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Recently I was looking to buy an LED TV and I strongly considered a 50" model from an off brand called Hisense. Now I know many of you here haven't heard of Hisense but they seem to be the largest supplier of LED TVs in China. After much research and thought I decided to play it safe and settled for a smaller but cheaper 42" LG model. I was supposed to give it to my in-laws so I can't take any chances with an unproven brand.

While I was in the research phase I found out that many people are very unhappy with their experience with Hisense. Things like their TVs not turning on or having image problems a few months to just over a year into ownership, to very bad customer service and some other horrible accounts seem to plague these unfortunate folks who thought they just bought the TV of their dreams at prices that were too good to be true, which DID turn out to be the case. Of course, there were also some folks who testified to being totally happy with their sets, but for how long after the review was posted, nobody knows, or perhaps these kids just didn't have high-enough standards, or whose standards were subconsciously set lower because of the incredibly low pricing. Haier TVs also seem to be crap, backed by warranty claim horror stories just like Hisense. I don't expect the other Chinese brands to be much better.

But the thing is, lots of these off brands like TCL, Hisense, Konka and Skyworth are now in the Top 10 producers of TVs, and another off brand from China called Haier is now boasting about being the world's No. 1 manufacturer of refrigerators, chillers and appliances in general. Sadly, in today's world, 'No. 1' means unit share, not product quality. These brands probably sell by the boatloads because they're cheaper, and in today's economy, cheap sells. But are they really cheaper if they don't last long? And of course, these Chinese brands are big in China, probably because they're cheap, the Chinese are inclined to buy their own brands, and they're used to owning their own crappy products.

Which brings me to the sad realization that companies like Sony and Toshiba, which have spent decades building a trusted brand by producing quality products, are being butchered by Chinese companies that sell cheap junk. Respected companies like Volvo are now owned by Geely, another Chinese company that managed to amass wealth by selling crappy little cars. Then there's Sanyo, which was acquired by Haier. Kinda sad to see the Chinese taking over the world, filling it with junk.

This TV buying experience made me realize that I'd rather stick with proven brands. They may be a bit more expensive but these companies know how to make quality stuff that they can back with respectable service. Of course they're not perfect, but they're probably nowhere near as bad as Hisense warranty service where Hisense personnel just seem to make you go around in circles until your warranty period runs out or promise to drop by on a certain day only to leave you waiting for nothing. There are some Chinese brands that put out respectable products, of course, but these brands I've mentioned are big, prominent names. Being in the limelight, they ought to be representative of Chinese products in general. I don't know about you guys, but it seems to me the Japs, Koreans, and Western countries have this certain innate characteristic which makes them meticulous and want to perfect what they do, whereas the Chinese are just concerned about making money selling crappy products and worry about customer loyalty later. No wonder Japan and Korea have risen so quickly.

Discuss.

This seems more like an R&P topic...

Well, if the Chinese brands don't produce products that last as long as expected, or if they produce problematic products backed up with awful after-sales support - then they are going to fail in the US and Europe over the long term.

People might buy one once or twice to see if the huge savings are worth it, and if many of those buyers have problems and feel like the price/quality tradeoff isn't worth it, they won't buy again and when they talk to their friends they will probably actively warn against buying one. This is not a strategy that leads to survival for a company.

Chrispy_ wrote:

Well, if the Chinese brands don't produce products that last as long as expected, or if they produce problematic products backed up with awful after-sales support - then they are going to fail in the US and Europe over the long term.

People might buy one once or twice to see if the huge savings are worth it, and if many of those buyers have problems and feel like the price/quality tradeoff isn't worth it, they won't buy again and when they talk to their friends they will probably actively warn against buying one. This is not a strategy that leads to survival for a company.

So then the company changes it's name and sells the same crap under a new name.

+1 on R&P

There is nothing wrong about the Chinese making products. If cheap sells, then cheap wins. It is what the people want. Not too long ago, Japanese products were considered trash compared to their American and European counterparts. Look what happened there.

I for one, own a Seiki 4K Tv that I purchased for $350. Still going strong. I recently bought a pair of OnePlus One phones - also very inexpensive and made in China. It is only a matter of time before China can produce quality products while still maintaining the same level of prices.

Pretty much what everyone else has said.

I'm too young to remember it, but I'm told you once wouldn't want to buy Sony. It fell in the category of "Cheap Jap Crap". Ditto many other brands that we now think of as among the best.

LG is one that few of us would have purchased for a similar reason: Korean stuff was horrible. And then, it wasn't. Buying a Kia or a Hyundai no longer brings the ridicule it once did.

