Question Are you a brand loyalist?

[SHaines]

With tech evolving every day, we're seeing big leaps forward in the tech we take for granted. For the most part, we tend to pick the best available item, regardless of brand. However, some of us may still have some preferences for specific items.

Do you consider yourself a brand loyalist for any of your tech? If so, why that brand?

For me, I've broken the habit of buying Sony headphones every single time I upgrade. When I was younger, Sony was the only name brand I could afford, so I just got used to using their equipment for pretty much anything related to music. I did use them pretty much exclusively for about 30 years though.

How about you?

 

[bit_user]

I try to reward behaviors I like. So, AMD and Intel both have open source graphics stacks, embrace open standards like OpenCL, and contribute a lot to the Linux kernel.

Nvidia is notorious for anti-social behavior, like making its own proprietary APIs and requiring customers to use its proprietary driver stack. I also feel they've been overly exploitative, with GPU pricing.

So, when given a choice of two roughly comparable solutions that both meet my needs, I'll go for the company who's behavior I want to reward.

Also, with regard to CPUs, I'll admit to wanting Intel's hegemony broken, after so long. So, I'm a little bit biased in the direction of AMD CPUs. Intel doesn't help their case, by pulling stunts like demo'ing 28 cores @ 5.0 GHz and implying it's going to be released as a product, or failing to disclose the power consumption their CPUs use in gaming setups that. That's more of the anti-social behavior I want to discourage.

For PSUs, my go-to is Seasonic. I was reluctant, at first, but after seeing numerous deep reviews showing their premium models as consistently among the best, I barely even read PSU reviews anymore.

Finally, with SSDs, I value reliability over performance. So, my preferred brands are Intel, followed by Micron. It's a combination of reputation and features like end-to-end data protection. Samsung could win me over, if they'd do more to market their read-oriented enterprise SSDs to consumers, but they seem to guard information about them with almost cult-like secrecy. It doesn't help that Samsung products typically command a large price premium.

 

[Encryption+]

I guess you could say I'm brand loyal to AMD CPUs, espescially recently with their 16 core Ryzens and massive 64 core Threadrippers.
Mostly though I just think they have a better product for a given pricepoint.

 

[Math Geek]

i don't consider myself loyal to any company, but i like most people like familiarity. so i might lean toward one brand simply due to knowing how it works already. getting into a new bios for a mobo can be a daunting task the first time. but if there's an option i already know and it's a good deal, then it may win for that reason.

with that said, i have owned tons of laptops over the years and i find myself going with hp over and over. i like the looks, quality and they've been good to me so far.

i do lean toward AMD though when they have a competitive product. i've been using AMD gpu's for years now. competition is a good thing and i will support the little guy if the value is there. but if AMD gets a big head and all of a suddent doubles the cpu prices, then i know how to pick an Intel chip as well

bang for the buck is top of the list to me for what to chose.

 

[gondo]

I've been in the business for over 20 years and can speak to the fact that when it comes to computers brands don't really mean that much anymore. An AMD 5700xt from Asus or Gigabytes will be pretty much the same. What I've found are that certain companies make a more reliable product and their RMA process/customer service is better. If a certain brand of motherboard has the better website with up to date drivers and their website is rarely down that is a good thing.

I think so far people pretty much hit the nail on the head. EVGA has great customer support. Seasonic are very good and readily available power supplies. When it comes to Intel vs AMD CPUs it's whoever has the best performance per dollar since both are reliable. For monitors I like BenQ and have had bad experiences with Acer and LG. But overall it's value and availability that wins most of the time. A good EVGA power supply is a good buy if it's on sale for half the price of a good Seasonic, even if your a Seasonic fanboy.

I don't think there is 1 particular component where I can absolutely say you need to buy from one particular manufacturer and that 1 brand rules them all. 20 years ago I would have listed the particular brand of each product you had to buy. Abit motherboard, Hitachi hard drive, NEC monitor, antec power supply and case, Zalman Ram and flower heatink, etc... Now it's irrelevant.

 

[richyrt]

Always. Asus and Sony.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

cheap flashy colored brands like Seasonic

Huh?

Seasonic is certainly not cheap nor flashy. Something id consider both cheap and flashy is like a Thermaltake Litepower/SMART RGB

 

[delaro]

I prefer not to call it brand loyal, I prefer to call it a good warranty and customer support loyal. I avoid companies that offer craptastic warranties and source their customer support out to India.

