Yep. These have gone down the pan too

Is the rest of GE's fluorescent range crap now, or just these crappy starters?

At least it doesnt say 'with built in condenser' ....... yet

Most of its crap. 8 watts are probably the best. The usa t8 are absolute dog shit.

there was some right crap in the late 80's too, who remembers efa and zak, cheap crap starters

I know loads of efa and zak still going lol. The thorn ones with the cylindrical glow bottles with the crossed contacts were rubbish too. You can guarantee 9/10 of those test dead weather they have had use or not

Most of GE's fluorescents are now crap, which is a shame. As Danny points out above, the US produced lamps are especially poor quality. Their Chinese starters have such weak boards where the 2 pins are mounted, I've known then to either break off, or the pins bend at odd angles when you try and insert them into the holders. I won't buy them any more. It's like everything fluorescent sadly - production is winding down as fluorescent reaches the end of it's life (all be it cos the manufacturers want it gone like yesterday so they can peddle their LED crap) As production comes to a close, quality drops and as the manufacturers want fluorescent gone ASAP, they don't give a shit. I remember ZAK starters, usually found in RSF sign lights and bollards. I always binned those. The EFA ones however seem reasonable quality.

Only good ge tubes i can think of nowadays are the GE specfill verions. As ive pointed out loads ive had a pair of them on 24/7 use for over 4 years now and they still look like they may manage another! The ge hungary SON lamps used to be decent too last a good 6-10 years... but theyre rubbish now

mad how all these years later and several brand changes later the 5 foot starter from GE still says 155/500 on it lol