth time it died it was due to a drop) that it has actually made me think less of Anker as a company. If they stick to that being their low quality bargain brand, maybe I'll consider Anker again, but for now I'm out.

They've been my go to for headphones & speakers for a while, but my last few purchases of different models all ended up getting returned due to the same connectivity issues. Sitting at home, the headphones are fine, but when I'm out for a walk, they experience some sort of interference that causes the music to skip/stutter. I still have an old, long discontinued, pair of Anker earbuds, and when I go for the same walk with those, there's zero connectivity issues.

I was looking in this thread for Brother printers. They are consistently OK, as all other printer brands have gone to shit.

My 15 year old brother color laser printer is still going strong after 78k pages printed. And they still sell replacements parts for it so I can repair it if there is ever a need for it

Arm and Hammer, solid products that aren't overpriced. I use their laundry soap, deodorant, toothpaste, and previously, the cat litter. Seems they're focused on doing a few things very well.

Church & Dwight is the conglomerate that owns Arm & Hammer, and they own some other cleaning product brands like OxiClean and OrangeGlo. They also own Trojan condoms and First Response pregnancy tests.

Man, oxiclean really is a life saver for me. No store brand has really been as good.

I use oxiclean to help clean gunky beer kegs. It actually works really well to put a scoop in, fill with hot water and let it sit overnight. By morning it's like a new keg. I then finish sanitizing with StarSan

I really like Arm and Hammer's scentless laundry soap and their baking soda/peroxide toothpaste.

I've been using both for years and feel no need to change.

YKK zips. On anything I've ever owned, they don't break. And I find that more durable clothing brands will use YKK zips.

My anecdotal experience, don't get them on tall boots

I have a couple pieces of clothing with riri zippers, they're fantastic

Kirkland anything (nearly anyway)

Similarly, nearly everything made by H-E-B / Central Market. Save for maybe one or two things where I’ve been disappointed, I like and even prefer their store brand for many things.

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Kirkland

Surprisingly good quality for just about everything except dishwashing and dishwasher detergent.

I use Kirkland dishwashing detergent; the new formulation is comparable to Dawn, at about half the price. The older, clear formulation was not quite as nice.

I haven't tried it in several years. Like you said, the old stuff didn't meet our expectations. Is it comparable to Dawn, or Dawn Platinum? We've found that Platinum stuff to be superior to everything else. Also, how about the dishwasher detergent? Have you tried that stuff recently?

I'm using Costco pods and they are the best I've used. I don't pre rinse, I use it on old dishes. My dishes come out nice and clean. My sister cancelled her membership and now I have to find a new dishwasher pod dealer.

Why don't you just get a membership? We save tons of money shopping there. The gas alone will save more than the membership fee if you drive a car.

The true answer is a bit embarrassing, but it's because my husband does our grocery shopping and he is bad with money. He will buy too much stuff because it's a "good deal" which just ends up costing more overall. I love him so much, and he has so many good qualities, but he's a real sucker for "deals" and that's all Costco is.

Gas, paper products, salad, honey, cereal, bacon, snacks, even alcohol. It's just me and my husband and we live pretty frugally. We opened a membership a few years ago and have never once regretted it.

Darn Tough Socks, made in Vermont USA and guaranteed for life. If you get a hole in one, send it back and they give you a credit to pick any pair you want on their website.

That's amazing. I'm going to look into this. I suppose they make this work because most customers actually find it inconvenient to send their destroyed socks back or the terms to do so make it difficult.

The socks are $20-27 pair, but they're the most comfortable sock I've worn. I'm switching my whole wardrobe or socks over as I can afford.

Thanks for the recommendation. I'm definitely going to take a look.

Victorinox has never disappointed me. I own a few kitchen knives, their cutlery and an extensive collection of pocket knives. Everything is solid, dependable, arrives sharp and stays sharp. Plus they have good company ethics, as far as those things go. I like their products so much, I frequently give them as gifts.

I second this recommendation. They're certainly not the best at anything, but they're a good value for the money and good quality.

Opinel is amazing too for knives. Their pocket knives are cheap, sharp and easy to sharpen and durable.

None. All brands will sell you out of they thought they could while continuing to be profitable after you realized

"Always"? None.

Any time I have found a brand like this, they start enshitifying right after I decide to be loyal to them. If you stop shopping around, they have less incentive to make a good product to create loyal customers.

