Chinese Tools vs iFixit Kit!
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2019-05-06
·
2,445 words · ~12 min read
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now it's no secret that ifixit has been a long time sponsor of our channel and
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we use their kits for all kinds of things from repairing phones to building
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computers to i mean i'm sure someone in this building has picked their nose with
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an ifixit kit that doesn't necessarily mean that an
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ifixit kit is the be-all and end-all of
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tool kits in fact some of you have suggested to us
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that you can actually build your own ifixit kit for much cheaper on
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aliexpress so that is exactly what i tasked Anthony with
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this is what we're calling
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the ifuxit kit we changed one vowel and
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we're gonna walk you guys through how it compares to the brand name ifixit kit
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for half the price mac weldon's silver
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line of underwear shirts and socks are naturally antimicrobial which means they
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keep you from smelling so bad use offer code tech tips 20 to get 20 off at the
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link below
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okay so let's start with what's in a typical ifixit protect tool
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kit you got a few of their astonishingly bendy like pride tools
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you've got one of their suction cups you've got an esd
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wrist strap
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you've got some esd safe tweezer like reverse tweezers you've got a couple of
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little grabber tweezer doodads you've got
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ah these are great so these are their spudgers so these are pry slash poking
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tools you can use these to like pop off a wi-fi antenna or whatever else you've
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got this metal pry tool you've got there uh i forgot they call
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this something knife jimmy jimmy yep jimmy tool
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and then you get their 64-bit driver kit which has the extension
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the driver handle and then a whole bunch
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of different bits that we've used to take apart everything from a nintendo ds
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to a computer monitor pretty much you name it you can take it apart with one
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of these and a guide on ifixit.com but the thing is that none of this stuff is
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really that unique oh i missed the guitar picks which are literally
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guitar picks except blue with an ifixit logo on them like you can get a lot of
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this functionality elsewhere so let's try to do just that Anthony
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hit me with what you found all right well the screwdriver kit is obviously
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the most important part for what most
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people call the most important part and this here is the uh i think it's
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called alouette the alouette so you know
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what this actually reminds me a lot of the older ifixit kit so it's got these
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little rubbery bases that all of the bits go into like that
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it's got a really different looking extension and the driver itself is quite
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different from either revision of the ifixit but
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feels okay the rubberized grip is not bad
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this isn't metal this is plastic um so it does feel a little less
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you know the quality
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um but is this a ratchet i can't really tell i don't know what this is doing you
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know you want yeah oh interesting
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so there's a couple cool features of this guy then now this won't necessarily
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help you get into some of the tight spaces that i've had trouble right with
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the ifixit kit because the way to the only way to extend this one out of the
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box anyway is to take the hex driver that's just
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the same size as the uh as the bits and
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then you can get a little bit of extra length now one other thing that they
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actually removed that they used to have on the old ifixit driver
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is this hex hole through the top that you can use to jam something in it and
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then get a little bit more leverage if you if you don't have enough from the
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rubberized grip they removed that from this revision and that is something that
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i missed from the old one now the last thing that
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i'm not that pleased with is the variety of the bits here
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there's just not nearly as many bits and some of the really obscure ones like
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security torxes are simply not present
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so for those of you not familiar a security torx has a hollowed out middle
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so that you can use it to remove security torx screws all right so that's
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our screwdriver oh wait hold on i want to see if there's anything else
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interesting here three torxes up here with the two tri-wings and then
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a uh um like a phillips a female phillips
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with a hex on the end that's kind of interesting so you could use your
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screwdriver to something something i guess uh there's one pentalobe bit
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that i can see the uh the springy thing here it actually works at
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like very extreme angles so like you can actually do like 180 degrees here that
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looks like a much smoother action there much smoother action there it's
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cross-compatible these use the same diameter i believe oh handy
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so if you liked certain components of a different kit or you just needed a
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top-up of bits or whatever else yep all right so you're saying this is by far
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the most expensive part of our diy kit how much is this yeah it was about
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12 13 oh that is called the Jake me i like this
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and i actually like that it's a little bit longer and doesn't taper quite as
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much it feels a little more secure in my hand so how much does it Jake me the
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Jake me costs two dollars and 42 cents u.s great value recommended cordless
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wrist strap be a bro
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wear an anti-static strap so basically
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as we conduct to the metal screw that's in the
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top through the resistor we will
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we will dissipate some static build up
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i really wouldn't count on this though so the few things that i've seen that
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actually test these out yeah show that it is basically no different
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than if you're not wearing one got it
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so the ifixit spudger actually doesn't go quite so thin at the tip this one's a
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little worn but that's not the entire reason why it's so dull at the end so
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i'm gonna pick a spot okay got my spot
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and i'm gonna just bend it back hopefully without hurting myself so i can bend that back 90
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degrees with my hands spudger
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same spot not a freaking chance
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like this
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i don't care how much it cost i wouldn't price something with this because i'd
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probably end up hurting myself you know i'm going to give a pass to the
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screwdriver set because i think it's a great value it's not an ifix's kit but
