Cheap VS Expensive Sunglasses

Cheap sunglasses can cost as little as $10, while premium options like Ollie’s custom Oakley’s can go for over $350. But what’s the real difference? Are expensive sunglasses actually worth the extra cost? We break down all the differences so you can decide what’s best for you!

00:00 Are expensive glasses worth it?
00:25 Our Cheap VS Expensive Glasses
01:50 Why sunglasses are important for cyclists
02:07 Unboxing
03:47 Build quality
09:27 Lens Quality
10:31 Fashion!
11:19 Polarization
13:31 UV protection
14:1 Final thoughts

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cheap sunglasses like this can be bought for around1 Eos or dollars whereas premium Shades like these custom Oakleys are 289 quid that’s over $350 but what is the actual difference are these worth the massive price increase well I’m going to explain all the differences so that you can decide for yourself what’s best for you so these are our cheap glasses I actually bought them on Amazon and they cost me 12 in Eng pounds roughly the same in euros and dollars um and they’re from a brand called Cleo Siege there you go uh but they were so cheap in fact I actually treated myself and I bought a second pair for 10 from the brand conin um but to put the price of these in perspective I I could have bought pretty much every single color option available I probably could have bought you know 15 pairs uh for the price of these and you know what First Impressions they kind of look pretty cool kind of like fake pit vipers anyway in the top in the top end Corner we have my Oakley jaw breakers regular viewers of the channel will have seen these before I’ve worn them in many epic rides I’ve had them many years and they are custom ones so I was able to choose the color opt options on them um I’ve also got an engraving on the lens that says olle gcn cuz I could and I thought that’ be quite cool um they’re very well used so there’s a bit of paint come off them and there’s a few scratches on the lens cuz um I did drop them once while riding up a mountain in Switzerland uh but they’ve served me very well so if you’re new to cycling sports sunglasses are an essential bit of Kit like they are in many other sports because they stop debris and dust and insects getting in your eyes while you’re riding fast and ideally protect your eyes from the Sun and harmful UV rays too so let’s first crack them open out out of the box and and have a look these ones I’ve already taken out of the box the Cleo um you got a little sort of case thing going on here um that was what they came in also you get a little screwdriver so you can adjust them and tighten them that’s actually quite useful it’s on a key ring and just a little uh glasses thing to like clean them um and Al this weird little test card to show that the glasses are polarized I guess which is quite interesting I want to have a look at these con quins though I’m not actually opened these yet good that you get a case for that price bargain oh these ones are actually a bit better oh they also have the little weird test card a little thing so that you can have them on a string ring a product manual in case I uh don’t know how to use my sunglasses let’s have a look at these though a come on that is quite possibly the best10 I’ve ever spent in my [Laughter] life and I’ve also got um another pair of Oakleys as well got two budget pairs got another expensive pair so these are again a pair of Oakleys that I own these ones have a cool custom pattern on them it was actually for the Tokyo Olympics and these are a radar um and they’ve got a little Mark on the lens but I haven’t used these much I tend to favor these ones I prefer my my custom ones which are much more well used uh but the first thing to talk about is build quality so what is immediately apparent when you get budget sunglasses um often is just like how flimsy they can feel these ones actually feel quite stiff they’re quite good but they have this weird we flip up lens thing I’m not sure what the purpose of that is I mean that feels like a bit of a gimmick I don’t think anyone’s using that you just look ridiculous just take them off what’s the point but it they do just feel a little bit a little bit petrol station whereas these ones are again like you hear that on the microphone they’re just a bit like creaky and a bit like tacky whereas so these Radars they’re just solid like there’s a lot more rigid substantial is the word and the hinges just feel a lot stronger and just the build quality is better it’s noticeably better but is it $340 better next thing to point out is is the case because with you know designer sunglasses not just Oakleys but like other ones you you often get like quite a fancy case which is a bit fanc ier than this I mean if that’s really important to you like there you go um the other things are like points of difference so the microfiber cloth that you get it doubles as a soft case as well and it’s a nicer quality than the sort of little spec Savers glasses cloth that you get in there but you know again it’s just a small a relatively small point of difference you’ve got like a logo on the case and stuff and the case is just stronger and more substantial it it probably would do a better job of protecting your glasses uh if they were crammed in a bag or something like that now the next thing I feel is really important is ergonomics and fit now these do just feel like comfortable and they’re on my face and they’re they’re okay and that nose piece isn’t quite as good like they are moving around a little bit which isn’t especially great whereas one of the reasons why I ride wear these all the time is because the they just they’re really good they’re they fit just really good they don’t move around when I ride and something that I always think about with any cycling equipment or any anything that I use really is something that I I call zero distraction if something’s bothering you if it’s moving if it’s uncomfortable if you notice it while you’re using it then it’s not doing its job properly whereas if something doesn’t distract you in the slightest and you almost forget that you’re wearing it whether it’s a pair of bib shorts or whether it’s a pair of sunglasses or a helmet or whatever it doesn’t matter then it’s doing its job you can try on lots of different Sunglasses if you go to a shop and you can see which Styles and which ones fit your uh face and nose and things better and to also top end sunglasses often have different nose pieces that you can uh fit on them as well uh so that you can tune the fit a little bit more but what I’m going to do to sort of highlight this is the headshake test with sunglasses so I don’t want them to move off my face and I’m I’m going to try pretty hard [Music] that’s a fail we’ll try the the the budget ones they definitely lasted a lot less time in in the highly scientifically accurate headshake [Music] test okay and finally The [Music] Radars Radars the the winner as as for durability the I mean these things are pretty flimsy I wouldn’t expect either of these budget pairs to last very long but there’s that argument of like well so what like it breaks you just get a new one didn’t cost you anything so you’re not