The problem is capitalism, not the individual companies. Enshitification comes for them all eventually.

The only brands I trust are owned and operated by individuals. I do woodworking and I use Japanese tools (their quality is incredible) and good blades are individually forged by masters.

Unfortunately the greatest smiths are always poor, or at least never rich. They all have an extreme devotion to integrity and quality that I highly admire. I wish to make a storefront to support these dedicated craftsmen.

Breville (Sage in the UK).

They're expensive, but they're good, and they last.

I've owned: espresso machine, coffee grinder, automatic loose leaf tea maker, coffee maker, toaster oven, bigger toaster oven, waffle maker... I think that's everything?

I've never regretted any of these purchases and never had one shit the bed. I did sell the tea maker and the smaller toaster oven, but I still have everything else. The coffee grinder I've had for over 10 years.

Dualit used to be the dog's bollocks of toasters but they sold out, and Breville is the new king.

If you can find a 20 year old steel Dualit on eBay however, it'll last the rest of your life

How exactly did Dualit shit the bed? Aren't they still repairable and made in the UK? Sorry, I've been doing a lot of toaster research and have one in my cart literally right now, so it would be awesome to know if I missed something before paying $350 lol

I bought that dumb expensive new Dualit toaster (one with bagel modes) 4 years ago. Its solid with no signs of regression.

I expect it to go for another 20 years

Can confirm. They're not commercial grade kind of quality, but they are some of the best consumer grade right now, mostly because they use fewer plastic parts than most and good quality steel. Though they still use too much plastic in things that would be better served by lower grade metals or glass.

I also have an espresso machine, coffee grinder, and toaster oven that I've had for ages and never needed new parts. I also have an all stainless french press that is really sturdy, but because the shape isn't perfect, the rod for the press needed to be replaced once since it requires a lot more pressure than it should to use it. But even with that defect, it has lasted nearly 15 years, and I only replaced the rod and filter once.

Brother printers. I have 78k pages printed on my 15 year old color laser printer from them, and it's still going strong. They still sell OEM toner and even replacement parts for it, although the only part that ever needed to be replaced so far was the drum.

A brother laser printer was the best decision of my college career. I only wish I'd have bought it sooner

This needs more upvotes. 6k pages from a single cartridge.

Casio
Seiko
Slackware
Vibram
Shimano
Coen Brothers

Shimano really should have turned to shit, what with them effectively having a monopoly (in mountain biking certainly) for literally decades. I don’t know whether it’s a Japanese thing or what, but they never did. Just kept quietly putting out decent gear at a variety of price ranges.

I picked up a full set of XTR v-brakes from eBay a few years back. Those things were still as good as the day they were new, despite being old enough that I only paid £20 for the lot.

old casio products are unforgivingly reliable. I've literally never had one fail regardless of the ridiculous amount of abuse I put them trough.

The new ones tho... "it's water tight not water proof" is what support told us when their "water tight" watch died after a minute of rain

Well, that technically applies to all watches. They are just water tight to a certain degree, but none are completely waterproof. Depending on the ATM rating a hot shower can be enough to kill it, whilst others can survive diving hundreds of meters deep into salt water

Chrome Industries backpacks. They’re marketed to bicyclists, of which I’m not one – but damn they’re perfect.

I've been using one for 6 or 7 years now, and it's amazing. I got one made with Dickies Khaki material and I love the way it looks, and it's super easy to clean.

I think the pack I have is the same fabric. You’re right, it reminds me of Dickies – indestructible.

So far, Gorilla brand stuff has been good.

Have yet to wear out a Honda.

Madewell jeans are actually made well.

Smartwool socks. I replaced mine this year because they were getting holes, the ones I was replacing were purchased in 2014 and I wore them daily, had enough pairs to last a week, washed them weekly, they lasted ten years.

Not a brand but cast iron skillets. Some of mine are over 30, they will last essentially forever. And get a big knife you can sharpen, mine wasn't even a good brand and lasted almost 30 years.

If you think smartwool is good, you should check out darn tough socks. Those things are amazing, and come with a lifetime warranty

Smartwool enshitified by dropping their warranty to two years. Used to be able to take an old pair to my outfitter and pick out a new set, no questions.

Like the other user said, check out DT. EZPZ replacement.