So, while you may not want to be a buyer right now, I wouldn't abandon it for all time. As they get experience and their consumers start to expect more, they'll get better.

FightingScallion wrote:

I'm too young to remember it, but I'm told you once wouldn't want to buy Sony. It fell in the category of "Cheap Jap Crap". Ditto many other brands that we now think of as among the best.

It was even a line in "Back to the Future".

That said, assigning qualities of equipment solely by country of manufacture is pushing the R&P verge, so can we please all get along?

Thanks for listening.

The "race to the bottom" effect is universal, and knows no international borders. There's always someone who thinks they can do it cheaper, and sell based on price alone. China just happens to be where a lot of this activity is currently concentrated, for a variety of reasons (cheap labor combined with a maturing industrial base being two of them). A significant percentage (maybe even a majority) of our consumer electronics has been manufactured in China for many years now already; however it has only been recently that overtly Chinese brand names have started to become more visible here in the US. Can't really blame them for wanting to cut out the middleman.

I think many would be surprised to find out where most of their recent electronics were made. And even if it's a company with headquarters in some other nation, chances are many of their products (and many of the components) are made in China. Do you think Samsung doesn't use Chinese panels/parts in it's TV's? Do you think Sony/Samsung/etc, don't assemble at least some of their products (if perhaps mostly the lower-end lines) in Chinese assembly plants? The very same plants/workers that then turn around and start assembling similar products for Chinese brands? It's getting to be a lost cause to try and determine quality based on country of manufacture. China probably assembles and manufactures some of the lowest and highest quality products and everything in between, whether under national or international brands.

How well these newer Chinese brands stand the test of time in North America/Europe will hinge on things like customer service/warranty support. Vizio is a good example of at least one Chinese American company that is paying attention in this regard. I wouldn't be surprised if a good bit of the cache some of the Korean or Japanese brands currently enjoy all but fizzles. Sooner than later, I expect to see a lot more TVs from companies like Haier. Because by all indications, while many such brands may have started off making crap, they seem to be generally improving. (BTW, Haier isn't a new company - they've been making fridges and A/C units for like 40 years).

HiSense! I wish I could afford luxury known brands like that! As it is, my el-cheapo 55" LCD "Okano" I bought 5 years ago is still going strong and it has survived 5 seasons of cricket, football and thousands of hours of Xbox. And it had lots of cool features like being able to play off USB drives and quite sophisticated recording features including series recording. The user interface works well but the graphics design looks like it was brewed up by a coder with little artistic skills.

Why feel so sad you have a choice? You can rage on incoherently about the "Chinese invasion" but in reality your purchasing choices guide the quality of what's available and customer service. Obviously, if their product was that bad then they wouldn't be as successful as they are. TCL, Hisense etc haven't just popped up in the last year. They've been around closer to 10 in my recollection. Plenty of time to have built up a reputation. Obviously, they have been very successful. Capitalism be praised and appears to be operating normally.

Hisense made a Walmart-exclusive tablet based on the same hardware as the 2012 Nexus 7 but added a micro SD slot. Nice tablet based on the experince of someone I know who has one. Was like $110 or similar I think.

There will be online complaints about any brand, honestly, and cheap is what sells. Hard to argue with it.

It's just the new manufacturing hub that's maturing. Japan -> Korea -> China. LG was once Goldstar, then Lucky Goldstar, then LG. I have a microwave oven manufactured by Samsung before they were a brand name, so the their name is only on the back sticker. The front shows "Empire", whoever that may be.

just brew it! wrote:

The "race to the bottom" effect is universal, and knows no international borders. There's always someone who thinks they can do it cheaper, and sell based on price alone. China just happens to be where a lot of this activity is currently concentrated, for a variety of reasons (cheap labor combined with a maturing industrial base being two of them). A significant percentage (maybe even a majority) of our consumer electronics has been manufactured in China for many years now already; however it has only been recently that overtly Chinese brand names have started to become more visible here in the US. Can't really blame them for wanting to cut out the middleman.

This. Hyundai is big example, although their newer stuff has improved. I think they also played on American stupidity, since I've known people to confuse them with Honda. Considering how China uses sweatshops for cheap labor, I think we should bring back tariffs, otherwise manufacturing will completely leave our country, and screw people out of jobs even more than it already has.

As for cheap tvs, Vizio is probably a better brand.

A sticker or embossed lettering means nothing. One series of TV from a reputable brand could be replaced by another crap one if it that model was designed with the wrong cost cutting measures in mind, if the manufacturer was changed, if the suppliers were changed. It can even happen inside a run of a particular model. And it's nothing new. So it really doesn't matter. Name means little besides that there may be a certain ratio but it's no guarantee of anything.

