Buying tips ,product reviews and personal views

[squigg58]

Originally Posted by Oswald

I'm always extremely wary when some spotty-faced Herbert tries to sell me 'insurance cover' when I've purchased electrical goods. I always inform him that the goods I've bought are covered by a one year Warranty - all electrical goods are covered by this. I then add that if the goods are reliable enough then they won't need 'insurance cover'.

I know exactly what you mean, Oswald! (This could go even in the "What Annoys You The Most" thread!)

I did get my revenge once, and if you're (i) a bit bored, (ii) buying something which is widely available, and (iii) enjoy the look of abject panic on a sales assistant's face, you might want to try it!

I was buying a cheap(ish) branded steam iron, and as soon as I took it to the counter, I got the insurance "hard sell". The plonker clearly didn't want to take no for an answer, so I just smiled and said that the iron had a manufacturer's warranty anyway, and as it was German it was probably pretty well put together!
"Nah. They don't last very long. You'd be better off with insurance." was the brainless wonder's response.
"Oh, I didn't realise you sold crap!" said I, stuffing my card back into my wallet. "I reckon I'd better find somewhere that sells decent stuff. Thanks for the tip!" The look on spotty Herbert's face was a joy to behold! I marched out of the shop, trying my best not to giggle ... then bought exactly the same item at another electrical shop a couple of miles away!

[MaxJoker]

Agreed "Extra cover " insurance is a rip off , if your product doesn`t go wrong within the first year decent odds are it`s going to be fine. Most annoying is when they say such things as " Well this added policy will cover you for three years " , because what they mean is " Why not pay us for that first years free cover you already have , then for two more you`ll never need "

Although of course nowadays white goods do have built in obsolescence so after five or six years normal use they start to break down and mean you have to buy something new anyway. Not like in the 1950`s and back in my great GrandSkull`s era , when they made their products to not only last but last a tactical strike

[MaxJoker]

Warning fellow members , there is a sneaky fake special food offer in town !

Or at least one being run by Marks food hall on their raw meat products .

It concerns their 2 for £5 and 2 for £6 pound sales !

I bought two packets of ribs ( Along with other things) earlier , and since the weights for them are different naturally chose the two heaviest



Yet once i paid and was checking my bill as i walked away i saw that i had been over charged by 58p. As in they'd charged me £5.58 . When i immediately queried this at the service desk the woman there claimed all was in order, since Marks runs a " Catchment weight " policy and so there was nothing to be done




All was in order ???

Nothing to be done ???

Like fack

So i insisted she explain what she meant by " Catchment weight " and this is it.

If the combined weight of the produce you buy goes above the actual real value of the offer price , ie £5 , then WE as the customer is charged the additional .

So where's the special offer then ???

A total bloody con or what

Although rest assured respected members, yours truly brought up a phrase of my own " Trading standards " , and refused to leave until i got my money back



Which i did

[blondifan]

Originally Posted by billybunter

I'm a Sony nut. ... Why buy the same thing many times over when you can buy a quality product that will last years. My last CD player lasted 15 years.

My Denon CD player lasted 15 years also.

One of my most recent purchases is the Sony blu-ray player in this title heading.
It is capable of playing 3D movies in Full 1080 HD (when discs are encoded that way) has a U.S.B. wireless Lan input for Youtube viewing (haven't tried this yet, even though I have a wireless U.S.B.) and plays CD roms, which not all DVD players would do.

It also doesn't pause briefly between tracks as my old DVD players used to when playing music CD's and supposedly sounds better than DVD.

It also has a cool subtle blue light.

Best part was it was barely 200 Australian dollars, straight off the retailers shelf.

[billybunter]

I have A Denon DVD player. Bought it from a Bristol HI-FI company online. They made it region free as well for nothing Great player, not noisy like some DVD players I've had. Have a Sony HD wide screen TV. It will keep on working because they make good gear. I see people in tescos buy DVD players for £20. Won't last more than a year if you are lucky.