If there's one thing the last couple of decades have taught me, is there is no such thing as a brand you can trust forever: even the privately owned family brands sometimes get bought out by some conglomerate or made public, followed by enshittification as the new management tries to squeeze all the value they can of the brand.

You're better off not going by brand and researching every large ticket item purchase you want to make: if you're going to spend $1000, it's probably worth a couple of hours of your time looking into it beforehand unless your hourly rate is pretty high.

At this point none. Trademark law has been rendered null and void when a holding company can own 3/4 of the brands on the market. Go pick up a power tool off the rack at Lowe's or Home Depot and tell me where it was made. When Stanley Black & Decker source different tools for the same brand from different anonymous manufacturers...

I'm at the point where I'm going to suggest to you learn how to work wood and metal with hand tools.

Most of the shit is made in China now, including Craftsman, Snap-on, and other traditional American tool manufacturing brands. Wera and Wiha are made in Germany, and worth the extra money if you expect your tools to last a lifetime.

Wera and Wiha are both great but Craftsan and Snap-On still machine and manufacture tools in the US

They haven't had their primary manufacturing in the USA for like a decade. They're just recently starting to move their manufacturing back to the USA.

Craftsman, maybe, but I can drive 45 minutes from where I'm sitting right now and see the same Snap-On factory that was there 20 years ago and I sure as hell ain't in China

It looks like most of their hand tools are still made in the USA. Some of their more complicated hand tools are made in Taiwan, and a lot of their power tools are made in China. When I was looking for a new screwdriver set a few years ago, the Snap-on set I saw was made in Taiwan, but as of 2023, at least according to this article, they're made in the USA. Maybe I came across an outlier in my search, or maybe they've moved all the screwdriver manufacturing back to the USA now. Anyways, I'm glad to see they're still/now making a lot of hand tools in the USA. I was really bummed by what happened to Craftsman and other former high quality American brands. If I'm remembering correctly, Sears sold the Craftsman brand to a hedge fund or VC years ago, who immediately moved all of the manufacturing to China, but continued charging American made prices, and it wasn't widely known what had happened for a little while.

i cite from popularmechanics.com:

As this graphic from PressureWashr.com shows, just 18 megabrands control 91 percent of the global power tools market. Of those, four companies control 48 percent.

picture: https://hips.hearstapps.com/pop.h-cdn.co/assets/17/39/1506429411-pressha.jpg?

I like the hilti part

Inherited a Hilti Hammer drill from my dad that was used for basically everything in construction and demolition he ever did since before I was born - around 4 decades ago. It was and is the tool he and now me always go to when cheaper drills can't deal with the problem. Be it hammering through super massive concrete walls or enduring hours-long destruction sessions, it just does the job.

Nowadays it looks like a utter piece of junk that got tumble dried with rocks, but it's as reliable as on day one.

Good ol' Makita. I got locked in to that battery ecosystem but I'm not disappointed about it much.

I got so sad when I picked up some Airwalks a few years ago, only for them to fall apart pretty quickly. Turns out they’d been bought out by some branding firm who had licensed the name out to whoever wanted to make them on the cheap. So yeah, Airwalks used to be one of the big names in skateboarding shoes with Vans and DC, and now they’re dog shit.

Or buy Festool.

sure let me go take out a loan for a biscuit joiner.

I know, right? I have one of their sanders, and while it's an absolutely amazing sander, the price was eye-watering, and the sanding discs are equally painful.

Oh, and i don't think that they make a plate joiner; I think they only do a domino joiner, which is even cooler.

My dream shop setup is Festool for corded and Hilti for cordless

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.

Yeah, it seems like they finally invested in firmware and software programmers. WAY fewer issues than back in the day, still amazing hardware quality.

I goddamn hate their avionics tho.

Aside from their love of rotary knobs garmin is mostly fine. Their GA autopilots are amazing. If only everyone used Collins I would be very happy.

I have a Garmin Edge 840 bike computer and I do like it (more than the Wahoo ELMNT Bolt v2 I had before), but man some of the design decisions are just baffling to me.

Like why can't I have tones for my notifications (for refuelling), without also having them for navigation? And why do notifications close themselves after 5 seconds? I always miss them because I either have the tones silenced and happen to be looking where I'm going instead of my head unit when they pop up, or I have the tones on I miss them because the navigation tones are so obnoxious I just learn to ignore all the sounds.

