In Car Camera / Dashboard Camera from China - Helps with accidents

Hi guys,

Another item I totally forgot about I ordered from China last year was my in car camera which I take everywhere with me when driving. The reason I bought it was because me and my brother where coming home from work one day and stopped at a set of traffic lights. There were two lanes, we were on the inside lane and on the right there was a large canvas lorry towing another canvas trailer behind it. As the lights turned from red to green, the lorry driver took off fairly quickly and as I began to move the lorry's trailer swayed to the left as he turned the slight bend in front of us to continue going down the road.

The trailer slammed onto the front driver side door and front panel of my car and tore the front bumper as well off. All in all it cost £800 to fix and luckily for us the guy fixed the car out of his own pocket because he owned his own company and fleet of lorries. However some people I have talked to haven't been so lucky. Especially when theres an accident, you take peoples details down etc and make sure they aren't hurt, get them to sign a piece of paper saying they are not injured and what happened etc. However as one of my friends found out, this does not stand up in court the piece of paper. This is because when for instance someone suffers from whiplash for example, signing the paper there and then at the scene and time of the accident means nothing, becaused the onset of whiplash usually takes a few hours up to 24 hours to kick in.

These cameras which nearly every car should have as well as taxis, delivery men, lorries, diggers, buses, motorbikes....even cyclists or any vehicle on the road should be equipped with what i like to call a "Black Box". This means in a court of law it would help to show exactly what happened or give at least some indication of who done what or what went wrong in an accident.

It should also help sort out insurance claims much much faster, as the insurer can do their own investigation with the police into the crash and confirm your statements and the other victims statements, comparing them to video evidence you can send them in the post or email to the claims handler.

Of course not all crashes can be caught on camera if you only have a forward looking one and someone rams into the back of you, but it does record sound as well and the time, date etc of when it happened to witnesses statements can be backed up by what happened. I have included a video I uploaded from my camera to show you the quality you can get from such cameras from China. One mistake I made in this video is that I did put the camera very close to the air vents coming from the dashboard and had them open. This is what makes the annoying noise in the video as the camera microphone is like a pinhole and when the air flows directly into it it can produce a lot of static.

Check it out for yourself and let me know what you think. The camera I used does have night vision as well but I didn't test it out as I don't drive much at night.

Here is a small selection of cameras available on Amazon that are the same model or very near to the specs of the one I tested out and are very cheap:

                                 

Thanks

Henry

Beatles Box Set from China - Copies or ....just printed in China?

Beatles Box Sets from China - Copies or ....just printed in China?

Hey guys,

Long time no type. I was wondering about why people bad mouth the Beatles box sets of the stereo 16 cd box sets and the mono 10 cd box sets? I looked on Amazon at the many reviews for these products and see complaints about the original and authentic ones being priced way too high, which is all fine and good right? However then you come to the printed in China box sets which are apparantly "illegal copies" as everything it seems to people that comes from China is an illegal copy, is of bad quality and the sticker on the CD of a copy has the inner circle cut out while the original shows a whole label stuck on with no inner circle etc. It started to get on my nerves a bit people both rhyming abou authentic products and copied which kinda confused me so I thought I would vent my opinion here.

The differences between the two are so minor and it all really comes down to just the packaging is different, rather than the audio quality thats contained on the CD. People are comparing things like the original box sets have the albums in order they were released in the set, the smell of the Chinese copied ones stinks of that "ink just printed smell", the cd's inner circle intersects the label when it should be one whole label not split by any other circle, the Chinese copied ones have flaps now and again that aren't glued down etc etc.

The thing that annoys me about these kind of people is that they never seem ot be happy. They have two choices when buying these Beatles box sets. Buy them or just keep quiet is the way I see it. The real one for the 16 cd stereo version about £153 and the mono box set is about £179. The Beatles fans will complain this is too high which they are correct in doing. Most Beatles fans already have these on CD and LP so why buy them again?

Obviously if you see the box sets for about £70 or so brand new, you can probably tell these are from China by the price, so the people order them and then read all the guides to spot fakes and then return them. So whether its an authentic item or so called copy, people are never happy. Some people obviously cannot afford the over £100 for some CD Box Sets that can be bought seperately for way less even on Amazon or Ebay. Basically what you are paying for is the presentation of the box which is very attractive I have to say.

