Acme. 
Polaroid has no choice, basically – all they have left is a name. As mentioned above, the new company is completely different from the old one.
What gets me is that it doesn’t have to be on cheap stuff, but their policy of making poor decisions seems to have continued on into its new incsarnation. I know that it has tried some new innovations, and has tried putting its name onto good items (designed and built elsewhere, of course, since the manufacturing company is gone), but for some reason those didn’t pan out, and the stuff they’re pushing now is what it is. They’ve even left their last Route 128 factory, and are now off in the hinterlands of Lexington.
Actually, some of the stuff does look interesting. But it hasn’t made a big splash in the business as far as I can tell.
BSA - cheap Far Eastern telescopic sights and air guns
Winchester - Japanese shotguns (not strictly junk, but not what they at first seem)
Hayes modems were the “standard” in modems for a long while. Undercut by clones, bankrupt, name bought up by Zoom which for some reasons still sells cheapo “Hayes” modems at a markup.
Zenith used to differentiate itself by its hand-wired TVs (which was good thing in the tube era). But they cost more. Now the brand is owned by LG, which had a terrible reputation as Goldstar but has gotten better.
These are very common tales in electronics.
IMHO, Emerson hasn’t made anything but crap (at least in consumer electronics) since the 1950’s.
Word of warning re: Thomson’s warranty service–don’t count on seeing your phone again if you send it in for repair or replacement. Their customer service is so maddening that I gave up trying to get my $120 cordless phone back from them.
Like this?
Thanks for the info. So I guess, brand names mean nothing…excpt for high nd firms (like Sony), who make sure that anything sold under their ame is of good quality. Westinghouse is the big shocker-they were once as big as GE-they seem t o have dropped right into the toilet.
I remember that Magnavox was an old-line American brand; it was bought up by Philips-who owned several other brands (Philco, Crosby, Sylvania)-these were slapped on the same products.
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA.
Sony is not a high-end firm.
I bought 2 digital cameras from them. Different models. Both had the same problem, and there was a class action lawsuit about it. Also, they had that cool feature on your laptop where the batteries would overheat and explode.
Oh my, that is beautiful.
Schwinn bicycles.
Rodgers Drums
Koss headphones used to be a high end American made headphone company.
Then they sold off their name to build incredibly cheap electronic crap made in China.
RCA: formerly a quality upper-middle end made-in-the-USA electronics brand.
Fisher: once high-end stereo equipment; the brand took a nosedive, and is now solidly associated with low-end gear.
Dutch Boy paint.
Lexmark: c’mon, they once made the IBM Model M keyboard along with some very high-end printers, and look at them now ]…
Chicago Cutlery: once very high-end knives, now made in China and on the shelves at Wal-Mart.
Crosley: an old brand resurrected for cheap reproduction vintage radios.
Alpine: once high-end star electronics; now middle-end.
Timberland shoes and boots.
Bell & Howell made the famous Filmo cameras, which are often seen (as well as the footage taken with them) in newsreels from WWII and the '50s and '60s. By the '70s they were making cheap plastic-bodied super-8 cameras that you could buy at Sears or Kmart. They got the job done, but they were pretty crappy.
Bose has been putting their name on some pretty low quality car head units.
I was going to mention Schwinn and add Mongoose. You can still get a nice Mongoose, but why get a brand associated with Walmart when you can get a Specialized, Trek, or whatever?
Craftsman tools. Used to be very well respected. Now the name is being used to prop up Kmart by slapping it on cheap tools.
Revere Ware cookware. The recent stuff is crap since the monkeys running the zoo outsourced it.
Herman Survivor boots. Seem to have become a cheap Walmart brand.