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.
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.
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)’
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The Body Buffer by Manscaped. I don’t like any of their other stuff but my goodness that scrubber is legit. Easy to clean, doesn’t harbor bacteria, easy to grip, very durable, and it creates a nice lather
Used to be a fan of Benchmade; kinda seems like they went cheap more recently.
For footware, I’ve had pretty good luck with Danners - they had an ABU compliant stitched sole boot that was super comfortable; one pair got me through 4 years of active duty, and remain my go-to pair of work boots. The ABU uniform was phased out since I separated, so if you’re lucky you might be able to find a crazy good deal at at military surplus store; otherwise I’m sure they’ve got a newer OCP boot now.
I didn’t think about military surplus stores. There seems to be some items that people really enjoy, like the army poncho liners or old ammo canisters for containers.
I’ve been looking for a genuine army poncho liner but can only find knock offs online and cant find a reputable surplus store online if it exists
I was Air Force, so no idea if our rain gear was comparable to the Army poncho. Ours didn’t strike me as anything special, but then again the one I was issued was several sizes too large, so I kinda hated that thing by default.
The best military surplus stores are going to be the ones near military bases - they have constant stream of new inventory coming in from folks who separate and want to make a quick buck pawning off their issued shit.
And while there are definitely a few gems among military inventory, don’t make the mistake of thinking military = high quality or even high durability. To the contrary, most of it’s the result of bidding wars for a government contract, resulting in the absolute cheapest shit available.
Idr the brand, but sticking with the boots example, the ones I was issued in basic training barely made it to the end of basic training. Those things were absolute trash.
The poncho liner is often referred to as a woobie if you know that name. Afaik the “on brand” ones are made by the blind kids. Something something school for the blind or whatever it is.
