Good Chinese Manufacturers

[qqzj]

Just curious which companies are Chinese company making good quality tools or gadgets. From what I can remember there are only a few. Welcome to chime in and join the debate. Maybe I got some of them wrong.

Huawei, of course, this one is already been banned by US government.

DJI, the drone maker. It seems DJI dominates the drone market as of now.

Autel, the ODB2 scanner maker. Guess most of the guys here are already aware of it. I am not sure about others like Foxwell, Launch, etc. Is Bluedriver from China?

Anker (to a less degree Aukey) The maker of various charging cables, batter packs etc.

Are they really Chinese companies? Are there any that I am not aware of?

 

[qqzj]

Of course, Lenovo is also owned by a Chinese parent company. But it is previously IBM. So not really a 'real' Chinese company.

Tiktok does not count. It does not make physical goods.

 

[engineer2]

China is slowly learning the importance of quality, like the Japanese did in the 60's.

It's said you can get quality in China, but you have to supervise the manufacturing operations closely. That means having your people there all the time. Even at night so your products don't go out the back door.

The founder of Extech Instruments told me the same plant will build electronics one month and make gym shoes the next month. They will produce whatever makes them money.

 

[Ralf11]

China is slowly learning the importance of quality, like the Japanese did in the 60's.

It's said you can get quality in China, but you have to supervise the manufacturing operations closely. That means having your people there all the time. Even at night so your products don't go out the back door.

The founder of Extech Instruments told me the same plant will build electronics one month and make gym shoes the next month. They will produce whatever makes them money.

and just like the US did in the mid-1800s

before that, the US was where the Europeans went to import cheap, crummy furniture

but Japan setup JIS and they have a perfectionist type culture so I dunno how China will do but I wish the people of China well <bad things directed at the Chinese govt. deleted>

Topping is a Chinese co. that makes xlnt. audio electronics like DACs, amplifiers, etc.

 

[toddmorr]

the chinese will get better, or go out of business. But I don't see them ever approaching Japanese attention to detail or quality, they just don't have the culture for it. Likewise Indians. Ain't happening. Not a criticism really, just an observation.

 

[Steve_P]

I have some Strong Hand clamps, made in China. Beautiful - as good or better than USA or Germany. The Chinese can make quality products if you demand it and pay.
As far as the same factory making shoes one month and electronics the next, that's doubtful - too much specialized machinery required for each.

 

[dogdog]

I don't know what is consider good Chinese manufacturer... when it comes to profits and business deals and contracts. It doesn't matter if it is American or Chinese, they are all Shaddy... now as far as manufacture for products...

JLCPCB have been all waving good for electronic folks

There are some other brand posted by this guy/gal that "used" to do videos on Chinese Factories tours... those factories seems to make very decent products from stainless steel business cards, to UV flatbed printers ...

The two u-tube channel I follow are StrangerParts and SexyCyborg both does decent neutral reviews of products or factories.

 

[Fedwrench]

SATA, the source for most, if not all of your Apex Tool Group PRC made mechanics tools.

 

[qqzj]

SATA does not count. It is a subsidiary of Apex. American call the shots there.

 

[RoundedNut]

SATA does not count. It is a subsidiary of Apex. American call the shots there.

If thats the case, then https://www.ttigroup.com/

 

[Fedwrench]

SATA does not count. It is a subsidiary of Apex. American call the shots there.

I would disagree since SATA started out long before Apex tool Group existed and they were more like chinese MATCO using the same emblem and were the first chinese tool company to offer a warranty in china on mechanics hand tools. I'm referring more to SATA's sales and use within the PRC and exports elsewhere in the world than here but, it's your thread, you can make the rules as you go along.

 

[Rabid Badger]

Miniware's products (TS120 and TS80 soldering irons, ES121 screwdriver, etc) are innovative, well engineered and well made.

 

[BlakeTheCarGuy]

Gearwrench tools. The Chinese ones aren’t horrible but they aren’t as good as the previous Taiwan or USA ones. I think by far the worst place for tool manufacturers that I’ve had the worst luck with is India every India made tool I’ve had has bent or cracked within about 2 uses or less no matter the brand stamped on it.

 

[Packard V8]

China is slowly learning the importance of quality, like the Japanese did in the 60's.