[blondifan]

When I bought the Sony blu-ray I told the sales guy I didn't mind spending big on this, even though I'd heard conflicting reports about blu-ray.

Handle your blu-ray discs like records folks!

He recommended the cheaper model, even though I noticed another similar unit, also by Sony, in excess of $500.

At the same time I bought a cheap flat screen t.v. to use in my dusty workshop.
Unfortunately I can't remember the name.
When I switched it on at the top of the unit, the button kind of gave way!
The result was that when you switched it off with the remote, it immediately came back on.
You had to turn it off at the power point.
Needless to say I returned it, paid a little extra and got a Teac, which was on special. So far it's good!

Teac were one brand that I swore never to buy again, after some bad experiences with their cheap radio/casette/CD players.

They were good back in the seventies, for a while and anyone who's used a Tascam multi-track will more than likely swear by this subsiduary.

One other neat function of the aforementioned blu-ray player is that it has a 10 second replay button if you want to see something again. Hit it twice it's 20 seconds and so forth. No hitting rewind, then play again.

It's also 3D capable, has a USB input and can be used for watching Youtube videos.

[tabler]

Just read GS's post about M&S ripping people off and thought I would warn about Netto.

Several times now I have bought the mature cheddar 2 for 1 and when I got home realised that I had been charged for both.

Be warned people, check your receipt at the checkout!

[otokonomidori]

Before you buy a 1968 Mini [or any 2nd hand FWD car for that matter] take it to a big open space and drive it on full lock in both directions while listening for an ominous clicking noise from the front.

If it clicks tell the vendor to shove it up his arse.

Somebody I know didn't and a CV joint collapsed at an extremely inconvenient time [and speed].

How we all laughed!

[buttsie]

Originally Posted by GreenSkull

Bought this last week at PC World for 10 pounds which seemed like a good deal and upon getting back home and uploading all seemed cool. But after stupidly agreeing to all it`s recommendations my laptops world fell apart , well ok he didn`t notice anything due to being inanimate but i sure as hell wasn`t !

Fact i`ve been pretty verbal as well lately , because this piece of kit if put in the wrong hands (Namely mine) can turn your Internet life upside down. Not to say it isn`t excellent at what it does because believe me it is , my processor speed has increased i`d say about five percent or so at least. No it not working wasn`t the problem.Thing is it has a function that allows you to turn off unnecessary start up programs separately ,problem was i simply clicked all it`s recommendations on mass which included even the tiny weeny ones .

I know , i know ...

STUPID


Meant i lost audio completely , my firewall ate itself , MSN turned into something resembling an etch a sketch and i was driven to drink ...................... Lucozade sport !

Ah yes i be liking a drop of the ard stuff every now and then shipmates (I said ship mates)

Anyway my review (Well there had to be a point to this post somewhere ?) is although the disc buggered up my system (Thanks to me ) it does work , and works well. Also i know there are free registry cleaners Online but if i got everything online how`d i ever drive down a price or haggle until the spotty PC World technical assistant burst into tears ?


After almost a week of self created hassle normal service has been entombed , and so you know what that means !

"Party "

[IMG]http://i37.*********com/2dh7a8i.gif[/IMG]

How strange as that was the only tune-up software that fixed my audio issues back 3/4 years ago

Downloaded the latest trial when i make a pigs dinner of a new operating system and the bugger said I had 5 issues that could mean the end of life as i know it but kept crashing everytime I selected it...thank you very much

I'd sooner do a clean install than use any tune up software be it a registry cleaner or I do everything...if you've ever seen comparisons between the best and the worst you know to avoid them as the differences run into the hundreds of suggestions
that can cause more issues than its worth and not fix the problem

My tip for the day...before you buy anything...research...research...research
Thought I knew enough to buy a decent computer tower...turns out my most recent buy came with one of the worst sound cards bar none
(realtek audio - not mentioned anywhere in the literature)...
speaker volume is so low headphones are required...which actually works out well if your
into not answering the phone or ignoring the door but still....


next week...how to choose the right mobile phone...as if it was actually possible to decipher all the plans...bloody legal rogue bandits the lot of them