I borrowed out of work an authentic beatles box set a stereo one and a mono before it was sent out to one of our customers and then played my so called copied sets together on the same PC comparing the sound quality and I could not tell which one was which by sound alone. People forget to check the quality of the merchandise first before pointing the finger too quick saying its fake itx crap, you have been ripped off by some scammer. I believe its the record company that rips the person off in the end when you really think about it. People should be able to make their own choices if they want to buy a Chinese version or not, as they can tell simply by the price alone, you don't need to be a rocket scientist to work it out.

In the case of authentic Beatles box sets, EMI Records is the only winner here.

Thanks for reading my ramble :D

Henry

DVD's from China - Copies or simply region 1 versions?

DVD's from Chinese Suppliers - Copies or simply region 1 versions?

I have ordered a few titles from China over the years, some more well known as others, and a lot of them are of such high quality, I cannot tell from the packaging or the actual image on the TV screen, whether or not they are fakes or illegal copies.

Most DVD's or when VHS was about, you could tell it was a copy because the picture was either crap or the sound was like the whole film was made underwater and you couldn't make out what people were saying. I done some research with legitimate manufacturers in the UK by sending them a DVD ordered from China, along with the packaging etc, and they told me its simply a Region 1 NTSC version of the product.

This got me thinking that if a manufacturer of DVD's or CD's in the UK couldn't tell the difference, then I think the terms "Its a fake DVD", "Its not a real copy at that price" "Chinese Rip Off" etc shouldn't really be used. It should be more like "Its an illegal unauthorised copy" as I think DVD's that are made in factories in China have been authorised and paid by large movie companies to make so many copies of a DVD, and then cease production. What the Chinese do I believe is continue running the presses of whatever movie or programme they have been asked to create, however when the deadline comes, they just ignore it and continue making them.

Most of them are either Region 0 (FREE) or are Region 1. The thing about Region protection on DVD's nowadays is that it doesn't really mean anything anymore, as most peoples DVD players are multi-region DVD players, which means they can read any DVD from any country. When the multi region DVD player came out, it pretty much made obsolete all the region encoding for different countries all over the world to help stamp out piracy.

Fair enough some shoddy Chinese copies of DVD's you can spot easily especially if you read the descriptions on the back. Some have some very bad spelling mistakes which a company would never put into print production until it was fixed, as quality control would definitely pickup on it. I bought a box set of True Blood Season 1, brilliant price, amazing picture and sound, great detail on packaging along with all insert art etc...but on the back soon as took it out of box noticed a review snippet on the back says it was "Terrfig.....sexy....witty.....wildly imaginative". Of course it means to say its "Terrific" but they may have been eating a fig roll biscuit at the time and got distracted when typing it in for printing the covers.

Also a lot of the "Unauthrosied Copies" copy the region 1 packaging or NTSC versions because there is usually no classfication of an age range you need to be i norder to watch the DVD. Compare each of the DVD cases with one in the UK and you will see the BBFC rating on them as well as (with newer printed DVD's and reissues) the Irish Classification which is a blue hexagon symbol beside the BBFC ones.

Just thought I would give it a mention incase you thought all the pictures of Chinese DVD's were crap. The ones to watch out for a which are a con when buying online is the Blu-ray DVD's from China. They are not truely blu-ray discs, but are just very high quality DVD discs and so is the file that has been burned onto them containign the film. No reduction in quality will be done for these discs. Not all display so well however on HDTV's as one my freind bought had lots of pixelated black blocks appear now and again at certain points which no one could explain.

Thanks for reading.

Henry

Chinese Iphone 4 Covers - Very well made and amazing designs

Chinese Iphone 4 Covers - Cheap to buy, but can make a killing selling on!

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/150788856040?var=&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649 for mesh gel style ones with see through holes look awesome. Multiple colours.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/150788866934?var=&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649 for the crystal clear different coloured covers

About 9 or 10 months ago I ordered A load of Chinese Iphone 4 covers, many different designs like the Coca Cola Iphone cover, Hell Kitty, Gameboy Colour cases, Crystal clear ones, Multi coloured ones you name it. I remember I hadn't sold all of them and so went on a hunt around the garage to see where they went. Of course a pile of junk over the past year has built up and on top of them and I forgot about them.

I must say the Iphone covers the Chinese produce are really quite amazing. They are bought for such a low price and the more unique the design or fancy it is, the more people will pay for it. Its like people are making a fashion statement nowadays with their phones. Its not good enough for the person just to look good, but also the tech they are carrying around seems to be getting a facelift at the same time.