 

[Mooons]

CPU: Intel
GPU: EVGA or Nivida FE
Cooling: Corsair
Keyboards & Mice: Corsair or Razor
Cases: NZXT
PSU: EVGA

 

[Questors]

If it has served me well, that brand will be my first choice next time. That said, I will still shop, read and compare other brands next time also. Competition drives innovation, provides variety and keeps prices honest (so to speak). To me, auto-buying a particular brand all the time is detrimental to my own needs.

 

[logainofhades]

I am on vehicles. I bleed Ford blue. For other things I am more of a brand avoider. I avoid Asus, due to their terrible customer service, and I despise Apple, as a company.

 

[bit_user]

Bad ratings being more important than good ones to avoid frustration means that i care more about not buying from bad brands than buying from good ones.

My approach to customer reviews on Amazon and Newegg is as follows:

1. Sum the 4 + 5 star reviews and the 1 + 2 star reviews. I then classify the first group as "X % like or love it", and the second group as "Y % dislike or hate it".
2. Based on this love vs. hate score and specs, I quickly narrow down my options to just 2 or 3.
3. I then go through the 1-star and 2-star reviews and figure out how many of them are from people who know what they're doing and have similar needs and expectations as I do.
4. Based on step 3, I might feel that some of the products were unfairly penalized and mentally adjust their score.
5. Finally, I go with the best love/hate ratio, using things like brand reputation and price as tie-breakers.

 

[bit_user]

Aorus line from Asus. The Asus Aorus motherboards, graphics cards, and cooling solutions seem to be where I lean toward. I even like their latest NVMe.

Dude, I hate to break it to you, but Aorus is from Gigabyte.

I also tend toward Seasonic, Sabrent and Teamgroup T-force products.

Wow, that's rather alphabetized and alliterative of you. Sweet!

 

[starlight.evenings]

GPU: Whatever is bang for buck, Nvidia is eye-roll way too greedy and I seldom buy their cards unless the price is right for the build. When you can get 8GB of Vram (fatboy 590 ebay) and 60+fps at max settings on 200 dollar card there is no need to buy Nvidia unless you're running virtual reality on four screens.

Power supply: Evga. Seriously.

CPU: AMD because bang for buck is glorious and CPU's reached a point that buying more expensive doesn't mean much of a difference since it's now handicapped by other components.

 

[n00bguy84]

No I am not. I want the best I can get and afford. The brand doesn't matter to me. Though I know what I have used in the past and it's held up and I liked the product. So I might lean towards another piece of hardware of the same brand. But I can easily go for a different brand if it they have a better piece of hardware.

Basically I won't buy some companies mediocre garbage hardware just because they have their name on it.

 

[rebna00]

Ive never had any luck with any radeon cards, ive stuck with nvidia for the last 10 years

 

[musrocs14]

Yes and no, I usually do extensive research for my PC builds, all the way back to my first one around 2003 when I was a teenager. I had an MSI motherboard and an AMD CPU than and Kingston or Crucial memory with a Sapphire 9800 pro. I have used Asrock and Gigabyte motherboards. All worked well but my MSI mobo died years later when a power outage killed it. My siblings used that computer though as I had already upgraded by that time. I had 3 Asrock Mobo's and one died on me but it was a very low end computer as I just wanted something to use and have linux on without dual booting or virtualization at the time. It worked okay but low end mobos seem to have lower quality parts. My other ones are working great.
I use corsair memory now for the most part and their power supplies. I had a Corsair 650D i really liked but helped a buddy build a 450D and was not as pleased with their build quality. I really like the Fractal Design cases and they appear to have a solid quality build in the Define series and will probably move to that one in the near future. I do tend to like AMD but built an intel i7 2700k (was on sale and cheaper than the 2600k) build that works fine but that was because AMD was way behind at that time and I needed a new PC. On Ryzen now though and will be upgrading to 4th gen Ryzen I think when it comes out. Only issue i've seen was with first gen ryzen and memory issues but bugs are usually very common with first gen architectures since I can remember and I have read about computers since the late 90s as a kid.
So, Yes and No, I usually do my due diligence on a build and see what the best parts are for the money and will make decisions based on that. When I find things I think are solid, I will tend to stick with them. I do want to try an Asus mobo but they are usually priced 30 to 50 dollars more for the same features as all the other boards in the same price range when you read reviews and they compare the boards for particular price groups. I think it is best to save up some more money than you originally plan and spend it on better parts as they usually last a little longer.

