Comment by jloughry | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jloughry | Hacker News Reader

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Yep. Small products from Apple like chargers and cables, HP inkjet cartridges, and other things where I'd prefer to have the original product for safety or performance reasons, are impossible to buy from Amazon.

Every seller insists it's "Genuine HP" in factory sealed cartons and...it's not. The same thing happens with pens. Cheap knock-offs, every time. Reading the reviews on Amazon is unhelpful, because the reviews are polluted with apparently deliberate misinformation. It's got to the point where I either order Apple chargers from Apple directly or go to one of their retail stores in person, and I always buy inkjet cartridges in person. (I don't like fires and I don't like clogged inkjet nozzles.)

Amazon is great for lots of things, but not small, easily counterfeited, safety critical items.

Another anecdote: I tried to buy Apple EarPods on Amazon. The first search result, ranked #13 in the best sellers claims "Apple EarPods Genuine OEM" for $9.99 when all reviews say "do not buy, not genuine!". How can Amazon let these products be listed???

I ended up buying them for $30 in person at my local electronics store.

Off topic but why do you like those enough to pay $30? They're horrible at noise reduction (for you and those around you) and have shit for low frequencies. You can get a much better pair from Sony at that price . Always curious why people use them

Personally have never liked the sealed ear buds as the seals usually do not fit correctly. More importantly though, most of the time I need the ability to listen to the ambient noise around me to catch other people talking to me or hearing announcements like train stops.

The sealed off from the world feeling is usually only useful when concentrating on a task and that is pretty rare.

I like them because they are the only headphones I can sleep on my side while they are still in and not hurt. I've got expensive headphones for listening, the ear pods are good enough for listening while laying down.

yes sleeping has been a challenge with earbuds. usually keep only 1 in the non pillow ear. Will test it with originals if i can find them somewhere :)

The Apple ad claimed they are the most comfortable headphones ever made ;) They're ok.

Had the same experience. I think there was even an Amazon EarPod review which photographed the label stating "designed in colifornia" (sic!).

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