And why can't I disable the virtual partner, and why the hell is the arrow on the map for the virtual partner bigger than the one that represents the actual rider?

/rant

I have disabled the virtual partner on my 520, so you should be able to do the same as well.

As tones, you can do some tweaking, and I read somewhere that the sound is a file that you can replace by connecting the unit via USB to PC...

Garmin entire filesystem tree is accessible from PC via USB (mtp)....

The 840 uses different firmware to the 520 and you can't disable the VP at all. You can however access the file system as you described, so my workaround was to edit the XML files for the map themes and make the arrow for the virtual partner 100% transparent. The VP is still running of course, but that does fix most of my gripes with it.

I'll have to check if I can do something similar for the sounds, but I'm not sure it will be possible since it's just a beeper and I don't imagine there are ordinary sound files that can be edited.

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.

Seconding Startech - I bought a DP to DVI-D adapter for my MacBook Pro and while it worked flawlessly with my PC, macOS was only showing me 1280x800 resolution instead of the monitor's full 2560x1600 resolution. I found that under Windows on Bootcamp it fully worked on the same hardware so it was clearly a macOS thing.

Emailed their support about it and within a day, got a guy who immediately gave me very technical and specific advice and suggestions, clearly very experienced. We weren't able to solve it (chalked it up to a weird macOS limitation and work gave me a different adapter that worked) but he was still incredibly helpful, and I'll have confidence in buying from them in the future that their support should be excellent.

Didn't Asus start enshittifying recently? Thought I saw some chatter about that on here 😢

Just stay away from the RoG nonsense and you should be fine.

For 3D printers I think prusa is the bramd that can be trusted with quality.

They are expensive but made in Europe and very reliable out of the box. I've been printing tons of parts for the renovation of my house and tools organization with no issues. I just start the print and come back once it done. Now I even do it remotely from work.

Compared to my brother who had a Ender 3, tinkered quite a lot with it but was constantly baby sitting the prints and eventually just gave up on it.

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.

Anker has been a solid brand since at least the 90's. Always reliable. Never the fanciest, but always reliable.

They were caught spying on their cloud based surveillance camera customers though

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.

Mainly I use them as a easy way to recognize German tourists. Never seen them on sale anywhere but I guess they must be sold in Germany because Germans sure love them! French can be recognized by Quechua backpacks BTW tho less reliably. And in the past, Italians by Invicta and Swedes by Fjallraven.

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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.

I bought two large Stanley thermoses when they were on sale locally. Used them every day for 5 years. Besides a few cosmetic blemishes they're as good as new.

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.

Ltt store support is far and away the best customer support I've ever experienced

I have their screwdriver and I love it

I finally bit the bullet and ordered mine as well in the noctua coloring because I like that ugly brown unironically.

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

DeWalt (aka default) tools. There's a reason every building contractor is carrying around DeWalt drills and saws - they hold up to daily jobsite use, you don't have to handle them like they're fragile, you can get them dirty and they keep working.

Don't buy Ryobi or Black&Decker unless you know it's something you're going to beat to hell for one job and then dispose of. And don't any buy high speed rotary tools from Harbor Freight.

The second part of your comment is flat out wrong for most homeowners. Ryobi tools are fine for Henry Homeowner. And specialty tools from harbor freight are fine. Buy cheap and if you use it enough to break it, then buy quality.

Also for more active hobbyists Harbor Freight can be improved to be good tools. Things like replacing a cheap drive belt with a better quality belt is all some of their tools need. Searching some tool blogs can tell you if a tool is fixable or just trash.

Their bottom shelf store brand stuff is rough but gets the job done most the time. Their upgraded in house brands are actually pretty good.

Would Makita be in the same category?

If you can find Japanese Makita brand products (I.E., from Japan), they have actual quality.

Makita Europe has factories in the UK and Germany, and their products are better quality generally than DeWalt.

Pros use Makita or Bosch Professional

DeWalt is a kinda "poser" brand on building sites lol

What's wrong with Black+Decker? I've had many of their appliances and they never let me down.

They have been a shit-tier tool for a long time after being dead solid for decades. I don’t know if they’ve moved up to “ok” recently, but I haven’t bought B&D in 15 years because they were crap.

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.

