woodworking for a dollar - FAIL!!!

i also hate phones with built in batteries, because when the battery of the phone dies, it's not as simple as the ones where you just get an new battery and it works like new. phone companies do this for an reason, and that reason is so you go and purchase a new phone, they don't want you to keep your old phone and only replace the battery every few years because you only spend around $16 bucks for it and never have to spend much else on it again.

I say ditto to pretty much all of that. The middle of the road stuff is usually the best deals all around. I started to notice name brand stuff at my local Dollar Stores but they weren't there the next time I'd go. I figured out that the Dollar Stores are pseudo surplus stores for a lot of products - name brand stuff that was "end run" surplus or something similar. That, plus stuff that was obviously coming out of the same Chinese factory, just with a generic label. My philosophy is: if you frequent Dollar Stores for any reason, keep an eye out for surplus name brand stuff or generic labels that will still work.

@KEEPER: My favorite phone was an LG flip up that looked like a miniature laptop. Fulll QWERTY keyboard, screen and tiny speakers inside, old school phone buttons on outside. I dropped it countless times. The outside got beat up but the mini laptop looking inside stayed pristine. I miss that phone....