Also, all of the brands (cheap or expensive) will sometimes mess up the cost-cutting and make something reliable by accident. Buying cheap gives me more chances to get lucky in this way.
AEG = TTI
Black and Decker = Stanley (Stanley Black&Decker, SBD)
Bosch = {}
Craftsman = Stanley
Dewalt = Stanley
Hikoki = Hitachi
Irwin = Stanley
Kango = TTI
Klein = {}
Lenox = Stanley
Makita = {}
Metabo = Hitachi
Milwaukee = TTI
Porter-Cable = Stanley
Ryobi = TTI
The empty-set ownership symbol {} means not owned by anyone else.
Some direct reviews between 2 and 4 stars are also sometimes useful. Always discard the 5 star ones...
It was advertised as having a 2600mAh battery, but when I opened it up, inside there was a 1700mAh cell. Also no sign of purported weatherproofing, as the lens was not even glued in.
I have a 2000mAh cell in the same form factor (approximately 500Wh/l, so believable) on its way from China, which makes me wonder how did they come up with that 2600mAh figure.
Anecdote: back in 2004, a friend brought home a cheap digital audio player from her vacation to China. IIRC, it said on the front panel that it could play back MP3, MP4, and MP5.
The same capacity corresponds to different mAh at different voltages, maybe they are playing games with that.
Also, it's not the voltage, but over-current that reduces overall produced energy.
Typically the mAh is listed at some standard discharge rate, unless the cell is specifically advertised as a high-current draw cell. But either way an honest supplier will provide the draw/capacity table for you, rather than cherry pick the best one.
-2600mAh battery (9Wh)
-500 lumen light intensity
-5W LED
-4h battery life at constant illumination setting and this is the shortest time listed.
I now know that the battery is much smaller (6Wh) and 500lm is believable for a 5W LED but it's most certainly not this bright at any appreciable duty cycle. During those 4h it has to be pulling 1.5W at most.
It's funny how most of those parameters are not false per se, but at the same time create a false image of the device's capabilities.
Price isn’t the only axis by which products are evaluated.
Aliexpress eBay and even Amazon are full of listings that have high prices, just waiting for someone naive enough to mistake them for quality products. They don’t sell much or at all.
When people find a cheap product from a known brand they jump on it because they know there’s a higher chance of it being okay, and if not there’s a higher chance that they can return it or get warranty support.
When people buy a JUPQRKBOT branded Amazon special for a too good to be true price, they know they’re playing a different and much riskier game.
If you go higher level, of course there's Thunderbolt docks, but you can't make them cheaply, so they're generally good.
I'm somewhat sympathetic because from what I can tell engineering something capable of pushing that much data requires some exquisite engineering for every part of the process (chips on your computer, your computers port, your cables, the dock, the cable into the end device and the device and its port and chip). But still, they present these products like they're bulletproof.
It's possible I've had bad luck. A Caldigit TS3 had issues with dropping external drives and becoming unresponsive, then died after 2 years. Caldigit TS4 bricked itself after about a year. Got an OWC Thunderbolt Dock now and it just decides sometimes to stop communicating to anything new plugged in until you power cycle it.
This isn't usually a problem for most of my devices. My Thinkpads just alert me and say they're not charging at full speed, ending up negotiating something like 58W or so. Similar things with other devices. However, I've got one machine that will not even attempt to charge unless it definitely gets 20V/3.25A, which this dock just will not negotiate to for non-Dell devices.
But if you have that AND a USB bluetooth dongle, a USB ethernet adapter, USB DAC with SPDIF output you run into the "USB-C is best effort at best when you plug in a lot of devices" problem... Which never gets talked about, though if you talk to Copilot or Gemini about it they will tell you don't waste your time with USB 3.
When I run into this issue in any product category, I can solve it by searching for a solution from an "industrial" or "commercial" supplier. It'll cost 10x, but it'll usually work, and if it doesn't you'll at least be able to talk to someone who knows what they're doing.
In just about any product category, there is very little quality difference within the same order of magnitude in cost.
I got a box, some usb cables that have a female end and are fitted to mate to the box. If you are curious, it’s a box made for pro-audio equipment with precut holes. The holes are made for xlr ports, and the usb cables are terminated with xlr ports.
Now I have a usb hub where all four ports are wired directly to my motherboard’s ports. I probably should write a blog post with a parts list.