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

As an embedded software engineer, you should never forget the Toyota "unintended acceleration" fiasco. They bent the NHTSA over by only allowing NDA'd engineers to review their software in a SKIF and never directly being able to speak about what they saw. It was millions of lines of spaghetti code scattered across dozens of processors in their cars, and it killed a ton of people.

I know Toyota is praised for their business practices, their introduction of hybrid cars, and their general good treatment of workers. But never forget their managerial practices that let the software degrade to the point that it killed people.

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

3M does tape and chemicals better than most anyone.

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

How 3M Executives Convinced a Scientist the Forever Chemicals She Found in Human Blood Were Safe

https://www.propublica.org/article/3m-forever-chemicals-pfas-pfos-inside-story

I'll just leave this here without further comment

Yeah, I've read it before. And bayer gave aids to foreign countries, and nestle has done deplorable things, and the banana people have hired mercenaries to kill natives for banana control, and our US government let tons of black people die and spread syphilis because they just wanted to see how it went instead of giving them the cure, cable companies stole billions and never delivered on promised infrastructure....if it's a big entity, they're usually pieces of shit. I'm still getting my tape from 3M.

"so what if they poisoned, are poisoning, and will continue to poison everyone in the US and abroad. So what if they single-handedly lowered the life expectancy of the planet, whilst if not causing, exacerbating every cancer. They make good tape."

Not trying to come at you, it's just this is where we are as a society, and it makes me sad.

The world also still let's planes use lead gasoline. My point is you won't be able to buy anything if you boycott every corpo that does something like this. It'd be great if you could, but you can't.

indeed. I think it's emblematic of the corrupting influence of money. When literally every company you can think of is engaging in arguably evil practices, it begs the question, was Marx right?

Marx described Socialism not in any concrete terms, but as the result of revolution against corporate capitalism. When workers decide that they're tired of evil corporations and wealthy class protecting only their own, and instead return power to the workers via coops and anti-monopolistic regulations. Investing in the welfare of the common people, instead of bailing out companies that are "too big to fail."

Everyday I become more socialist.

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

Hello, fellow piper.

I also find Missouri Meerschaum pipes an excellent starter pipe for $20 to get someone into the hobby.

I would love to try one of them but I spent all my pipe money on meerschaums so it's gonna have to wait.

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.

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.

I have a few Fiskars products I really like. Hatchet, garden trowel, craft cutting board. They use a very durable, lightweight plastic

I abused the shit out of my loppers and cracked the blade. They sent me a new blade without much fuss.

Cactus Outdoor.

I had the original pack now called Vacuole, used it for a long time 10 or so years, lost it one time when moving houses. My boys have one each for school now, I expect them to last for the duration.

I have two pairs of supertrousers and two pairs of hangdog shorts, all have lasted 6 years so far, daily use in summer / winter for the shorts / trousers.

The stuff made in the Christchurch factory is epic.

Kleen Kanteen insulated water bottles is my pick. I have one from 2012 that looks like the Gameboy that survived a bomb blast from a decade of dropping it while walking and biking, and it still holds a vacuum on the insulation walls and doesn't leak.

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.

But velcro, dude. As a gen-x I now hate everything velcro. Teva sandals, cargo shorts, seams on jackets; it's just got to go.

Yeaaah velcro isn't usually my speed but I like the flex ones because they dry out so fast and are very lightweight. I have the heavier duty cargo ones they make that are all buttons no velcro.

Veto pro pac tool bags.

They're meant for tradesmen, but they're tuff AF.

I have a big Veto bag. It was a gift from one of my bosses. I'd never have bought one (though I have occidental bags and am not afraid to spend money on tools) but god damn, it is a fine piece of gear. If it ever wears out, I'd deff buy a new one.

I had ruined so many "heavy" backpacks, it paid for itself in two years.

My solar powered casio pro-trek wristwatch has been going for over 15 years now. No battery changes, atomic clock syncing, altimeter, barometer, moon phases, tidal display, compass and a lot more.

