Brands that are better than ever

An obvious response to the rose tinted specs nostalgia thread.

Lapierre, I wouldn’t swap my current bike for any MTB over ten-years old. Giant and Colnago similar.

Motorola, my current phone is ace and cost 150e second hand.

Renault, the Zoe is a delight and requires very little servicing. No exhaust gasses, naff all brake dust, just a little tyre dust to poison people.

Fender, pick up any Fender guitar in a shop and it will play fine, plug it in and it’ll sound great.

North Face, sorry to disagree with the nay sayers but my current Goretex jacket weighs 350gm, breathes well and is still completely waterproof having had rucksacs rubbing on the shoulders for weeks of walking. Schõffel ski jackets similar.

Shimano, fewer bizarre concepts such as reversed derailleurs and more rock solid components that just work as the years go by.

Head, Rossignol and Fisher ski gear. Lighter, faster, easier, more comfortable and cheaper relative to income.

Osprey rucksacs, you really wanna carry that heavy, uncomfortable impractical old pile of Karrimor aluminimum tubes from the 80s. I’ve got a couple of old Alpinists with straps worn through and my Jag fell apart, but I’ll give you that the Karrimat is still pretty good.

Petzl, I can’t think of anything in the current range that is worse than what it replaced.

Over to yous:

Decathlon. Absolute sweet spot between cost and quality.

Agree with Osprey. I recently had a battered and abused pack repaired for free by them, despite it being about 10 years out of warranty.

Fjallraven. Mostly resisting the slide from well made outdoor kit to over priced fashion. Mostly….

Bushnell optics. Lifetime warranty which I have used a couple of times on an ancient pair of binos. Last time swapped for a new pair after I dropped the old ones.

Halfords “professional” sockets and ratchets. Probably not really professional quality, but solid DIY tools that are not silly money and have a lifetime warranty.

Richer Sounds

Almost all modern cars. These days exhausts can last the life of the car. In the 80s 5 years was a good life for an exhaust.

Most cars don’t need welding to get through an MOT because  of rust for a decade or more.

They rarely fail to start, I don’t miss lifting the bonnet and taking off the distributor cap etc. Much better mpg despite increased weight partly caused by better safety features. No lead in petrol. Etc, etc.

Hyundai and Kia.

In my youth they were considered to be the type of  cars only purchased by people who didn’t know anything about cars. Nobody wanted dropped off at school in a Kia Pride or a Hyundai Pony.
Now they are absolutely smashing it and are at the cutting edge of EV design and technological development.

Gregory Packs – best rucksacks out there but used to be a bit pants

Dell laptops  – been using them for 25 years and the newer ones are really reliable

Samsung.  Very much a budget brand back in the day – polar opposite now.

Apple. Tech that is reliable, easy to use, talks to other Apple kit and just works, often very beautifully

Helly Hansen. Really extensive range of very high quality kit from a company that used to just do Lifa vests and sailing kit.

Agree re Kia and Decathlon.

Lenovo? Aside from switching their PCs from nicotine beige to Stealth Black(*) their laptop and desktop design hasn’t changed much in about 30 years.

(* – that’s genuinely its official name)

And LG – buying a TV with a Goldstar badge was a last resort, a very different story today.

jimw
Richer Sounds

I disagree – I think they’ve always been great.

Can’t fault Decathlon TBH, just picked up a very decent waterproof jacket for commuting for £29.99. Only down side, is our local one is selling less parts than it used to.

Orange bikes (yes, really) – their current frames are light, beautifully made from folded aluminium and have some of the best geometry in the biz. And they’ve seemingly got on top of the cracking issues. Let’s just not mention the pricing.

Lidl & Aldi for food and drink generally – were always good value and decent quality, but are both getting better at the more upmarket products – e.g. Lidl do a lovely 7yr old Cuban rum for £17, and their bakery is *chef’s kiss*

Edit: glad you’re happy with your E-Renault OP, but I wouldn’t have picked them based on experience of their ICE vehicles (which seem over-complicated and under-engineered).

And LG

Between LG and Samsung they’ve pretty much cornered the market in quality flat screens.
Think LG are even supplying Samsung in some markets/models.

The Shimano shoe Velcro thread prompted me to try and find out how old my ME7’s are. I bought them from 69 Cycles in Chester, which according to a BikeBiz news article closed in 2018, and I don’t think I got these in any closing down fire sale. For most of my ownership I’ve only ever had this one pair of cycling shoes so it’s not like they’re getting a particularly easy life as part of a large rotation either.

Put some new cleats on them yesterday and ordered replacement laces. Someone please tell me that Shimano footware is generally still as good.

I suppose the real answer to this thread in the cycling context is some of the upcoming Chinese electronic groupset manufacturers like Ltwoo.

Brompton

Specialized tyres. I’ve always liked them but think they’re better than ever for a decent chunk of money less than most other brands. Ground Control T7 is a superb all rounder.

Smartwool socks. Still the best socks for casual or walking.

