Consumer Friendly Products

Thanks! I am still keeping my eyes out for such a product. I currently have a GE $15 dollar one. I actually have a second one and rotate the batteries. I try to run them down before charging them and then I make sure they don't sit on the base and charge too long. Usually 12 to 24 hours should be good. Some people just keep their phones on the base all the time and if the phone has a cheap charger that doesn't detect when the batteries are charged they can then be damaged by the overcharging and need to be replaced sooner. They are always overpriced when you go to get them replaced and that is upsetting for me.

If your phome has Nickel Methyl Hydrate batteries the charger will no hurt them they are the ones with a memory in the battery that allows it to protected from under and overcharging. Most $15.00-$20.00 phones come with a NiCad battery pack which has to be completely dicharged before recharging, and shouldn't be left on charge. Nickel batteries are available for purchase at any hardware or electronic store and are made for cordless phones, however they are more expensive and last 5 times longer, but they will not work with a phone that uses Nicad bateries as the charger base will not charge the battery, it has to do with the electric pulse charge the base puts out, Nicad's pulse is different than Nickel's.

That is exactly what it's all about...money...and yes my friends is doesn't matter what we want we are still going to buy the crap the put in front of use...why...because we really do not have a choice...we can say that the stuff we buy at store x is garbage and go to to y and buy their stuff but in the end it is as much garbage as the first purchase...again this goes back to supply and demand, we want it and the companies have it..and unlike years gone past where there were only a few retailers out there competing for business, now there are thousands of money hungry companies that will push and sweet talk there way into your wallet...most of these companies have so many sub companies that it doesn't matter what brand you buy you are still buying junk... Remember when for instance you would buy an RCA tv or a GE cordless phone, or even a Black and Decker coffee maker...you knew you were getting a good name and brand. now you in the world knows what you are getting...but I promise you that 99% of what ever it is was not made buy the company name on the box.... Example....and question who makes Honeywell air cleaners and heaters...not Honeywell although they are known as the largest manufacture of these products.... For the guys out there who makes Delta power tools the third largest manufacture of power tools? What about most of the Skil, Ryobi and other brands.... The list goes on.... and within lies the problem we are not buying what it says on the box...even if it say made in America, or Canada.

So spateo our goal here should be to NOT buy products from the companies that make products that are not in the customers best interests. If EVERYONE did this they would have to make stuff we want or go out of business. But it would take a lot of people with the same kind of mentality to make that happen. Problem is most people just don't care about these things. If I had capital I would be seriously interested in starting a company whose main credo would be the consumer friendly product. We would make products that make sense, will last and that people who care about quality, serviceability and low cost of ownership, like me will appreciate. I would expect such a company to do well.

As a retail worker I can tell you this... it is unbeleivable how hard it is this day and age to actually get a decent made product...I get customers all the time that ask me about the difference between 2 or 3 of the same looking products..price and warranty are the only main difference, doesn't matter who made it, but when I tell customers that, they just look at me and laugh saying who needs all that warranty I never hardly use it...so they take the cheap item with no warranty and in 2 weeks I am fighting with them because they say I sold them a crappy product.....why because the price was cheap...if they had of done there homework and researched the product and taking my information they would have gotten a good item, remember you as a customer buy maybe one of a certain item a year, I as a retailer sell 1000 a year so I could tell you what is good and what isn't, what I see returned a hundred times and what isn't...that is also another thing..retailers don't work on commissions so if an employee at a store is selling you something at a higher price they are not doing it because they are making more money but they are doing it to save you some money and them some grief in the long run...matter of fact, most stores make more money on the low price products than the higher priced ones.

