Asklemmy

Microsoft Surface.

In no particular order:

The Alcantara keyboard cover stated delaminating and the top layer started peeling off just from the friction of resting your hands on it. Started happening within months of getting it.

Battery failed after just a few years of daily use, I'm talking completely refused to charge, you unplug the charger even after leaving it in overnight and the screen goes black instantly. And while most laptops can run just fine with a dead battery as long as you keep it plugged in at all times, not the Surface. The little magnetic connector supplies so little power that the device is forced to down clock to below 1 GHz to keep from shutting down due to undercurrent. And sometimes it shuts down anyway because fuck you.

It's also glued so tight, and the front glass is so thin, that you basically can't open it without destroying the screen in the process.

Also, the magnetic charge connector started having contact issues around the same time the battery was starting to fail, so the moment you bump it, it disconnects and causes the device to turn off. It also just refuses to connect half the time when you plug it in. Gotta jiggle it, blow into it, shake and hit it a bunch of times, and pray. I'm pretty sure it's the tablet's side that's the problem because changing chargers did nothing, and the charger that came with the problem tablet worked fine on another Surface. Gotta love when companies make the fragile part of the connector apart of the $2000 device that's sealed shut with glue and put the more robust part on the cheap and easily replaceable charger.

It's also really bad at going to sleep. Way too many times I've closed it, put it in my bag, and when I take it out it's scalding hot and the battery is nearly drained. It's your own device Microsoft, running 100% your own software. How the hell do you fuck it up?!

Worst. Tablet. EVER. And probably ruined any potential that laptop-replacement tablets once had, which is a shame because I still like the tablet form factor.

Burger king chicken sandwich with foot lettuce

A wireless logitech mouse for gaming from back when wireless technology for periferals still meant a decent amount of latency. I learned quickly why latency is important when gaming. Also the precission of the mouse was terrible as it would regularly skip backwards under slightly accelerated movements. It was pretty humbling for me as a ~15 year old kid to realize I wasted around 4 weeks of newspaper work money on a mouse which I gave up on almost the same day as I bought it.

Years ago I bought an angle grinder from Aldi, for about 20,-. After 30 min it started to smell and the enclosure started to melt. I brought ist back still warm and smelling burnt in order to recieve my refund. Although I knew it couldn't be of good quality I expected it to last a little bit longer. If you buy cheap you buy twice.

A replacement PCV valve for my car.

Car was around 100,000 miles, figured it was a good time to do a big refresh & replace a bunch of stuff. Spark plugs, belts & hoses, fuel & air filters, fluids, etc etc... While I was at the parts store, guy suggested I also replace the PCV valve. But, it turned out the only one he had in stock was the store brand. $4, sure whatever. Got it home, took the factory one off the car, and sure enough it was gummed up kinda bad. But went to put the new one on, and it just about collapsed in my hands. It was so flimsy, kinda like a drinking straw. Ended up cleaning the factory one & putting it back on, threw the new one away.

I did buy a number of fake flash drives, so they're definitely up there. Luckily I've always won the disputes and got my money back from every one of them.

There were also a number of headphones whose sound was so fucking bad, listening to stuff off my phone's speakers was better

There's probably worse, but off the top of my head, a Sandisk Curzer Fit USB 3.0 drive. It would overheat about 15 seconds into a file transfer and throttle to well below USB 2.0 speeds, perhaps even USB 1.1. I tried to alleviate the issue by using it through a USB 2.0 extender (thereby ruining its entire appeal to compactness), but it developed bad sectors soon enough. It was satisfying smashing it to bits with a hammer though.

Those Dollar Store umbrellas! They are so shit they will break if the slightest bit of wind hits them, or maybe the flimsy metal frame breaks from closing it.

Sure it's from the Dollar Store, but I've bought lots of things from there that have last a decent around of time.

My Muller hand mixer was designed to break.

Feit light bulbs aren't worth it for any price less than free.

Quip was pretty awful compared to Sonicare.

I purchased sunglasses in the Philippines and they broke the same day. I purchased a different pair from a different stand and they broke the same day. Im convinced the defective bottom of the barrel get dumped onto the Philippines

Coors

Just about anything by Betterware. The one that sticks in my mind was the non-stick stick-on hook that lasted for all of a minute before falling off under its own weight. I ended up second guessing how the thing they were selling could possibly go wrong, and if I could think of something then I wouldn't get it.

There is one Betterware item that's lasted the years though. A hair trap for the sink. It's a metal disk with holes punched in it. Hard for that not to work, really.

Also, increasingly, tat off Scamazon.

Edit: I misread the question. I thought it was "lowest quality product that you still use" (I was distracted)

Original comment: Harbor freight calipers. Surprisingly still accurate and undamaged through years of abuse. Kind of amazing, and shockingly useful.

I bought a harbor freight heat gun. All I'll use it for is lighting charcoal. Very uneven heat, and will melt itself if you don't turn it nozzle up when you turn it off.

We got gifted a plastic rack for garden utensils. My mother in law bought it for us from the local supermarket (which has various cheap crap every week). Anyway, we placed a few items in it and it broke in a day. Utterly useless.

A donair from Pizza 73

Barely working solar charger

Can I nominate an airline?

probably not the lowest quality, but an allarm clock from walmart that sheared/tore off the prongs from its plug leaving them in the outlet. (to have some charity I was putting significant strain on it)

I bought a desoldering iron for a project I was working on. Seemed to work fine although the thing had no power switch and was very uncomfortable to hold. I just needed it for one project so it made sense and I think it had a fair amount of compromises given the savings. Sometimes cheap does make sense