Some that come to mind are:
Benchmade - knives Darn Tough - socks Carhartt - good work gear Doc martens - footwear
What are some good reputable brands that you have had for 5 years + with little to no issues or with a lifetime warranty.
I’ve read some recent reviews on doc martens being total garbage now.
Can back this up as someone who used to wear them daily at a dealership job.
Don’t know if I’m getting old or they changed something but they’re just not as good/comfortable.
Can’t speak on if they wear down any faster however, didn’t get that far.
Doc Martens got sold and moved the production to Asia. The dip in quality is very noticeable.
The people who used to produce Doc Martens now work for the company called Solovair. I haven’t tried their stuff butt apparently they’re as good as Doc Martens used to be.
Having worn Doc Martens most of my life i’ve now switched to Solivair, last pair of ‘Docs’ i bought wore through the upper in 6 months and ripped my feet to shreds, the Solovair i replaced them with are still like new after a year and are the comfiest boots i’ve ever worn.
The only downside is explaining why you’re wearing ‘knock off Docs’ to hipsters, but i generally go with ‘They’re Doc Martens with all the Vietnamese Child Labour taken out (allegedly)’
They definitely are not really good anymore: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOzFLT3S_I6UHHrezPiQ4VS_y3Pj09Zvd
You’re probably better off wearing something like Red Wing’s Iron Rangers, though there’s multiple brands that are pretty good. Meermin comes to mind for Europeans. Solovair if you’re really into the Dr Martens look.
/r/goodyearwelt used to be a good resource for shoe stuff, not really sure if there’s something comparable on Lemmy yet.
My opinion is they were garbage in the 80s/90s too. I would wear the soles down like an eraser in a matter of months. Warranty or not, that’s not bifl to me.
That’s kind of the nature of the soles they use, but there’s not really such thing as a sole that won’t wear (and if there were, it probably wouldn’t be comfortable to walk on). Instead high quality boots are made to have the sole be easily replaceable using constructions like Goodyear welt, stitchdown, and Blake.
I have that problem with all kinds of shoes and trainers, regardless of the price tag. I bought a pair of Adidas Men’s Hoops 3.0 a few months back and to my surprise, the soles haven’t worn down on them yet.
But I feel like it’s only a matter of time until a hole starts developing in the soles, which means they’re gonna be waterlogged in any kind of wet weather.
Danner is my go-to brand for quality boots.
I’ve been issues a lot of boots from work and the Danners are the most comfortable by far. They made it through some real shit, too.
Love my danners but I still go through a pair a year with my current job. Last job I got about 5 years out of a pair.
Oof, that’s rough.
It really depends on the job, I guess. I wore the Danner Reckonings for about 2 years straight and they were a little rough looking but still in great shape. The tip of the boot where the sole curves up the front was starting to peel. The worst I did with them was mountain climbing and some very wet environments.
Some of the dudes I worked with were sent to an area with a lot of lava rock, which absolutely shreds boots.
Doc Martens are now Chinese made IIRC and don’t last.
Solovair is the the company that used to make Martens and you can still buy that style there. I hear they’re much better than Martens, but also occasionally a mixed review that they didn’t last very long.
I’ll offer a mixed review for carhartt…while they used to be strictly workwear, they’ve started putting up retail spaces in designer clothing areas. Prices have shot up. I had a belt from them that fell apart pretty quick with normal wear. Got a work shirt that’s doing pretty good though. IMO they’re headed down the same road as a lot of brands that get popular - price hikes with decreased quality.
I’ll offer a mixed review for carhartt…while they used to be strictly workwear, they’ve started putting up retail spaces in designer clothing areas.
Carhartt and Carhartt Work in Progress are two different brands, the former is the good workwear one, the later is the designer fashionable stuff. Stick to their non WIP stuff
I just got some Carhartt “wool” socks for Christmas. They are pilling like crazy after 1-2 wears/washes. They’re less than half wool, so that might be the issue.
I do WFH and I don’t wear shoes in the house, but that’s literally why I wanted wool socks.
I asked my parents for wool socks for Christmas twenty years ago and they gave me a few pairs each of three or four different brands. The ones that have lasted the longest and include a lifetime warranty is Redhead from Bass Pro. I’ve only exchanged them once or twice. They’re tall and thick with high pile wool. I’ve worn a pair almost every day for probably nine months out of the year, sometimes year-round, ever since I got them.
Carhartt WIP is designer workwear, modern cuts and softer, higher quality materials that aren’t designed to withstand harsh labor.
Carhartt standard is still classic workwear.
I’ve needed to use Carhartt standard recently and it’s still good, relatively affordable and very durable workwear.
Slight correction: From my understanding, Solovair is the company that purchased the cobbling machinery/factory that DocMartens sold off when they fully off-shored. DocMartens then contracted with them for their limited release, price-inflated, Made in UK boots. As the designs are long out of patent, Solovair also manufactures their own. I see Docs at a 15% markup, just for the name.
Lenovo ThinkPads
I bought an old model in 2013 and it lived in my backpack through 7 years of school and university. It was dropped hard enough to permanently bend the heatsink, the disk drive cover snapped off, and it regularly overheated from throwing it in my bag without turning it off. It ran windows, dozens of Linux distros (up to 3 at once) and now it’s a hackintosh for when I need a Mac. I’m confident I could buy spare parts and repair it myself if anything important broke.
Yes, OLD Lenovo thinkpads.
Buy yourself a used T400-T430 (and models of that age) if you don’t have very big computing requirements, they are 10+ years old and they will last you another 10+.
If you buy a Lenovo from the last 7-8 years you will get an overpriced piece of junk.
I have to take exception to that because I bought a Lenovo ThinkPad in 2018, barely ever used it and now it won’t even turn on.
If it won’t power on at all you might need to let it charge overnight and then try again
This is no exception. Thinkpad used to be great years (decade?) ago. The stuff they have produced in recent years is crap. I had two work laptops in the last 4 years and both are absolutely terrible compared to the old stuff.
Yeah when I took my issue to Lenovo customer service, their first response was that my laptop has reached the end of its usable lifespan. 5 years!? I’m not wealthy and that thing cost me $1,500 and I will never be able to afford another laptop again.
Doc martens are not so great quality now. The general consensus is that Solovair are the spiritual successor (in terms of quality) to what Dr Martens were. This video has more info: https://youtu.be/vkhCcvfVHRs?si=21bH9fSvkNgmjwm1
For laptops O would recommend framework laptops. The idea is that they have upgradable and repairable.modules. You can follow them on mastodon too: @frameworkcomputer@fosstodon.org And we have a Lemmy community too: !framework@lemmy.ml