Seriously i think it might be the last watch I'll ever own and within the first year I bought a second just to have a a backup if this one ever dies.

one example:

i had these hiking pants. they were leightweight, they fit me, they were breathable, thay dryed really quick, they were zip pants, so you could take off the legs and had short trousers. cost like 50 euros.

sold by globetrotter hiking supplies in germany.

first, they were called black bear. then meru grimsey pants. then frilufts.

so, this is what they do: they discover what sells well. they take that, and ratch the price up every three months or so. when one brand is so pricey the sellnumbers drop off, they invent another one as competition, so you have two pants then.

usually there is a huge quality drop then, but also a price drop. but the product is virtually the same, in my case those same pants with different names. if you want pants with certain properties, there is this category.

now, the pants are shite. expensive they dont fit me anymore all features neutered pantlegs are narrow, like, leggins maybe? but thats stupid for the outdoors. you want loose pantlegs, because of sweat bugs, ventilation, insulation, bit of wind draft, and so you can roll them up. my ass doesnt fit as well the fabric is like plastic and not even breathable??? why would i want that?

this ratching up the price of what sells method is a thing these huge stores with great reputation do like, systemattically. i am sure this is like a buisness scholl topic.

what i do, i have alarms so that tell me when somebody is selling a size 48 of these pants. i managed to get two pairs recently.

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.

Any device/produce can fail

"Um, sir? This banana has failed."

Better call customer support.

Of course, they're just going to tell you to turn it off and back on again.

I used to pay for LeekSquad to manage my produce related issues but their customer service has really been poor lately.

I’ll never forget when the internal speaker went on my first iPhone, a 3GS. I put off getting it repaired because I was so used to having to send my previous Nokias and HTCs back and being without my phone for a couple of weeks. But the warranty was about to expire, so I bit the bullet and booked an appointment to get it sorted.

Walked in to the appointment and walked out ten minutes later with a brand new phone.

That sold me on Apple’s customer support.

I will say though, that the support seems to have tanked over the past few years. That they’ll jump on any blemishes on the device as a reason to not honour the warranty. Like how the screen in my XR had a tiny burn right at the edge (I was a welder at the time and stupidly had it in the top pocket of my overalls), which they used as reason to not work on it when it kept freezing. They demanded I pay £150 for a replacement screen first, which I refused, so they returned it to me. They’d taken off the screen protector, so I then had to argue with them for weeks to get them to replace it.

To be clear, Apple's Support has its fair share of drawbacks and always had — I've been their customer since the mid-80s, there never was a magical period where they were perfect ;) — but what matters (to me, at least) is that while the product is under warranty a customer doesn't have to worry too much on average (because, once again, there will be cases where support will fail the customer).

Outside of warranty, that's an other story but then the real issue is in the way Apple designs its machines to not be upgradable or not easily fixable, if at all. That's the real shame and that should be outlawed.

Decathlon brands are pretty much it with me, quechua and the assorted brands they make themselves or allow in store.

whether shoes, rucksacks, hammocks, running shorts, I'm consistently blown away by their extreme comfort and durability, especially for the price.

Costco. And if they suck, never a question returning.

L.L. Bean

Eureka Camping Tents

Durston Backpacking Tents

Cotopaxi travel backpacks & bags

Osprey backpacking backpacks

Asolo boots

Redwing boots

Mountain Hardware down jackets (pretty much anything from them is great)

Wüsthof, Zwilling, and Zero Tolerance knives

DeWalt power tools

Wera, and Wiha hand tools

Mountain Equipment Coop. They stand behind everything and it's all lasted me decades.

Sadly should no longer be recommended. It's Mountain Equipment company now, and the enshittification is well underway.

Ogio. I have 5 or 6 bags including some luggage. All have held up for 10s of years. Recently the luggage (7 years old) had a zipper break and Ogio just replaced it no questions asked.

Toyota

Roland + Yamaha + Steinway (Musical Instruments)

Sennheiser (Headphones)

Roc-N-Soc (Drum Throne)

SmartWool + Darn Tough (Socks)

Khul + Prana (Clothing)

Seasonic (Power Supply)

AsRock (Motherboard)

CloudFlare (DNS Registrar)

PrivateInternetAccess (VPN)

I'm curious if anyone would vouch for a TV manufacturer? Are there any good dumb TVs anymore? I have a Samsung smart TV and it is an absolute pain in the ass to use the remote UI. I have resorted to running KODI on a Linux box instead.

Sennheiser

Just FYI, Sennheiser’s consumer audio department got bought out a few years ago. I can’t say as to whether that has affected the quality of their products, but brands being purchased rarely works in their favour.

I’m a Sony kid these days.

To be fair, Sennheiser's consumer line have always been pretty mediocre. Their pro audio line have always been solid and what their good rep is based on.