I took some a mixture of covers into work consisting of 16 people and I bought them for instance for one style about 83 pence and was able to sell it at £3.50. I always ask people if you think the price is okay and for the quality and design everyone thought I was selling them too low. This was because when I asked how much they are in the shop they bought their mobile phone, the cheapest ones where like £6.99 and £7.99 from various well known mobile phone retailers. When I checked some online on Amazon.co.uk, some people were charging £8.99 and to my disbelief, in a shopping centre where I live, a guy selling from a cart at the front door Iphone 4 covers in exactly the same packaging and same design for £10.

Now this guy I know of he does 2 shopping centres I have seen him in in Northern Ireland and he's been there for about 3 years from what I can remember. He is definitely making money selling Iphone covers and other phones, because if he wasn't making money, he wouldn't be there.

The Chinese Iphone covers can be sold for half the price or less and you will probably still be making the same profit margin, if not even more, than the ones are selling them for in the retail stores or carboots.

I have included some pics of the ones I bought, and links to some of my Ebay specials are at the top as I am selling the crystal clear coloured Iphone 4 cases for £1 and that includes delivery to your house. If there is a mobile phone retailer out there right now can offer that kind of service, please let me know :).

These covers fit perfectly to the Iphone and most are clip on clip off very easily, or are a full housing to go around the phone and require two pieces to be joined together. The hard plastic full housing covers I sold in work 3 to one girl with crazy patterned designs for £4 each and she thought she was getting a bargain with all the screaming and shouting. Most covers leave room for the buttons on the side as well. Not all leave room for the data or recharge connection at the bottom and some you may have to pop out of the case to recharge, but this isn't a big deal, as its the buttons you will be accessing more than the recharge cable slot. Then again some do leave a space for the lead to go in.

The ones that sell the best seem to be quirky ones or with famous brans as the design. I bought 10 Coca Cola covers and 10 Gameboy Silicone ones and both of these styles was the first to go. I got the Coca Cola for about £1.12 (It was a small order with free shipping, however they have come down dramatically in price, probably cause Iphone 5 will be out very soon and new cases designed) and people in Work and online are paying £3.50 plus I added another £1.20 for delivery if bought online.

I sold the Gameboy ones in retail packaged box with free screen protector for £6.50 each and they only cost me £2.30. So there definitely is a market out there for Iphone covers and the Chinese have amazing designs I have not seen in any mobile phone shop over here, as they stock the basic bog standard ones mainly for phones which are getting kind of boring to tell you the truth. These are usually the ones you see on clearance websites or liquidation stock websites as they all look the same really, even if they are by different manufacturers.

Thanks for reading.

Henry

Tips for buying items from Chinese Suppliers - Alibaba and Aliexpress

Buying Items From Chinese Suppliers - Hazzman's Tips

Aliexpress.com and Alibaba.com

Some people I talk to are kind of dubious when ordering items from China. I was too when I first started ordering items and worrying about such things as:

Will they ever come?
Am I going to get charged a fortune by Customs and Excise for importing them?
Will customs think they are illegal, even if they are not, and destroy or sieze them?
Will the supplier send the right quantity of goods or try and rip me off?

All of these are good questions, however not everyone on the Internet is a crook and neither is everyone in China. Sure there are crooks in China who will try and exploit people buying items online, but doesn't that happen in every country? Why single China out to be the baddest place on earth for purchasing goods online and sending them to other countries?

The safest way I have found to buy online from China is by using Alibaba and Aliexpress. Alibaba is mainly for larger orders or container loads etc which offer very good discounts the more you buy. Aliexpress offers smaller quantities as well as buying single items that you can evaluate first before ordering in larger quantities.

Aliexpress also has the added benefit of escrow which comes included for free in every transaction. On Alibaba you can also do escrow which is arranged and handled by one of the Alibaba staff, whereas the Aliexpress is included automatically as part of the transaction.

On Aliexpress, you place your order with the supplier, the payment is processed, however Aliexpress hold onto the payment in escrow, until you have recieved the items. There is a time slot which you have to confirm that you have recieved the items, this can be extended by the supplier if unforeseen problems occur, however if you don't notify the supplier that you haven't recieved the goods within the alotted time or raised a query, the payment will automatically be released to the supplier.

If you ordered for instance a quantity of 20 items and the supplier only provides 18 in the delivery, you can also query this in the order by raising a dispute. You can select the reason for the dispute and if it is to do with missing items, it will ask how many are missing. A refund request for these 2 items will be sent to the supplier to be approved.

