If you're reading my blog you know that I've always pointed to Brando's as the place to go for weird hardware gadgets. Basically a source of SIN for a gadget freak like me! But now I've found another place to get weird, cheap junk gadgets. DealExtreme ! If you thought Brando's site looked like a shody place to buy stuff from, wait till you see DealExtreme's site!
You know that feeling you get when you see the same item being sold with a different brand name for different prices? Then you tell yourself, "Yup this here all made from the same Made In China factory and then they just bought it in bulk and stamped their logo on it!" There's A LOT of that shit going on in DealExtreme.
DealExtreme's inventory checking seems to be more of a lie than Brando's. They can say an item can ship in 24 hours but it might still take them a week to ship it out to you. But like Brando's they don't charge for shipping on most items. So don't use DE if you're in a hurry to get your stuff.
For the record the first things I bought from DE were these.
A macro lens for my phone, and 10 LED lights on a keychain. The LED lights were a good example of how cheap things can get at DE, first of all... It was sold in units of 10! How cheap in quality is it? Well it's basically just an LED and 2 batteries with a fancy shell. No fancy controller chip for power adjustment, no fancy switch mechanism. Just a bulb and 2 batteries.
The macro lens... works. Though on my Diamond 2's camera the new focal distance is kiss the item you're taking a picture with the lens. Can't seem to focus any further. Here's a sample shot of a processor badge.
At such a close distance, the phone almost TOTALLY obstructs the item being photographed. So I really don't know how useful this is.
But then again I mainly got this junk gear, as a test of how well DE performed. I'd have to say they were acceptable but it'll be a while before I'll buy anything more expensive than oh... USD25 from them.