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Fuckin ASRock, my childhoods nightmares.

Best friend and I got 2 ASRock boards in highschool, both failed for no reason within 10 months and then months of sending it back and forth multiple times for repair.

Never buying anything ASRock since.

I've had two boards from them and both have worked without any issues and my last one was in service for 10 years.

ASRock is the only mobo I ever used that died on me for no reason at all and I'm hardly the only one.

Same for me. Shutdown the PC at night and went to bed, next morning it won't turn on anymore.

Asrock used to be budget boards, did that change? When? I never consider them unless on very tight budgets for that reason.

I have an ASRock Mobo rn! their software is kinda shit but the mobo itself is great

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Wouldn't a general location be important here?

Like if I said that I trust X toilet paper brand that only exists in the US, how would I know that it helped in any way? Maybe you live in Ireland?

The Internet had made location pretty obsolete.

With a quick search, I can find out more info on any of these brands, including if they are available in my area, and we should all be doing our own research anyway; this thread is just a good place to start.

Samsonite, I'm on my 3rd backpack of theirs. I've been using them since I was about 11 or so, I'm 26 now.

They're not officially water or wear proof, but they've always been that way in my experience regardless. Even after years of daily use,and I was a weird school going kid that liked his bag heavy.

Their zippers failed on my on both my previous bags, when they got really cold in the winter. I don't know if it's the less cold temperatures of today, or whether they've improved their zippers, but they've not failed on my latest bag. Which is currently about 13 years old I think? It looks as good as new still

YKK zippers have a reputation for holding up though I've had one or two recently that didn't last (you can see YKK on the handle)

mine have a little whirlpool logo, I don't know what that is

Agreed. The zipper on My Samsonite roller case has been abused beyond belief and generally tested to breaking point over and over, and yet it resists and basically feels as good as new. Of course, I paid top dollar for that thing. You do get what you pay for.

Lands End clothing has gone way downhill in recent years, but it is still generally more durable than typical stuff you'd get at places like Target. I can typically wear their items for five years or more. My experience is with the men's side.

Patagonia since they also offer repair services in the event of damage and are relatively ethical.

Lush, specifically their shampoo. I would use other stuff of theirs but I live in a country which they do not sell in, so the shampoo (which lasts for ages) is something I buy a lot of when I can get it.

Apple I generally trust (computers, not phones, those are too expensive and limited).

Carhartt

I've worked with a lot of people who do hard, physical labor outdoors and they are almost always in Carhartt gear. Either that or Duluth Trading Company, which is what I wear.

Carhartt, Dickes, and Wolverine boots were all my go-to when I was a construction laborer. as far as I can tell these brands haven't become enshitified yet

Hottest take on this site: Apple.

I use my 2011 MacBook Pro to manage my 80k photos. My phone is six years old. My iPad Pro is five? (Edit: I lied, it’s a 2017 model) Years old.

I don’t use their desktops, I use Linux for my servers and windows for playing games. But my Apple shit for casual use has all lasted me an insane amount of time.

My 13 year old MacBook Pro still gets through 1.75 playthroughs of Beetlejuice on max brightness! Full disclaimer, I originally bought it for games and used Windows 7 always plugged in, and only now it has an SSD and OSX and the battery has 30 cycles. BUT STILL

If you're much of a tech person, you must have been living under a rock if you think all apple products are good. Several of their laptops and desktops have been large misses, some have had critical flaws that burn them out after a few years, one of their iPhones had a battery/processor combo flaw that had the batteries not deliver enough voltage after like a year and instead of doing a recall, they put out an update that undercooked the apu so the phone ran shittier but wouldn't rando restart anymore. Then there was the iPhone that lost reception if "you were holding it wrong".

Also, there's a reason they were about to go bankrupt in the mid 90's. They got saved by Bill Gates and got lucky with the Ipod, that saved their company.

I just give my experience.

What is the phone with the undervolting? I do not know that thing.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batterygate

Oh yeah, the thing that all devices do so they don’t just shut off randomly. Apple was just punished cuz they weren’t transparent about it. Would you rather your phone slow down as the battery is almost empty, or shut off at 15%?

Lol. That is 100% not true, Fan Boy. My four year old samsung still pulls the same test numbers and frequencies as when it was new. Apple was using flawed batteries with a processor that couldn't cope and just tried to cover it up.

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Hottest take on this site: Apple.

