Clive George wrote:
"Doki" wrote in message
...

Do **** off. Granted you can buy glasses far more cheaply mail
order, but that's because nobody checks that they fit you or fits
them to you. You need to get the correct bridge width and arm length
to have glasses that fit you properly and work right.

My current pair was bought from a proper opti-whatsits. Eye test -
fine. Fitting of frame? None of that - the frame is one size only, so
you've got to choose whichever random frame happens to fit your head,
and woe betide you if you want something unfashionable (I like large
lenses) - there's bugger all choice. And the quality of the glasses
was cack too - the first set of posh lenses lost their scratch-resist
coating in little over a year, and the frame itself is not robust at
all, despite being one of those bendy ones - I thought they'd be
better at handling knocks etc, not worse.
Grrr.

So given the staggering cost difference, I'm looking at these mail
order ones - worst case I lose a little bit of money for a spare set,
and I could come out quite a lot better.

Or can you persuade me otherwise? Eg recommend what I should be
looking for in a shop?

The memory metal type of glasses are a pain in the arse to fit (or repair if
you do manage to bend them), because they're made of memory metal, which
obviously has a very high elastic limit. IMO ordinary plastic or metal
frames are your best bet - all will eventually fail, usually the hinge that
holds the arms on will develop a lot of play, so you may as well buy them
relatively cheaply. There are some very long lasting titantium frames around
(Lindbergs) but reglazing these is almost as expensive as buying a set of
new cheap frames every time.

Glasses should fit your nose (bridge width) and arm length should be bent so
they hang onto your ears without pulling at them. Nose pads may also be
adjusted.

As for coatings, quality definately varies. My girlfriend used to work in a
national chain, and they had a lot of returns for failed coating. She now
works in a posh opticians, and they very rarely have a coating fail.

I can't really give you hard and fast rules about what to look out for in a
shop. Most of the variation in quality is in the actual prescription - some
chains use a lot of locums and have more glasses come back with the wrong
prescriptions. Otherwise, the construction of frames is much of a muchness
until you get to the very high end, and there's no real chance of finding
out the relative quality of the coatings applied to the lenses either.