It's said you can get quality in China, but you have to supervise the manufacturing operations closely. That means having your people there all the time. Even at night so your products don't go out the back door.

The founder of Extech Instruments told me the same plant will build electronics one month and make gym shoes the next month. They will produce whatever makes them money.

China realizes the importance of quality, but getting access to western marketing has taken time. In a former life, I visited Chinese factories. At first, when I'd see shoddy products, I asked why they didn't do better. They said, "Those are your products. When your buyers came to let contracts for production, they didn't ask, 'How good can you make it?' They only asked, 'How cheap can you make it?'"

So yes, European manufacturers who partner with the Chinese and keep their own QC on site get world-class products."

jack vines

 

[XxToolAholicxX]

It’s not the country that makes the products it’s what the customer orders and they are willing to pay for the different tiers of quality of steel and materials.. I think

 

[dogdog]

If thats the case, then https://www.ttigroup.com/

TTI is not exactly Chinese "own" but it is a Chinese registered company operate out of HK with factory in China... so...

I think that Greystar or Chervon what ever that makes kobalt / and that new Flex company is Chinese.

 

[boom10ful]

TTI is not exactly Chinese "own" but it is a Chinese registered company operate out of HK with factory in China... so...

I think that Greystar or Chervon what ever that makes kobalt / and that new Flex company is Chinese.

Chevron owns EGO, Skilsaw, Flex, and some others. Their EGO lineup has impressed me so far and the batteries seem to be well designed.

 

[Ton ton]

Performance tools has a lot of Chinese made stuff. No clue on the actual oem.

 

[qqzj]

I was not looking to debate whether China can or cannot make good tools for US companies. Just curious whether there are any good ones by themselves. To be honest, there aren't many so far. Relative to the vast amount of merchandise sold here made by China, the number of names came up so far is very few indeed.

But there is an interesting exception here. I was pretty shocked by this video.

Maybe Sata was once a Chinese company, but now it is clearly stated that it is an Apex Tool Group Company. So it is a subsidiary of a US company now. Looks like it is like Lenovo, a Chinese company, buying the PC subsidiary of IBM. So Sata is no longer a real Chinese company.

TTI is a more complex case. Seems it is a truly global conglomerate. It is owned by guys from Hong Kong, a bit different from mainland China. So I don't think they count as well. The logic is the same as not counting Taiwan companies. Taiwan, no matter it is a part of China or a country by itself, its people are from China mainland years ago.

 

[RoundedNut]

I was not looking to debate whether China can or cannot make good tools for US companies. Just curious whether there are any good ones by themselves. To be honest, there aren't many so far. Relative to the vast amount of merchandise sold here made by China, the number of names came up so far is very few indeed.

But the vast majority of Chinese made merchandise sold in America is by US companies. If the stuff is junk, then that's on the US companies. You money goes to those US companies and what they choose to do with it is on them as well.

My experience with the limited number of actual Chinese brand/companies has been relatively good.

 

[PFSard]

To be honest, there aren't many so far.

Isn't the population in China about 1.4 billion? I would bet, given the emphasis placed on exporting for the last 20-40 years, that there are more than a few companies that meet your criteria. I have no idea what would be a systematic way to find them.

 

[Ralf11]

SMSL is another xlnt co. that makes DACs and home audio equipment

 

[zendriver]

I think the Chinese are smart enough, to realize it in most cases trying to market a Chinese brand in America to compete against one of our tool “brand names” is rather pointless

even harbor freight is smart enough to give all their tools at least American sounding “brand names”

Items like non-military drones A different story as the OP stated.

I seen quite a bit and purchase some of Chinese branded fishing equipment.

The quality is phenomenal, especially for the price

purchase a couple of “fiblink” surf fishing rods and although they’re a little stiff they are built like a tank. I accidentally ran over two of them in their bags and the only damage Was to two rod guides and when I tried to cut them off with Side cut pliers I could barely get through the tough stainless steel

 

[pedrodagr8]

Yuji LED - They are a Chinese company and manufacture a wide-range of LEDs (chips, strips, modules, and lamps) with phenomenally high quality light production. They specialize in LEDs for extremely demanding niche markets like museum lighting, professional photography, etc. Based on the target markets, they are obviously far from cheap, but the performance, quality, and consistency go blow for blow with the absolute best on the market. Only recently have some of the other major companies been able to catch up with the levels they have offered for a while (e.g. Nichia Optisolis, Seoul Semi SunLike, etc.)