Even using sites like.....plans that would suit are somehow overlooked
http://www.phonechoice.com.au/ for australians only


Nice article that puts registry cleaners into context as to when to use them



Do we Actually Need Registry Cleaners?
Are Registry Fixers Real Solutions for Real Needs, or Imaginary Answers for Imaginary Fears?
When an ingenious but naughty computer geek invented and propagated a digital virus, anti-virus software programs became important. When spyware and other forms of malware started using back doors to infiltrate our systems, anti-spyware solutions became necessities. But can we view registry cleaners under the same light? Are registry cleaners just as indispensable as the other solutions that protect our computer terminals from harm?

Let’s start with this question: what do registry cleaners protect us from, exactly?

Indeed, the Windows’ registry is the repository of options and settings important for the operations of the platform, making it the sector of the OS that is most susceptible to corruption. Useless and redundant files may be stored in the registry, files which may not have been uninstalled with the programs that brought them into the system. These files can slow down the PC, or worse, be incompatible with essential files and crash the OS altogether. So, knowing this, do we or do we not need registry cleaners?

Arguments in Favor of Registry Cleaners

Many people believe that the registry, being a vital cog in the Windows OS, should be allotted utmost care. The system refers to the registry each and every second, after all, to determine runtime functions for a variety of purposes. A glitch in the registry can potentially bring the entire system to its knees. Registry cleaners are there to carry out what their name exactly says: to clean the registry.

Does the registry need cleaning?

Most definitely! Think of the registry as a filter where data about options and settings accumulate. Some data are essential. Others are merely leftovers from programs that have already been uninstalled from the system. They serve no purpose, and some of them may even slow down the performance of the PC. A few are harmful, as they come in conflict with vital files necessary for the operation of the system. And a number of them can even be fatal, as they can potentially cause the collapse of the entire system. Registry cleaners are meant to remove these unneeded, and unwanted, files. A clean registry leads to a healthy system, after all.

Arguments Against The Usage Of Registry Cleaners

The other school of thought believes that registry cleaners are superfluous options. Windows has auto-correcting features. Any excess files left in the registry will be deleted later on, anyway. And registry cleaners can be dangerous to the system, too. Registry cleaners operate under a given set of algorithm that commands them to delete files which are deemed unessential to the operations of Windows. The problem is, Windows is a "closed source" system. Only Microsoft engineers know which files are essential and which files are not. Developers of registry cleaners only work on empirical knowledge, and not definitive information. What if registry cleaners delete a file that it thinks is junk, but is actually an integral piece of the Windows puzzle? Believe it or not, this has happened in many occasions.

Where Should You Stand When It Comes To Using Registry Cleaners?

In this day and age where Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows ME, Windows XP and Windows Vista dominate a staggering percentage of PC systems, the need for a healthy registry is at an all time high. Given the fact that Windows-related problems require Windows-specific solutions, registry cleaners can still be viable options in certain circumstances. Registry cleaners can serve as options when Windows-specific solutions to speed up a slow PC falter. Registry cleaners can also serve as options when Windows-specific solutions fail to revive a system that experiences occasional or frequent crashes.

[MaxJoker]

Monty






Took me a relentless month to barter my way into a deal with Orange that gives me virtually limitless texts and 500 free minutes a month for £12 a month , only to put the seal on it i had to accept the Samsung Monty . A touch tone phone and so in my mind a womans phone

Had it a few weeks and so far i`m not exactly impressed

For a start it`s as fiddling as f##k with the areas to tap annoyingly small and slim, not at all ideal for a man with big nay Hulk like appendages

The predictive text is also a major pain and doesn`t seem to have more than a couple dozen set words

I still haven`t found a way to extend it`s ring beyond a single four second Deee Deee Deee Deee (Twilight zone)

It has no worth while free games

The thing switches into locked mode at the drop of a hat

It`s battery last`s only three days

If i move my fingers in the wrong position when holding the phone the signal disappears

The camera takes grainy shite photos


Mind you apart from that so far no complaints