I am looking to buy some in ear headphones from a good non-apple brand but all the 3C stores I am checking out have mostly or only the kind with the rubber tips, which I can’t stand.
Are there well known places where one can get such (real) products? I don’t want to buy online because I don’t trust it.
Specifically I am in kaohsiung but maybe there’s also a good chain?
Brand wise I’d hope to find Plantronics or if any major brand has a rubber-tipless set of in ear headphones that are water resistant.
Jianguo road has lots of electronics but be warned many ofthe shops scam people and warranties are often meaningless. so its like online, except you cn see them in person.
No, not fakes. Go, its interesting. Mostly computer, camera and phone related products. I am saying it is hit and miss. Mnay stires there buy older models or import from overseas. As such, problems arise and as such there is often times no manufacturers warranty and they use 3rd party ones. The 3rd party warranty dealers in taiwan are famously pieces of shit. I have far too many bad experiences on that street with camera equipment, laptobs and components. As have others. Howeer, headphones arent as complicated as a laptop and the loss is less, so its probably not too bad.
There are good ones there too. All i am saying is that if you expect 100% you should be knowledgable beore going in.
That’s not true. Everything I’ve bought that failed under warranty has been replaced without question and easily. I’ve even intentionally bought defective stuff in warranty for a discount so I can get a new one and had them replaced.
Either the shop or the manufacturer will replace them under warranty. Most of these tech companies are multinational and have robust warranty centres in Taiwan. I’ve never had an issue.
What I mean is a lot of these stores operate on very razor thin margins and will tell you to send it to the manufacturers center yourself as they’re not equipped to simply exchange it for you and they would deal with the manufacturer themselves.
I worked at those places before. Margin for any core component like CPU, motherboard, and hard drive is about 50nt. They would go out of business if that’s all people bought.
Im too tired to figure out multi quote on this site on a phone, so as per taiwan luthiers and marcos reply. This is the exact problem i am talking about. Dont go into a shop assuming you have customer entitlement. As a customer, you also have some responibilities. One such responisbility in Taiwan, and most of Asia, is know which warranty reseller the shop you are visiting uses. They are open about telling you. Make your decisions wisely, probably good advice to never pay extra fo extended warranties.here unless backed by a local manufacturer.
As asimple example. i used to do something similar to marco in stores like Carrefour. A company that actually honors their promise. I only stopped those years ago because i decided to change my allegiance to health and environment ratherthan cotporate greed. I choose to fight both when possible, but environmnet won out the moral battle in the end.
Unlike Carrefour, dont expect those bandits kn jianguo road to honor anything but their bosses wallets at the end of the day. Literally had them, including bosses, break my products in front of me.and customers. Nevermind the verbal abuse. Since 10 years ago, i record every meaningful conversation i have as a backup as getting fucked is more common than meeting people with honesty.
Headphones alone, not a huge deal. But over the years and a couple million nt down the drain, it does begin to start annoying a person. Wish i started holding my ground from the beginning.
Personally i would be careful with headphones. most are chinese (meaning literally your enemy if you live in taiwan) and many fll apart in your hands within ayear (meaning total shyte qulity)
I don’t get much joy from Taiwan electronics chain stores. I now do my electronics shopping at independent shops based on experience. No experience in Kaohsiung, but maybe in the electronics computer neighborhood.
If you happen to visit Tainan, Rainbow maybe has the largest selection of low to mid-level in-ear, not over-ear but many, headphones in Taiwan. Also many of the upper level in-ear.
@Explant
You were talking about shops not living up to their promises and verbal abuse. Years ago, I had a small Tstar independent shop cut a sim card of mine down to size and jam it in a 1 hour old new phone and break the Sim connectors. Brought it back same day to get told off by the owner who did it. Had to get Tstar corporate and LG involved to get the repair cost covered as the guy was super belligerent. He literally felt since he was trying to help me out he wasn’t responsible for the damage. A tie the dry cleaner destroyed and was all colour running was deemed something I gave him in that condition. Literally no small shop has ever backed up their warranties or promises.
Now I only buy my stuff online or from large stores that have a large corporate presence if something goes wrong. For phone companies I only go to corporate run stores. No way would I go to Jianguo rd unless it is for cheap as chips products.
I went to this street yesterday, and was quite pleasantly surprised.
Now, I think there were a lot of really dumpy shops there, which look notably dated and had a limited selection in their own niche, as well as a very small footprint. Are these the ones that you guys mostly dealt with when you had these kind of “no consumer rights“ issues?
On the other hand, there were a handful of rather large, relatively well appointed shops that looked quite professional and had a larger variety, all the way up to one shop in particular that was really nice actually, that in the back went up Half a flight of stairs. This one in particular was without comparison the best gadget shop I have seen in Taiwan in terms of variety and selection.
There was even a official Samsung store that is about as Samsung as it gets.
I wasn’t able to find the Plantronics I was looking for on that street, although I did find some alternatives that did not quite fit the bill. I’m guessing however that is because of the general limitation of stock in Taiwan, although I am hoping that isn’t the case and that I can actually find this brand in particular.
If it rings any bells, I am looking for the back beat 3150 in black. I hope I can find that here somewhere, or a reasonable sweat proof alternative. Not much luck in that regard on the street, always either lacking waterproof, or with terrible sound quality, or everything else – 90% of it - with those rubber tips.