Once you have recieved an item and are happy with the purchase, you click in "My orders" the "Confirm Order Recieved" button beside the order. This will then give you the opportunity to leave feedback in various areas about the supplier and give them a rating out of 5.

On my Aliexpress profile, I have ordered over 36 different orders from different suppliers (Some re-rders) and have not had a single problem to date. I have been ordering from their suppliers since 2008 and have not looked anywhere else since. I hear about DHGate.com etc but with a lot more complaints about people not recieving the right items and sometimes not recieving any at all. Then of course the suppliers do not reply back to any customer complaints, and you have lost your money.

Aliexpress allows you to see, just like Ebay, the suppliers feedback along with an overall rating as a percentage. Some suppliers have an A+ assurance rating which means if they have had any problems or disputes, they have dealt with them or responded to them and do have customer service in place to deal with problems.

Other suppliers with lower percentages etc, just like you would do on Ebay, simply avoid as these can cause some nightmares and headaches. Also each product a person sells has its own rating and feedback from customers at the bottom fo each product page. Be sure to check these out as well as it will let you know the quality of the goods and if they are "fit for purpose" as well.

There are a variety of postage options as well for the suppliers. Lots of popular couriers such as DHL, UPS, FEDEX etc but a lot offer FREE shipping with China Mail Service of the Hong Kong Postal Service. These can take form 15-30 days to be delivered and as long as the value is under about $50-70 you usually won't be charged a customs charge. Using a courier, you are more likely to get charged a customs charge if it is over around £50 in the UK, as items slightly over this I have ordered and under, and once it goes over £50 I get charged.

You may recieve the item all good and well from the courier but a week or two later you will recieve sometimes a letter or invoice stating you need to pay the customs charge. Some like DHL won't release the goods until the bill is paid over the phone or on their website.

Any queries about ordering from China please let me know.

Henry

Chinese Rope Watches - Very Stylish Only £4.50 delivered in the UK

Chinese Rope Woven Watches

Purchase from me here for £4.50 delivered in the UK. Worldwide delivery is slightly more:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/150792694980?var=&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

My Ladies Chinese Rope Watches finally arrived! However the thick bracelet style multicoloured ones have not from the same supplier. These watches are very cheap to buy but seem to be in high demand. I got 24 of these ladies rope woven watches and before I was able to put them onto Ebay, I had sold 4 of them in the same day!

My mum bought 2 for my sister and her daughter and my mums friend who called round to nick our biscuits and cake bought 3 of them which was just out of the blue (She did buy a blue one by the way how ironic).

I got 24 and only have 19 left. They come in a variety of colours and are branded as the make IEKE which is big in Japan and China but not so well known over here. They are fantastically designed and who knows if I was a woman I would probably wear one too......that being said... I would have to be a skinny woman lol.

This is because the length of the rope looks long on these watches as well as the strap, however to wear it the wearer must wrap the rope around their arm or wrist at least once to tighten it up and then put the leather strap through  the small metal buckle. Unfortunately if you have broad arms, you will not be able to wear this item ladies. The face part is made of glass and stainless steel which the silver and whatever colour you are wearing really highlight each other.

Each watch came individually wrapped in cellophane packets and I got 12 different colours as part of the mixed batch I choose. I can definitely see these selling very well at car boot sales as everyone loves a bargain and the quality, design and price of these will certainly not last long on your tables.

The face of the watch is a bit small but I think if it was any bigger it would spoil the cuteness of the product for women and stick out like a sore thumb....a very brightly coloured sore thumb on their arm. The way it looks is just perfect and if I was the manufacturer I wouldn't change a thing about it. The supplier also gave me 5 free batteries with these watches which a lot of Chinese suppliers seem to do. Sometimes it makes me worry seeing them thinking how long have these watches been ticking away in the warehouse while no one has bought them? But for the price I ain't going to get my knickers in a twist.

Check out the photos to see how crisp and bright the colours are. Could be a summer hit, only time will tell :D I wanted to put that joke in there from the start of this post LOL sad I know :).

Later guys.

Henry

Ice watches from China - GOOD QUALITY BUT CANNOT SELL THEM EEK!

Chinese Ice Watches (Replicas I should say)

I bought about 4 months ago some Chinese "ICE" watches after stumbling across them from a Chinese supplier. I had at that time no idea what the heck an ICE watch was and thought it might melt  because of the time it would take to get here to the UK from China.

However because they looked so cool with their fancy retail packaging (which was also copied) along with a cool gift bag, guarantee card and set of instructions, all with the ICE brand logo's on them, I thought I would give them a go.

