Hacker News Reader

Comment by justinpombrio | Hacker News Reader

> Also, without being an engineer or technician, it did always seem to me that fridges were like cars in that you had "luxury" models that were standard frames with fancy (often less-than-useful) features, and then actual luxury with brand names most people had never heard of, which had normal features implemented to a high standard and with excellent support.

As a consumer, would there be a way to tell the difference between the two when buying?

View on HN

If you’re paying a lot and there aren’t goofy touch screens or other pointless things to break, it’s a good chance it’s high quality. But always good to talk to someone who repairs them to know what’s actually good. Miele is one of these brands, maybe the most well known.

There is still a lot of value in reading reviews. People have grown cynical because there are a lot of fake reviews online these days, but that just means you have to think critically about what you are reading. Try to extract concrete facts from the text of the review, and as you identify each factual assertion that's being made, consider whether it seems like something that's believable and written by a real person, or something that's primarily an emotional appeal written by a bot or third world person employed by the manufacturer.

At some point, we're going to hit a tipping point where no authentic human being ever writes any online review, and then they'll become totally useless, pure noise. That doesn't seem to be the case yet, though.

It's like laptops: the commercial ones that come with onsite service vs the consumer ones that have the cheap price and all the bling. Maytag consumer model vs Maytag commercial. The ones you buy at the appliance store vs the ones you buy at the commercial restaurant supply store.

That's what Consumer Reports exists for.

Tell the vendor you are equipping a restaurant?

This works for some things, but not others.

For example, commercial laundry equipment comes from VERY FEW manufacturers, and you may never have heard of UniMac https://unimac.com/product/washer-extractors/uw-series-high-... but you probably have heard of their little brother, Speed Queen. Blendtec is another example.

But some things are vastly different between commercial and residential. Commercial ovens often have no heat shielding at all (because they're meant to be installed in a commercial kitchen and used all the time) and so the sides can get very hot. Not what you want in a home kitchen!

You can find some names, and check what they offer in residential versions.

But the surest way is to find people who work with them talking about them.

Absolutely LOVE our Blendtec blendeer. That thing can chop up almost anything! My only regret is not getting the variant that came with a heating coil for making soups.

> Don’t breathe that

The Blendtec is a beast; I'm just sad I'll probably never have a real excuse to move to the quiet https://www.blendtec.com/products/professional-800 because my existing one will never die.

Avoid shiny plastic

Reply on news.ycombinator.com