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so this is ifixit this is the off-brand one
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and in terms of strength i'd say not quite but the blade is a
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little thinner and there are times when that might have actually been handy for
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me it's nice that i get all these other
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options now i don't typically like to use metal tools for prying because you
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tend to leave marks in the casing of whatever it is you're trying to take
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apart but this curved one here it's got quite a lot of strength to it you can
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really get some leverage on that depending how much this whole kit is
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even if i had an ifixit kit i'd probably run out and grab one of these just for
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this guy and then these other similarly bent ones you got a nice wide one here
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and then a more pointed um but wider
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like really strong tip here that you could really put some force on i really
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like uh these extra ones that come with it
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yeah so this one cost three dollars and seventy five cents u.s for those strong
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strong recommendations for these ones
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so i've got the ifixit ones in my right hand and i've got our off brand i fix it in
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my left hand here and you can see that i fix it includes this sort of broader
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tweezer that i actually find myself using an awful lot just to pick up a
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screw that i've dropped that's non-ferrous or whatever the case may be
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but really my main criticism of the ifixit angled one is that the tip if you
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try to do any real grabbing or prying anything forceful with it they do bend
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quite easily and so that's you know where these can
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really stand out to me yeah my ifixit kit at home i ended up breaking off the
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tip of the angled ones because they're a little bit
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you know less sturdy now it's not a direct replacement for a
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broader grippier like more of a grabber and i
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still want one of those in my tech tool kit but uh
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i'm liking these yeah these get a pass how much are they
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a dollar eighty-one heck yeah next round let's go for
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these your suction cups
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these are garbage
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okay i actually had an off-brand suction cup i lost my ifixit one that's from my
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kit a while back so i was using an off-brand one to try and pull the screen
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off and unless you have a really
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good suck
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uh you you can't apply enough force to
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lift up the adhesive uh just uh for your reference though those suction cups were
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1.55 for 50. cool not even worth it as for the rest
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of the stuff in here first we've got our off-brand pry tool now these are really
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really impressive i absolutely love these i think they're one of the highlights of ifixit's kit
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and this one is not
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now the handle itself seems fine but there is no way
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i'd be able to snap one of ifixit's pry tools
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bend yes break
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absolutely not these things are fantastic and this is no substitute
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i can't believe i forgot to talk about ifixit's lifetime warranty though so if
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your spudger from them did this then they'll send you a new one and
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that's something that you won't get if you're ordering random stuff off aliexpress so i think the conclusion
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then of this video is something i wasn't really expecting there's not a clear
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winner here what we do know is that piecing together
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your own electronics tool kit could yield actually better quality than
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what you get from ifixit at a similar or even better price
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but the other thing that we've discovered is that unless you can find
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lots or very reputable reviews
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of the things you're buying it's quite likely that even though
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you're paid half the price half of what you ordered or more
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might not actually be usable or of sufficient quality compared to what
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you're getting from the name brand toolkit yeah it's a real roll of the
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dice
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okay i was sort of expecting a more clear winner or loser
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but we don't have that so hopefully you guys enjoyed the video
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anyway you'll find links to where to buy all the stuff that we feature today in
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the video description but the only ones we're really recommending
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are the tweezers if you need that kind of tweezers the
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screwdriver kit if you don't need all the bits that are included with the
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ifixit kit these pry tools and
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the Jake me these ones i really like these are absolutely going in our
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workshop immediately today's sponsor is massdrop featuring the nuforce adc3
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in-ear monitor so these are the big brother of absolute sounds 2017 earphone
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of the year they swap out the originals single dynamic driver for three balanced
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shows off all the sexy internals the new tuning is a little more neutral but
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still retains a rich sound and you can wear them at home in the office at the
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gym anywhere that's kind of the idea with in-ear monitors
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they come with two removable braided cables and you can join the drop at the
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link in the video description so thanks for watching guys if you
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disliked this video you can hit that button but if you liked it hit like get subscribed or maybe consider checking
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out where to buy the stuff we featured at the links in the video description also down there is our merch store which
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has cool shirts like this one lttstore.com and our community forum which you should
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totally join we don't have shirts like that one anymore unfortunately
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unfortunately this one's pretty it's old school yeah did you just pick that up
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out of like the the swag pile or just i haven't found it in like the walk the
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the warehouse or something i thought you're gonna say in the washrooms i
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originally was going to say the washroom i don't know why um quick question
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though yes if you could tell ifixit to copy any of this
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what would you say to copy
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this guy for sure a greater variety of prying tools in
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general is something i think they could improve on and it's not really any
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better here but a better suction cup is another thing that i'd really like to
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see them improve overall though i mean we've worked with them for a long time
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that's not an accident i've been using ifixit tools since before they were even
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a sponsor and i really i like their stuff because there's that consistency
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yeah whatever it is that i need to do i know that the tool they've included is
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good enough maybe it's not the best
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but it's definitely not just complete garbage
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exposures aren't supposed to do that