This year comes to an end, time to write an overview of my most interesting purchases on AliExpress. I will start by giving some key figures. This year I made 178 purchases on AliExpress. 23 disputes were opened because parcels were not delivered within the agreed time. 20 parcels were nevertheless delivered (sometimes with a delay of more than two months) and in the end only 3 parcels were completely lost. I paid every seller for all the packages that were successfully delivered, even if the dispute was already closed. I made it a point of honour to pay everyone who acted in good faith. This was an exceptional year, so we sometimes had to deal with long delivery times. It does not take much effort to contact the seller later and pay them anyway.
So what did I buy, and was it any good?
AliExpress Review 2020
Guitar stuff for Golb Jr.
Golb Jr. started the year with an online guitar co/urse which he had received as a Christmas present. As the lessons progressed he needed some attributes: a set of guitar picks, a wall mount guitar hook to safely store his guitar, a spare set of strings, a metal guitar capo, and a stainless steel slide. The quality of all these things was more than sufficient for the purpose we had in mind.
Drone stuff for Golb Jr.
After buying his first drone, he needed some extra airtime. For this I ordered him two original batteries. Together with the battery that came with it, he now has three. This gives him half an hour flying time. These batteries must, of course, also be recharged. And that is what they have USB chargers for. An extra set of propellers, and that concludes our list of drone supplies.
All purchased items are still in excellent condition. so far no complaints.
Mobile phone accessories
I like the flip cases of the LC.IMEEKE brand. These are of very good quality and available for many different models. They lasted two years with my previous phone. So I didn’t even reconsider another brand an immediately ordered this flip case for my new phone. Jus as I did for my wife’s phone.
They however did not have one for a Samsung A5, which my son and father in law are using, so for them I orderd this one. Again, excellent quality for the price.
As the battery of my Samsung S9 was reaching the end of it’s usable life, it needed to be replaced. To seal everything up again, this adhesive back cover seal was acquired.
To connect my Bose Quiet Comfort headphone with my radio or mobile phone, I ordered this Vention Aux Cable. It’s hard to believe, but this cable is much more rigid than the original one supplied by Bose.
Home Office
I’m full time workig from home since Friday March 13th 2020. A well-equipped desk is therefore a must. In the summer months there was plenty of light, but that quickly changed in autumn. This lamp brought light into the darkness. I am still very satisfied with it, and would almost call it the AliExpress purchase of the year. It was a better solution for my desk than working with LED strips and transformer. Both are still of good quality, but are not directional or dimmable and therefore less suitable.
To connect both my PC and laptop to the same monitor, I bought this HDMI Splitter. The housing is made of aluminium and the switch feels very solid. For the laptop I bought a USBC to HDMI splitter. It allows me to connect a 2nd (or should I say 3rd) monitor to my laptop and offers 2 USB 3.0 ports on top. You can never have to many USB ports.
I also went for an extra webcam. When you are working with a second screen, your laptop is most likely placed to the side. When meeting with people in Skype, Microsoft Teams, or Zoom, it’s much nicer when you can look directly into the camera. The quality in not top, but more than reasonalbe. We must not forget (and this really suprised me) that webcam technology didn’t change that much over the last 8 years (since Logitecs last big product update).
ON5IA Projects
All other items relate to one of the ON5IA projects. I only make a short enumeration per project, more explanation of the items can be found on the project pages.
The automatic magnetic loop tuner
IC-7300 Keyboard
Just two things that I would not recommend buying:
A Class 10 Micro SD card and a crimping pliers for dupont cables. The SD card is not reliable at all. A first test was successfull, but it failed in less than 36 hours while it was sitting in my phone. And the crimping pliers are just not made with the correct precision. They still bend the dupont contact, which should not happen and are a pain in the *ss to work with.