wishhomepage

Happy New Year, TeleReaders!

The prices in the headline are what I paid this week at an Amazon rival called Wish. Its parent company, ContextLogic in San Francisco, is supposedly worth more than $3 billion. Wish aims for the sons and daughters of WalMart shoppers and sells everything from underwear to electronics.

So is Wish for real and itself worth celebrating next time around in Times Square?

I’ll find out later this month. “Later” is the key, since Wish comes with trade-offs: lower prices than Amazon but also shipping times a long way from two-day Prime—typically two weeks or so, if a report in re/code is on target.

The other issue is whether I’ll enjoy the same level of quality control and customer service. We’re talking mostly about low-cost Chinese goods sold in a marketplace arrangement. I avoided a splurge.

MemoryKeySurprisingly, I found the selection of tablets and cell phones to be limited, and they were not that competitive in terms of value.

Look, I see no reason to gamble with Android tablets at Wish instead of buying the $50 Amazon Fire tablet. (Do some tweaking if need be to run e-reading apps that Amazon itself doesn’t offer Fire owners through the official store.)

And e-readers? Fergit. At the time I poked around, I saw just two Kobos, of all brands. Now why would you want to buy those from China, especially at less than impressive prices? Likewise I’m not so sure about those econo smart watches. That said, Wish might be one place to go for accessories for your gadgets such as cases screen protectors.

Bluedio H-Turbine Bluetooth stereo headphone Wireless headphones Bulit-in microphone BT4.1 headset Powerful bass Enjoy your music Over-ear headphonesOn the positive, the interfaces of Wish’s Web side and the iOS app I tried were pretty clean even if the search capabilities were far less elaborate than Amazon’s. The PayPal option I used went smoothly.

Meanwhile here are links to the $22 one-terabyte memory key, the $1 hemp rope ten-foot cell phone USB cable and the $27 Bluetooth headset (either no shipping or cheap shipping in all cases). The latter price, by the way, may not seem so spectacular until you look at the specs and the mostly favorable reviews.

Warning: I cannot guarantee that these same prices will be in effect if or when you try Wish.

(Thanks, Nate.)

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