They also offer some very interesting niche products like this LED strip that changes its color temperature to warmer hues as it dims to emulate the effect of a dimming tungsten filament.

YUJILEDS® High CRI 95+ Dim to Warm LED Flexible Strip 1800K to 3000K - Human Centric Lighting - Pack: 5m/reel

YUJILEDS® dim-to-warm high CRI LED flexible strip is designed to reproduce the dimming curve of traditional halogen light as it dimmed. This means that by simply dimming the strip, the color temperature automatically changes from 3000K to 1800K, and it does not require any additional...

store.yujiintl.com

 

[Bubba Fett]

Of course, Lenovo is also owned by a Chinese parent company. But it is previously IBM. So not really a 'real' Chinese company.

Tiktok does not count. It does not make physical goods.

I'm not at all impressed with Lenovo products. Very high failure rates with their laptops and desktops.

 

[BlakeTheCarGuy]

I'm not at all impressed with Lenovo products. Very high failure rates with their laptops and desktops.

Really? What type of failures? I’ve had mine since 2015 with no major issues really. Plan on buying an Apple next though since they are making you pay for everything with Windows 11.

 

[Rabid Badger]

Really? What type of failures? I’ve had mine since 2015 with no major issues really. Plan on buying an Apple next though since they are making you pay for everything with Windows 11.

The company I work for used to deploy Lenovo computers exclusively.

On my last laptop the USB ports would randomly stop working.

My current machine frequently won't power on unless it is connected to a charger, regardless of battery level.

I saw a workstation that had a fan failure display a fan failure message all night, baking itself the entire time, rather than shutting down.

Lenovo *****.

 

[jonesg]

Apple is decent.

 

[Bubba Fett]

Really? What type of failures? I’ve had mine since 2015 with no major issues really. Plan on buying an Apple next though since they are making you pay for everything with Windows 11.

Laptops with screens go bad (halo effect), bad mother boards, laptop keyboard failures, digitizers that go bad, causing random cursor movements. We had one computer lab (with 30 All-in-One desktops) have monitor failures on all but two machines. I had laptops out for repair pretty much constantly. We've had at least a dozen desktop keyboards partially die (multiple keys not working). Their warranties were good, and they were good about replacing machines, but that's a lot of hassle and down time.

 

[BlakeTheCarGuy]

The company I work for used to deploy Lenovo computers exclusively.

On my last laptop the USB ports would randomly stop working.

My current machine frequently won't power on unless it is connected to a charger, regardless of battery level.

I saw a workstation that had a fan failure display a fan failure message all night, baking itself the entire time, rather than shutting down.

Lenovo *****.

That *****. I have the Lenovo G51. Really haven’t had many problems except the drivers don’t want to update so it keeps sending me the notifications to do it then when I try to it fails. Looks like that’s another to cross off my list with Dell and HP which I’ve never had any luck with. I don’t think I can update mine anymore either because it’s a 2015 so I don’t think it’s supported.

 

[BlakeTheCarGuy]

Laptops with screens go bad (halo effect), bad mother boards, laptop keyboard failures, digitizers that go bad, causing random cursor movements. We had one computer lab (with 30 All-in-One desktops) have monitor failures on all but two machines. I had laptops out for repair pretty much constantly. We've had at least a dozen desktop keyboards partially die (multiple keys not working). Their warranties were good, and they were good about replacing machines, but that's a lot of hassle and down time.

That ***** man. They sure don’t make them like they used too. I’ve never been a fan of those all in ones but anymore that’s about all you can find. Is this across all brand you are experiencing this with or just Lenovo?

 

[welder4956]

I'm not at all impressed with Lenovo products. Very high failure rates with their laptops and desktops.

Same here. I got a Lenovo laptop for Christmas and it would randomly shut off while using it. Screen would just go black and no keyboard response. No support at all from Lenovo to resolve the issue. We returned it to Best Buy and swapped for an Asus.

 

[Bubba Fett]

That ***** man. They sure don’t make them like they used too. I’ve never been a fan of those all in ones but anymore that’s about all you can find. Is this across all brand you are experiencing this with or just Lenovo?