We seem to have something in common. I like trying to squeeze out as much use out of everything that I can. I hate throwing things away unless it really is trash.

wildguy "cordless phone costs you about $40.00" My GE with caller id cost me $15.00! I don't know where you shop but I suggest you look elsewhere. Now if that $40 unit would last a lifetime without needing new battery packs that cost $15.00 each I WOULD BUY IT! wildguy "It is called disposible inventory when something wears out you chuck it in the garbage and buy a new one." I hate that whole concept. We are filling up our landfills and destroying our planet when we could be making products that make much more sense and are designed to last for a very long time! wildguy "if you had to send that tv out for repair it would be gone for months" Then this product was a bad design in the first place and should never have made it to market! My father ran his TV repair business by coming to the customers home and fixing the TV on the spot! Didn't take months at all! wildguy "well 99% of the repair people and the company don't want to fix the unit as it costs more to have it fixed than to replace it" again... that is stupid. My father ran his own TV repair business back in the day of tubes instead of solid state. A repair on these units generally meant just replacing a tube which was a relatively cheap fix. There is no reason why this same concept could not be applied today. The Air Force does this in all their equipment! I know as I was a tech in the AF and a repair generally just meant replacing a socketed module! Again and inexpensive fix compaired to throwing the whole thing away and replacing it. wildguy "companies are getting filthy rich from it while retailers and consumers are taking the heat." And this is exactly what this discussion is all about. We need changes in the thinking of big business to fix this problem. And it can be done if CEOs will consider living on a little less then millions of dollars a year! wildguy "most people won't pay more for a product even if it offers more warranty, and better durability." I WOULD! In a heart fricking beat! I would much rather pay $1000.00 for a product that will last a lifetime then $50.00 for the same product that will only last a year at best!

Then we as consumers should rally against stores like Walmart, Home Depot, Canadian Tire, Target, Source, Staples, Futureshop, and many many more, their CEO's are the ones that are buying the materials here in north america and having it sent to Japan, China and Korea to have it made, putting thousands of people out of work and putting China and Japan as the largest exporter in the world. When we shop at the box retailers we get low prices, low grade products and in other words garbage, back in the day United States and Canada were the 2 largest employers in the world, we had factories for all the majour brand companies, product were built on our soil and yes they cost much more then than now but like you said they lasted and anyone anywhere could fix them, and for a decent price...things today and not meant to be repaired...simple as that, why...because that is what we as consumers wanted to make our lives better....something cheap, quick, and readily replacable...we want fast cars, fast food, quick cash and no effort, when I was growing up my family fixed everything from the car to the tv. Today kids can hardly tie there shoes, and that is the way they want it, they do not want to have to fix anything. As you said you only paid $15.00 for a cordless phone...I paid $39.99 for mine 7 years ago, and it never used a battery yet...I have 2 $15.00 phones here and they are both in need of batteries but they will never see them.

wildguy I really liked a lot of the things you said in this post and I gave you a plus! I am very miffed at Goodyear for outsourcing to Poland and China! I find it so amazing how much money we put into these countries, putting food on their tables and they turn around and cheer when terrorists crash airplanes into our buildings! I agree with everything you said and I don't like how society has moved into this lazy rut. We sit in a line at the fast food place instead of parking our cars and walking forty feet into the store to the totally empty counter! Then there are those companies with that offer us those plastic things we swip at the stores to pay for the products we buy (I would call them by the normal name but the last time I did that myLots automated systems screwed up my post in a big big way. Don't want that to happen again so I can't say those words) anyway the last few times I called for customer service on those I always end up talking to someone in either Indonesia or India who can not seem to speak english good enough to be understood! You ask to talk to their supervisor but they are just as bad... so you ask to talk to someone who can speak english but it seems they don't have anyone like that! They should be employing us here in the states to help with the unemployment situation instead of making the CEO rich. I do think they could do it without going out of business! But they are greedy! I am glad to hear you will keep your $40 phone! I have been doing some special treatment of my $15 phone in the hopes of making those rechargeable batteries last longer. The problem with many of these rechargeable phones is that they put super cheap chargers into them that are not smart enough to know when to stop charging the batteries. So the batteries often fail due to overcharging. What you need to do is let the unit get much closer to depleting the batteries and leave it on the base for say 12 to 24 hours in a cool place. Heat is another enemy of the battery. Overcharging and letting them heat up too much shortens the life of the battery. So then it gets to litter our landfills while the company rakes in the profits from replacement batteries so they can make a CEO richer just because he is a smart guy who knows how to make the company successful.

Sounds like you will be happy for a few days! Cool.

Deaf omega I tried using regular alkyline batteries like Dorcy and everready in my dig camera and like you said I never even got a picture with them the camera just sucked the life right out of them..I then bought energizer and duracell and those batteries lasted a long long time, took over 250 pictures with flash on one set of energizer's.