worrying about almost damaging it it’s almost a disposable thing now there is an ethical argument against that in terms of how good is that for the planet it’s more consumerism it’s you know killing the polar bears where is one of these you know you buy some expensive sunglasses but you have them for 10 years you know in many cases there’s also they are generally pretty durable with a lot of the the good brands and they have things such as interchangeable lenses so while the lens on my uh jawbreakers is pretty scratched up and and it’s it’s had a lot of a lot of use done a lot of miles I could replace it and get a new lens and then they’d be they’d be great again but durability is also important from a safety point of view because you don’t want your sunglasses to shatter and put shards of polycarbonate through your eye that would be horrible um and top end sunglasses are held accountable by the brand that they’re from because they don’t want to you know fall victim to a class action lawsuit where loads of people have had their sunglasses shatter in their faces um so as a result the lenses on glasses like this in particular are tested to exceed the impact High Velocity impact uh strength by the amsi I’m not entirely sure what that means but I know that’s what it is and so as a result you can have a bit more faith in that in that product should you have a crash on the road which let’s be honest can happen um whereas a cheaper sunglasses I don’t I don’t know that is the answer I don’t know if they’re going to offer that same amount of protection as for the the lens quality itself well I mean it’s hard for me to we can sort of try and show this on camera but there’s a lot less in that one there’s a lot less clarity through the lens this one this is better the conquin whereas even my old Oakley like and they’re a bit dirty to be honest the the clarity through that lens is is far superior these ones which haven’t been used again yeah it’s just a slightly clearer lens it’s going to be a thing where premium Brands always Market themselves of having Superior Optics and you know Superior things but there’s to be perfectly honest and Frank with you there’s not a huge amount in it if someone said to me you’ve got to go do a bike ride with these on I wouldn’t stress about it there are bigger things to do with lens Optics that I think are more important than things that I do look for within cycling which I will talk about in a minute because first we’re going to talk about what is the most important thing with glasses that is fashion I’m talking looks Aesthetics now I actually think these look pretty cool I think they look pretty good I I’m quite happy with those and these apart from the weird like Flippy up thing I think that the they look like pit vipers but yeah they kind of look they kind of look cool as well I think the Oakleys look cool as well but there’s definitely a thing whereby people do Buy into the brand and they want the Kudos of having a particular premium brand on there and that’s something that I feel if I’m totally honest i’ probably Fallen victim to myself and that’s probably why I own uh multiple pairs of Oakley but one of the big things that cycling sunglasses uh often sold on is polarization of the lens now this is seen as a big selling point because in the case of cycling glasses it’s actually a really useful thing because when you’re riding long what it allows you to do is to better read the road surface in particular when the road is going from wet to dry and this is super important when you’re going in Corners because you need to know if the road is wet because it massively impacts your grip and how you’re going to approach a corner and having those little patchy conditions they’re the worst where there are bits of dry and bits of wet a polarized lens is really really good at helping you pick that out and it’s quite easy for me to see if these cheap ones which are actually claimed to be polarized are polarized the reason why polarized glasses are useful in these situations is because they’re able to eliminate a particular frequency of light coming from a particular angle and so they’re really good at eliminating glare on the surface of the road and it’s also something that you use with cameras so when we’re filming here at gcn uh we use these called ND filters and there’s also uh glare anti-glare filters built in often to the screen of a laptop so I can simply show you this and this is a simple test that you can do at home to see if your glasses are polarized um if you put the lens on to view the laptop screen through it and then simply twist it 90° if it goes black you can see that it is polarized and it’s polarizing the light um so our Cheapo sungl well let’s do the Oakleys first cuz they are claimed to be polarized yeah so you just turn it like that and it goes black really interesting ah so these ones these aren’t these are an Oakley prism Road lens but it’s not polarized so when I turn that 90° it doesn’t doesn’t change whereas these cheapos let’s have a look at the claimed to be polarized lenses cost 10 quid it’s polarized as for the the UV protection offered by a particular lens well again it’s it’s the thing of a topend brand is going to stake its name and reputation on offering that protection and potentially open itself up to a class action lawsuit if it’s lying about those particular aspects of its product and then people say they’ve damaged their eyes as a result whereas lesser Brands maybe less so much but there’s nothing I’ve seen to suggest that these don’t offer UV protection especially when I see that they well are polarized as claimed so overall if I had to wear one pair of sunglasses for the rest of my life I’d go with these mine what I’ve picked they are better than these without any shadow of a doubt but that doesn’t ignore the fact that these cost way way way way way more than these do to the point where these just offer very very poor value for money you could argue compared to these which are like a 30th of the price and so perhaps there’s a happy medium to be struck somewhere in the middle although one thing that I haven’t mentioned yet which is offered by uh some premium sunglasses Brands which could completely sway it for you is the option to do prescription lenses not all brands off of this I know these ones you can actually get in prescription lenses and if you are a glasses wearer then that’s something that that you’re not going to get with a budget pair and could definitely make a huge difference it’s not just a thing that’s unique to cycling and sunglasses people do routinely pay a lot of money for a brand and that’s okay people spend loads of money on handbags or people buy an Audi rather than a scoda when it’s essentially the same thing because people want to spend money on a brand and yeah that’s okay but just be aware that’s often what you’re doing and you can often get something that’s got pretty much very close to the performance like 80% of the performance but for a significantly lower cost so I hope you found this useful and it’s giving you some good information about cheap versus expensive sunglasses give it a thumbs up if you have and hopefully see you in the next one love you bye