That's because there's such a huge and biased fan base, and they drown out the actual objective opinions.

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Lucky for you, but the truth is, Apple isn't that great or reliable. Here is a list of all the MacBook recalls, and it's a list from 2021. Battery issues of possibly catching fire, screens cracking, logic board failures, etc...

Here is another list that is from 2023 of different Apple devices.

Apple Watch Series 6 – Black Screen Issue iPhone 12 and 12 Pro – No Sound Issues iPhone 11 – Touch Issues AirPods Pro – Sound Issues iPad Air 3rd gen – Blank Screen Issue Smart Battery Case – Charging Issues iPhone 6s and 6s Plus – No Power Issues 15-inch MacBook Pro – Battery Overheating/Fire Risk MacBook lineup – Keyboard Issues 13-inch MacBook Pro – Display Backlight Issues Apple Three-Prong AC Wall Plug Adapter – Electrical Shock Risk iPhone X – Touch Issues iPhone 7 – No Service Issues iPhone 6 Plus – Multi-touch and Display Flickering Issues Apple European AC Wall Plug – Electrical Shock Risk Beats Pill XL – Overheating and Fire Risk Apple 5W European USB Power Adapter – Overheating Risk Apple Ultracompact USB Power Adapter – Electrical Shock Risk

I've been using MacBooks for work as a developer for over 15 years. They are ridiculously reliable. Earlier models would have key paint rub off. Mostly cosmetic stuff. But I've literally never had one not work.

I don't like that you can't switch out batteries, ram or hard drive anymore.

Also, they're not cheap so for personal use I don't buy apple products (especially since I don't want to switch from an android to an apple ecosysten) but its to the point where if work tried to make me use a Dell windows laptop for my daily driver id go find another job. That's how much I like the MacBook pro.

Until you realize you can't replace ram or batteries...

I replaced my RAM and the battery is easily replaceable… but that’s on my 2011 model.

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Does it count as reliable if I only have sample size of 1?

Beyerdynamic. Had DT770 pro for 8 years before they "broke" (cable connection failed, I think it's still fixable--making them last for many more years---by someone with skills I don't have, and they could have lasted more if I handled them a tad better.)

Recently I replaced them with DT770 pro X and they sound perfect to me.

Beyers are tanks, my DT770s are old enough to vote. The few parts that do tend to break are trivially cheap to buy replacements for.

Washer/Dryer - speed queen

When I needed a new washer, I did a lot of research and strongly considered Speed Queen. But then I read they enshittified in 2018

Keeley and MXR guitar pedals

I never had any problem with any Kindle that I had. Paperwhite is a wonderful device

Flowfold makes great, long-lasting products from recycled materials. I’ve got a few of their products and continue to be impressed.

This might sound weird, but Apple. I was NEVER disappointed by any of the products I bought. Sure, they are fucking expensive. Sure, they sometimes release really dumb products that most people probably shouldn't buy (e.g. the 2015 MacBook). But if you make all the right considerations before your purchase, I'm pretty sure you will have a product that won't disappoint you. At least that's been my experience so far. That doesn't mean that I'm perfectly happy with everything, for example I'm trying to switch away from an iPhone (I will definitely keep using macOS laptops/desktops though) for privacy reasons. I wasn't really disappointed here, when I bought this phone, I knew what I was getting myself into, but Google isn't much better.

Proton for secure email/calendar/whatever they offer now. I've been a subscriber to their paid plan for years, really happy so far.

IVPN and Mullvad for a trustworthy, private VPN provider

Better late than never, but I really like Nokian Tyres. They are fantastic.

I don't think you can completely trust any brand. Obviously some are better than others and I assume that's what you're asking.

Bosch tend to make pretty good machines. Mercedes cars are okay. Jura coffee makers are decent. Snap on tools are nice. Petzl outdoor gear is good. Armytek lights are solid. 3M products are good. EDZ and Icebreaker garments are nice.

Fitbit for fitness trackers. I had one of their smartwatches and never found it useful. The trackers are stripped down versions that do everything I need and have a week of battery life.

Don't get a charge 5.

Fortunately, I have a Charge 4. And there has been some enshittification since Google bought them up.

The physical button on the 4 is great. If I recall correctly, the issue with the 4 was the plastic for the clasps for attaching the bands. Mine broke in such a way that I couldn't get a band back on it.