So far, it seems to be just Lenovo. I'm guessing they are sourcing cheaper parts from China (as opposed to nicer parts from China). We switched to Dell and HP. Thus far, they appear to be pretty good, but issues don't usually show up until about 6 months or so. With laptops, a good warranty is well justified, considering they are moved around so much.

 

[BlakeTheCarGuy]

So far, it seems to be just Lenovo. I'm guessing they are sourcing cheaper parts from China (as opposed to nicer parts from China). We switched to Dell and HP. Thus far, they appear to be pretty good, but issues don't usually show up until about 6 months or so. With laptops, a good warranty is well justified, considering they are moved around so much.

Yeah cheap parts are in every industry these days. And $$$$ is all it’s about anymore. We used Dell in school and they felt really cheap and at home we haven’t had any luck with HP either the screen cracked on my dads laptop after he closed it with a tooth pick sitting there. I’m saving up to buy a MacBook Pro or MacBook Air we are moving away from Windows since they want to charge you for every update with Windows 11 and we prefer Apple for the quality.

 

[Iron Beaver]

Apple's new M1 architecture is the best thing since sliced silicon in my opinion. This from somebody with only a rudimentary knowledge of the very basics of computer processor architecture

 

[qqzj]

Windows since they want to charge you for every update with Windows 11 and we prefer Apple for the quality.

Really? I really like Windows and I made it a point that I do not buy laptops for my kids. We always buy excellent parts to build Windows PC ourselves and it has been great. Never had any issue. If Windows 11 comes like you said, I guess I have to pay. Apple is just going to be more expensive and Google's chrome is not there yet.

But wait, maybe I shall start using Linux at home. My previous job used Linux a lot.

 

[BlakeTheCarGuy]

Really? I really like Windows and I made it a point that I do not buy laptops for my kids. We always buy excellent parts to build Windows PC ourselves and it has been great. Never had any issue. If Windows 11 comes like you said, I guess I have to pay. Apple is just going to be more expensive and Google's chrome is not there yet.

But wait, maybe I shall start using Linux at home. My previous job used Linux a lot.

Never heard of Linux. Yes everything I’ve read is saying you will have to pay for each update now. And they promised that Windows 10 would be the last version and they would update it for free forever as you can see they didn’t keep that promise.

 

[mcj115]

Which Chinese companies make good products....likely none that we know. I don't say that looking down on product made in China. Most of the companies/brands that we know and recognize, even as Chinese, are likely just "Marketing" companies and don't make anything at all. The companies that "manufacture" items probably we would not recognize the names of or even be be able to find.
All the marketing companies do it source/contract items to sell from existing factories. Better marketing companies will provide their specs to the manufacturer along with putting the right quality systems and oversight in place. The lower tier brands will just source/contact items from the manufacturer based on the manufacturers specs/design, maybe with a custom color labeling or easy option to customize.
Companies like Lenovo likely don't even make products but they just other vendors such as Foxconn to manufacturer/assemble the computers. Sure Lenovo probably designs the laptop case, keyboard, and screen and passes to Foxconn. Then likely spec components such as hard drives, power supplies, motherboards and such.

Heck I bet Lenovo doesn't make their equipment; the likelihood is that they just use a company like Foxconn for manufacturing. In this case it is likely that Lenovo designs the laptop case screen and then just plugs in standard soruces hard drives and

 

[Zewnten]

Mcjj15, I've been thinking this for a long time. Get on ebay and look at tool kits, especially socket sets, and you'll see the same set over and over even the same color case and design under 20 different names.

 

[andyvh1959]

Taking a chance here on personal bias, but I don't care if they do get to producing quality products. If I can I will no longer buy a Chinese product for a number of reasons, one being the years past world crisis. Aside from that:
1, Intellectual property means nothing over there, they can and will copy and steal ANYTHING they want
2. They take the best ideas from anyone else and blatantly copy them with regard or respect
3. Businesses over there are not safe from government capture, for no reason
4. Business property is owned by the government over there.

The company I work for is a very large international company with facilities all over the world, including China. But the company did not own the building or property for that Chinese factory location. Machinists, can, and did leave our factory go to another business and build our products, our designs, with no concern.

Before I'd buy something new, tools wise, from China, I'm more inclined to buy used American made products.