I came across a Hinari kettle whilst clearing out the loft. Hinari… whatever happened to them?
Finding the Hinari Lifestyle kettle got me thinking about other brands that were once popular but we hardly see these days…
Remember Awia? This was a solid brand – if you had a Awia hifi system, you had a system not to be messed with.
What about Binatone? Popular for clock radios, home telephones and answering machines. Reliability without breaking the bank. You’d always find their products in the Argos catalogue.
When I think of Sanyo, I think back to my personal cassette player I bought from Argos back in 1986. I couldn’t afford a Sony Walkman so the Sanyo was my affordable choice. Connected it to tiny speakers at night and listened to Run DMC’s Raising Hell.
Even though Ferguson made TVs and radios, there’s one product that stood out: the Ferguson Videostar. We didn’t own one but the Videostar was the buzzword when it came to video recorders – if you had one, you’d shout about it.
I purchased a Matsui TV from Dixons on Wembley high street in the 90s. The price didn’t break the bank and it lasted for many years. I bought to for its Teletext function and to book Teletext holidays, but ended up using Teletext mainly for sports and never booked a Teletext holiday.
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I’m not sure if it is different in England/UK but in the US it was Aiwa stereo. I still have one and actually the cd changer still works. The trick to the changer is the lens has to align correctly to read the disk. You have to keep it dust free and clean and the disks have to be clean as well. Actually when it starts getting slower, just get it loaded with 1 or 2 disks because if the motor tries to rotate and play 5 disks it becomes bogged down. But what an amazing sound when it plays and it has an equalizer to pump the bass!