Wildpilot II – Samsung, CEX, Rivar Sand & Gravel Ltd and more

To reiterate from Wildpilot I:

I am not in general a leaver of bad reviews, only positive ones, unless a company has been truly shocking and has done nothing to redress problems. Bad reviews can do a lot of damage, they are sometimes just malicious and as someone who runs small businesses myself I am all too aware of their importance in these days of social media. I would certainly not ever want to inflict harm on, for example, a struggling local pub just because of one disappointing meal. Nor do I intend, with one or two exceptions, to take a swipe at employees, the ones on the ground or at the coalface, the ones who actually do the work, it’s the corporate jargon spouting middle and senior management to which I apportion blame. 

I love Samsung products. Our children long since went down the Apple road to my annoyance. Friends with Apple devices seem never to stop singing their praises, especially in terms of their surface looks, but there is so often a caveat: it was great until it went wrong and the repair was exorbitantly expensive. I have stuck loyally with Samsung phones, laptops and even a fridge and a washing machine. I wish they made desktops.

Of course Samsung is not utterly perfect. When I bought my first phone the software was a mess. My S20 FE phone recently died, that is the battery was slow to charge and quick to run out. Since the screen was cracked anyway and the phone was around two and a half years old (the usual expected lifespan of such things), it was time for a replacement. I cannot run my business without a phone or, it seems these days, do very much else. I could have gone for a cheaper option, but I am generally an early adopter and could not resist the tech provided by the S24 range. It comes with AI and what it can do in terms of its camera, photo editing, voice commands via Hey Google, translation and voice-to-text transcription are nothing short of incredible. I have used AI on just one photo in this entire blog. I prefer to edit my photos as little as possible. This was the one of the muntjac in my summerhouse window, which unfortunately, having been taken through glass, had a streak of reflection. The only way I had been able to achieve an acceptable image was to lose most of the reflection by making it black-and-white. Samsung’s photo gallery however removed the reflection in an instant (unlike InPixio (with its extremely pushy and repetitive marketing) or Photoshop, both of which seem very overrated) and I was able to update the image and publish it in colour. I have trialled Photoshop 2024 but will not be paying for the full version – I experimented with removing elements from certain images and the results were appalling. Likewise Corel’s Paintshop Pro, my former photo editor of choice, which has also fallen badly behind with its latest iteration. But Microsoft Photos which comes free with Windows 11 did the job, with the same images, perfectly.

Samsung gets five stars.

I have always been please with this tech buy/sell/exchange company. They are completely transparent and honest about what they will buy and resell for, the website is terrific, and in store the staff are friendly, highly knowledgeable and willing to go the extra mile.

I have only dealt with this local company, based in Thatcham, Berkshire, a couple of times, once to buy gravel and once a few paving slabs. Every interaction was great. On the telephone they are very helpful and concerned to make sure you get what you need, delivery was on time and executed in the most friendly way. Rivar is another company which is prepared to go the extra mile for its customers.

Since I seem to be in ‘companies which get their names in green’ mode, here are a few others I very happily recommend.

Trespass, the outdoor clothing retailers make clothes I like at manageable prices and I really like the name.

Shark. Superb vacuum cleaners at a a fraction of Dyson’s ridiculous prices.

Wickes, the home improvement retailer. Fair prices, good products and again, friendly, happy and knowledgeable staff. It really isn’t a complicated formula for success. How do outfits like Currys (see Wildpilot I) get it so horribly wrong? And not care that they get it so horribly wrong?

Powersheds. They do what it sounds like and were the suppliers of my fairly new summerhouse. The quality of materials and helpfulness of the instruction manuals are superb. It took me several days to build it with some help from my son but it was more than worth the effort. Not so the first summerhouse which arrived and had to be quickly returned. I am not going to name the supplier, I am not sure how big a firm they are (I am not into attacking small businesses doing their best) and when I complained about the dreadful quality of the component parts (not square, not the right size or just plain broken) they were extremely apologetic and collected it all a few days later without a quibble. It did make me think that this was likely far from the first time this had happened and wonder why they spend all that time and money delivering and collecting what is manifestly a totally shoddy product. They offer a long guarantee but that doesn’t help if the product is not fit for purpose in the first instance. I have written abut this already in Garden Birds II, April 2024 – Animal Wild but thought that Powersheds deserved a second mention.

Cult Pens is another firm I like to deal with. Their e-mails and website are witty and fun and although I did return a pen which I was simply disappointed with in terms of look, weight and feel on arrival, it wasn’t their fault at all. The return was dealt just with as it should have been.

Halfords. Now that the children have grown up I miss my regular visits in pursuit of bicycles and camping accessories. They are a classic example of my Wildpilot theme. At one point retail outlet staff seemed miserable, uninterested and unhelpful, then it all suddenly changed, presumably either because of better management, better training or both. Going there became a pleasure.

Tile. I have three of these now attached to my keys, wallet and sunglasses. I can now find any of these from my phone and my phone from any of them. It just works. They are very well designed too.

So this post has all been pretty much positive. Next up will be some of the big villains, the banks (not quite all of them), utility companies, a phone company, a city council and a county council, and a compare and contrast of two courier companies.