Surprised about people mentioning Rab, Montane and ME in the other thread. I’ve no complaints about any of them and would (and do) happily buy from any of them.

Madame recently replaced a 35-year-old Rab sleeping bag with a new Rab sleeping bag. Just as good apart from knowing the shell was sewn up in Asia somewhere.

I disagree – I think they’ve always been great.

I think you misunderstood me- the title is ‘better than ever’-I agree they have always been good but are continuing to improve and I admire what Julian Richer has done for his employees. I bought my first tuner in their London Bridge store in 1981

I too came on here to say Montane is as good if not better than ever, pretty much my go-to for base & mid-layers and windproofs – surprised it popped up the other thread

Madame recently replaced a 35-year-old Rab sleeping bag with a new Rab sleeping bag. Just as good apart from knowing the shell was sewn up in Asia somewhere.

How can you possibly know?

Jeez this forum. Do you want to visit me and compare the two, thegeneralist?

I too came on here to say Montane is as good if not better than ever, pretty much my go-to for base & mid-layers and windproofs – surprised it popped up the other thread

Same. Unfortunately I drive past their factory shop on a regular basis, and the force field sucks me in, so I have a cupboard of the stuff.

No, I frankly couldn’t GaS, but can you not see the strange disconnect between

This Rab sleeping bag has been awesome for the best part of 35 years.

And

I’ve decided this Rab sleeping bag, which we’ve only just got, probably have never used, certainly hasn’t been washed, rewashed, used and abused in a variety of environments for decades and probably hasn’t been within 10 degrees of its comfort rating ….

Hell yeah. It’s just as good.

Toyota. In a world where cars are getting ever more complex and laden with ridiculous tech, none of it accessible easily while driving, getting into a Toyota feels a bit of a throwback – hard plastics, basic controls, but predictable and easy to drive. Love it.

Budget Rentacar, IMHO. In my frequent hops to the UK and Ireland I’ve often had to rent a car for short periods – sometimes, due to airline incompetence, late at night a long way from where I’m supposed to have landed – and they’ve been friendly, efficient, fairly cheap and surprisingly relaxed about the risk of damage. I’ve become a big fan.

Giant used to make good value but dull and mediocre bikes 20 years ago (and I’ve probably owned more Giants than any other brand.) when they developed the Maestro suspension, they definitely stepped it up but they aren’t the budget brand they used to be.

Rockshox went downhill pretty badly before SRAM bought them out, terrible quality control and I don’t think any of their forks or shocks was really considered the best in class. The Reba and Pike (about 2005?) really stepped things up and turned them back into market leaders.

Samsung. Very much a budget brand back in the day – polar opposite now.

Our old fridge freezer and washing machine would beg to differ! Both premium price, both very nice at first, both fragile and failed long before they should have.

The steak bake I had today would disagree with Binners as well!

Apologies, but I don’t agree with the Greggs entry…simply on the basis they don’t make the chilli steak lattice anymore 🙁

Agree with Decathlon

Katsu chicken slice is bloody lovely though.

Thing is, thegeneralist, I’ve had a voluntary month off this forum mainly walking with people being positive. I thought I’d drop back in here with a positive thread and positive posts on existing threads to see what happened. And you dive in with more negativity, bad faith and confrontational crap than I’ve faced in a month. Toodle pip.

SRAM – just seems to work.

Nearly any half decent brand of tyre I try these days… compared to how tyres used to be they are great.

jimw
I disagree – I think they’ve always been great.
I think you misunderstood me- the title is ‘better than ever’-I agree they have always been good but are continuing to improve and I admire what Julian Richer has done for his employees. I bought my first tuner in their London Bridge store in 1981

I think you’re probably right,  I think I assumed you thought they were previously a bit pony.  I don’t have the history you do I wouldn’t have started buying from them until the 90s but they’ve always been a great example of how to do retail and yes what JR did for the company says a lot about him.

Going with Stans Tubeless here. Can remember the very first version, decades ago, with rubber strips, and nasty fluid that ate rims. Certain tyres could take days to seat, days, and if one blew off the rim whilst inflating to a million psi, you knew about it. Once on, the joy of getting a puncture at speed, where sticky fluid (still the correct forum for this?) went everywhere. Youth of today…

Eastpak Luggage.

As a someone who gets at least 1 long haul flight every month, including helicopter rides to/from offshore vessels, my Eastpak bags are beyond brilliant.

Hope brakes and hubs

Peugeot and Citroen. Both a Far cry from their 90s electrical issue ridden rusty crap.

Most Tubeless spec tires. Used to be lardy inflexible things. Now as good or better than their tubes counterparts

decades ago, with rubber strips

Weren’t the rubber strips Joe’s conversion kits for doing non-tubeless rims? Like a premium ghetto set up. Not saying you’re wrong about all the other stuff mind.

Marantz have been on the go for a while as my cd player from ’91 still works faultlessly

Using a much newer amp of theirs pm6005 and with the AEgis speakers cd has never sounded better to my waxy ears