When they arrived and I took them out of the packaging, I found that 2 of them were broke, which was no biggy I thought due to the price I had paid for them. Once I got them, I started to put them onto Ebay and straight away BOOM! email coming back saying that these are counterfeits and was not allowed for sale on Ebay. 

I was like wow that was quick about 30 seconds to see they are counterfeit its a new world record. So after getting this telling off, I went in search of the real watches at my local jewellers in Belfast and low and behold, there they were! The selling price of a basic model of the one I had was from £79.99! My eyes nearly popped out of my head and could see from the price I paid for them and the price they should be, I got screwed by a bunch of fakes. BUT VERY GOOD FAKES I MUST SAY.

They were such good fakes that my sister in law had a red REAL GENUINE ICE WATCH her husband bought her for Christmas. I  took my fake RED watch around and tried to spot the differences between them. To my astonishment, I could not find a thing at all different about the two. My brother, my sister in laws husband, took it home for 2 days to find a difference between the two and he did find one very small thing which we missed time and time again.

On the metal buckle part of the watch where the strap goes through to tighten, the REAL ICE WATCH does not have the ICE logo stamped into it which the FAKE one did. That is the only difference after several days we could see from the original to the copy that made it stand out. Even the packaging was the same down to a T. It comes with a barcode which seems to relate, all the barcodes attached, to the pink ice watch, along with a small photo of the pink watch attached to it. 

There is ICE watch tags as well along with every watch which is a nice touch and is very well done. They also come in a plastic lego style box which can be used as a money box afterwards and with a black cardboard surround with a hole in the top showing you which colour is in the box.

You can now get these exact same watches with the ICE logo removed from Chinese suppliers which is a good thing. Selling counterfeits is not a good business to be in and I would not be associated with it. Overall very good watches, out of 25 I got 3 broke altogether as 2 were when it was delivered and one of them the hand fell off after about 2 weeks. The other 22? Working perfectly....the supplier also gave me some free extra batteries to go with it how sweet :D.

I have given them out to family and friends so not to rip people off but you will see people on Gumtree selling these for like £7-£35 and upwards and you can definitely tell from these prices...THEY ARE NOT REAL :).

Below is a video comparing the real watch to the fake watch. It seems the real watches have glass as the material to cover the watch, where the fake ones have a plastic covering on them over the face of the watch:

 

Looking for the genuine article? ICE Watches are sold on Amazon.co.uk by Ice themselves as no one else has permission to list them. Some models are listed below if interested in purchasing for that special someone:

              

Thanks.

Henry

GPS Logger is working Fully tested and tried, amazing gadget!

Hi guys,

As promised, here are the results of the GPS tracker device, mentioned in the previous post, and how well it performed when I took it for a spin in the car around Northern Ireland.

I got into the car last night, drove to a random starting location (Which was a local garage) and then turned the GPS logger on. I went on a random route and course for about 10 minutes and then stopped in another random place and then drove home to check the results.

Well I must say, this device impressed me a lot! I turned on the device again when I got home and connected via bluetooth to my laptop which has the Blue Soliel software installed on it to pair it with my computer. I then opened up the GPS Tagger program to download the route tracks onto my laptop and activate a route pattern on Google Maps.

As soon as I plugged it in I chose the, "Read Track Data" option, from the software menu and when my laptop connected to the device the single track I had created was sitting there. I double clicked on it and automatically and instantly, Google Maps had way points placed on top of it of where I had been. (A track is created when you turn the device on and then off is a single track).

You can set how often or the frequency you want reading to be taken and mines was set at every 2 seconds, so as you can see the lines shown are very smooth and accurate. I can confirm this was EXACTLY the same route I had taken...no I am not senile yet :), and it was spot on no accuracy problems at all along the way.

I would definitely recommend this device if you own a leaflet distribution company or a parcel delivery company to check where employees had been during the day and if they did indeed try that house they said no one was in.

Definitely a fab piece of software and a great gadget comes highly recommended from myself. The results of the route are below. I could also get the speed at difference points I was going at on a  graph and if you hover over the coloured route line, it will tell you how fast you were going at that time, the time, latitude and longitude.

Its a great device to use for leaflet delivery operations or to keep an eye on someone as to where they have went the day. It could easily be installed or placed inside a car, a motorbike even on a bicycle or just in your pocket, and it will keep a trace of your entire route.

I would definitely recommend this device for sure.

Henry