 

[Hardly_Qualified723]

Myself personally (and I kick myself constantly for it) since the company has fallen out of my good light with terrible customer service...Logitech for my mouse, I gotta have the Trackball style like the M570 I have now, I've been using that shape and style since I can recall owning a PC, and I won't budge.

The way I work, if your customer service treats me like anyone would want to be treated when s*it hits the fan hard--you've earned my respect...and until you ruin that fact I will buy your products--according to my needs at the time.

I haven't found many brands I live by and I generally like to trial and error hardware AND companies (ya, i'm that jerk lol) to see whats reliable, so not really I guess except my dang mouse lol.

Although, I do have a high regard for EVGA due to its donations, customer service, general help the people concepts--and even pay consumers to do it but I still won't just buy an entire EVGA rig, just because its EVGA. Matter of fact, my power supply I did just for that reason is kind of crappy lol...although I know they don't make the parts for those themselves, it makes a point.

On a good note it has a 10 year warranty, I can't complain unless it fries something else heh.

 

[Obakasama]

Hm.... I think I am to an extent, but usually purchase according to budget and need.

CPU: I tend to build AMD systems, but tend to buy Intel pre-builts. This is over a couple of decades though.

CPU cooler: Noctua.

GPU: mixture of Nvidia and AMD. I do tend to have more MSI graphics cards than other board partners.

Motherboard: not really. Brand tends to change whenever I make that core upgrade.

RAM: not really. Just whatever suits at the time.

PSU: tend to look at Seasonic and Corsair.

Storage: Western Digital or Crucial. Not really sure why, but tend to stick to those.

Case: Haven't bought many worth considering as it were. If I were to purchase a new one I'd be looking at Fractal Design more than others. No particular loyalty though.

Monitor: whatever suits at the time.

Keyboard: whatever is suitable. Considering a mechanical keyboard for next one as current keyboard is becoming unreliable.

Mouse: Probably avoid certain shapes and materials more than brand.

Speakers: Logitech and Creative mostly.

Other tech....

Phone: Samsung mostly, though this will change with the next one.

TV: Panasonic, LG.

Special mention goes to Sony. They're pretty much the one company I avoid due to many reliability issues over many different products over the years.

 

[John_833]

With tech evolving every day, we're seeing big leaps forward in the tech we take for granted. For the most part, we tend to pick the best available item, regardless of brand. However, some of us may still have some preferences for specific items.

Do you consider yourself a brand loyalist for any of your tech? If so, why that brand?

For me, I've broken the habit of buying Sony headphones every single time I upgrade. When I was younger, Sony was the only name brand I could afford, so I just got used to using their equipment for pretty much anything related to music. I did use them pretty much exclusively for about 30 years though.

How about you?

Not really, I tend to research and buy what I believe is the best value.

 

[WildCard999]

For Nvidia GPU's my go to is EVGA. I've used other companies over the years but there customer service is second to none and they've helped me out with issues when I was less experienced.

 

[faalin]

I guess you could call it brand loyalty, but i see it more as it always works so why change.

Items i dont stray to far from

This computer build out has been used for about the last 11 years
CPU Intel, although AMD is starting to peek my interest
MB Asus ROG boards
GPU Nvidia EVGA
Ram was Mushkin but switched to G.Skill
PSU EVGA G2/G3
HDD Western digital
SSD was intel but switched to Samsung

Headphones Shure 750 DJ
Earbuds Shure 535 Red Japan Special Edition

 

[Blitz Blitz]

Well, first I read reviews, watch youtube reviews, wanna see how perform, one, or another brand, product. What can I say, sometimes good brands make bad products, and vice versa.

 

[nofanneeded]

It depends on the product ..

Some Products were invented by a brand and they have patents others dont ... in this case yes I am a Loyalist. But in case of "all the same hardware" products , I wait for reviews and decide.

the real question here is the opposite , but I understand you will never ask that Question because it will hurt your relations with business ..

The Question is : which brand you will never buy from , and why...

Most brands I avoid are the one with horrible after sale services and the low speed they replace or accept to replace defect products.

 

[Dapro_]

Never, I always research exactly what the best specific product is using Reddit usually due to it having like-minded humans instead of someone being paid to write a review. I won't choose something expensive just based on liking the brand because I know I could simply be unaware of something I'd much prefer for the same price and I don't want to regret getting the worse version when I eventually discover the better one.