I notice Choice never tests Aldi products, which in my personal experience is a mistake. I read with interest your recent tests of battery powered mowers. Some were horrendously expensive, including the recommended products. Recently the Aldi battery electric mower came on sale again, as they do regularly. I have one of the same model I purchased 4 years ago for $184 and is still going fine. It’s a much better product than the Ozito at a similar price. So I bought a new one for $224 with charger and batteries, and passed my old one on to my son. He had a Ryobi that died after 1 year. I have a number of battery powered tools purchased from Aldi and have always found them to be good products. I believe Choice is failing it’s members by taking the easy path of not testing Aldi, I assume because they are only on sale occasionally. They are repeated. Usually twice a year.
Why do you think that? A search on the Choice site returns (first page)
and many product tests include Aldi, especially grocery types like detergents and so on.
Edit: From the TV reviews, manufacturer list
For some products the Aldi brand is used, for others Medion, similarly to their Bauhn brand, etc.
Why then was the Aldi mower not even mentioned in the mower tests. In my experience it is a superior model to other models listed for a lot more money.
Hi @bcgraham, welcome to the community.
One of the challenges with Aldi special buys is that one special buy product may not be the same as that used in the next special buy. Aldi uses a range of sourcing methods which are different to other store branded products. They have products made for them to fulfil their special buy offering, with the same or different supplier providing a product with the same, similar to very different specifications. Alternatively, they buy factory runouts or products which would otherwise would not have a market to be sold - which are rebranded to an Aldi store brand.
This means Choice can’t guarantee a review will be accurate over time as often a review is only current for the time that the special buy is available, which in the case for Aldi could be hours to a week. It makes it very challenging for Choice to have reviews for special buys. Choice does however provide a limited review on some special buys from time to time, as indicated in the listing above.
In relation to regularly available store shelved consumer products, Choice includes these in their tests as their reformulation occurs similar to other supermarket branded products (after year(s)).
Nor can the customer guarantee to buy the damn thing. Special Buys pop up randomly for a very short amount of time. This is not conducive to considered reviewing or to considered buying.
There is no guarantee that a Special Buy for a given product will ever be offered again.
It is hard to think that Aldi as a company is invested in these products, much less that they have any expertise to sell in those products.
So I would say set a cap of $X for what you will ever spend on an individual Aldi Special Buy product. That most likely rules out a lawn mower (even if it’s the best damn lawn mower in the whole wide world).
Have to ask, how many of those models have you owned or used on your (or any) lawn for comparison and what is your criteria for your conclusion?
I own the current Aldi model and the previous model about 4 years old. I have also used the Ryobi 18V model and the 36V model. My neighbour has the Ozito cheapy. As a qualified electronics technician who has serviced battery driven motor products for many years I feel experienced enough to comment.
Yes I agree the sporadic offerings from Aldi and the unpredictability is an issue. There again in my experience suppliers such as Bunnings and Ryobi overhual their product range around every 12 months. So a product review and recommendation is only of relevence to the model tested. Such is the nature of all reviews and should be highlighted in the preamble.
If you are not familiar with the entire Choice web site this page is often overlooked.
and here, that also states how products are selected for the mower test.