I wanted to say that. That said, you do have a point. I don't worry that the Chinese don't know what they're doing, though. For all we know they could have Japanese or European guys heading up their engineering departments. It does raise the question though that if all the manufacturing shifts to China because it's cheap, and then if the resulting glut of chinese manufactured and or designed stuff ends up being a sizable portion of the market, will the overall quality of everything degrade some simply by default. That's a little different, though. It's not that the Chinese guys are going to make everything crappy because they don't know how to do anything and don't care, and it won't matter because they can push so much more stuff out than everyone else, causing everyone else to get choked away. If something like this happens it'll be with everyone knowing what's going on. What it is is that your current reputable brands will move to China(if they are not already there)/cheaper in china like everyone else, and all of a sudden may find that everything has turned crappy as a result of so much of the market being filled with lower grade chinese stuff and them having no reason to target anything higher like their brands used to put out, and oh well that's just it now. Even with all that in mind, when one company wants to make a move, it could spark a new round of competition. If the "good guys" want to curb the newer chinese companies, they may do so by putting out good stuff at cheaper prices. Which may, in turn, cause the chinese companies to up their quality.

My aunt has a HiSense TV. Other than taking a little while longer than it should to turn on and off, it's worked fine for years and runs really great.

I don't know about you guys, but it seems to me the Japs, Koreans, and Western countries have this certain innate characteristic which makes them meticulous and want to perfect what they do, whereas the Chinese are just concerned about making money selling crappy products and worry about customer loyalty later. < all of that is just total ****.

I know what you mean, guys. My point is, I'm referring to Chinese brands themselves, not Chinese-made products that foreign companies like Samsung, Toshiba, etc. are having made in China. Yeah, the same Chinese hands are making the stuff, alright, but I reckon these plants are supervised by foreign people with better attention to design and quality. Heck, most of these stuff were designed in Japan or the U.S. and it's only recently that many foreign companies are setting up design and research centers in China.

True, the Japs and the Koreans were once known to produce crappy products. Many of these companies started out in the 1940's or 50's, but so did many Chinese names. Hisense, for one, was started in 1969. That's a long time ago and by now one would think they should've made a lot of progress cleaning up their act. Then there's Haier, which, back in 1985 has had a big realizaton to make quality stuff (read about it on Wikipedia). No doubt they made a lot of progress since then, having risen to become, according to them, the world's No. 1 supplier of fridges and chillers, but as I've said earlier, rising to the top because of sheer volume isn't the same as rising to the top because you're making quality stuff. For sure they must've been doing something well enough to get this big, but also consider that they may have grown to their current size because they initially sold stuff within China, a country of a billion people where cheap sells and where the gov't has pretty much isolated its people. If you were Chinese, I reckon you had no choice but Hisense or Haier or Tsinghua Tongfang (the company that owns Seiki). Perhaps it's only now that they're opening up to the world that they're realizing the importance of making quality products to build their brands, because making crappy products sure as *ell is no way to survive in today's world. As I've said, not all Chinese products are crappy, of course, and I'm not referring to electronics exclusively, but I don't think I'd give the wife facial care products from China, at least not yet. You have to admit: China is mostly a manufacturing hub that makes stuff for foreign companies, but I'm not sure they've come to grips with making meticulously designed and manufactured products yet and backing them up. Perhaps they're getting there, but for a country that's risen to be the world's No. 2 economy, it's funny how they're still generally known for making crappy products. Not sure this was applicable to Japan as well, however.

I'm sure many of you here have owned Chinese products that have served you well, and I am in the same boat, but it's usually hit or miss. As i've mentioned earlier, the brands I've mentioned are BIG brands, and should be representative of the Chinese in general. I am aware that China wants to ditch the 'Made in China' stigma, and they probably will, eventually. But right now, they have a ways to go. And it's not just the products, it's the after-sales support as well which seems to be severely lacking. Perhaps they need to raise prices to be able to afford making higher-quality products backed by respectable service.

Philldoe wrote:

This seems more like an R&P topic...

Actually, I read the title and thought someone was asking for help on the Fallout 3 DLC.

On a more serious note --you get what you pay for. The easiest way to ensure Chinese vendors produce reliable goods is not to buy from them until they do. Maybe their goods will sell in China due to the price, but I'm not buying a Changhong TV, just because I can get a much bigger one for a bargain. Crap for a low price is still crap; in comparison, my Panasonic 42" plasma has been a brilliant unit even though it's probably 5-6 years old now, purchased back when a television that size was an investment.

There's a lot of corruption in Chinese manufacturing processes, and you're going to get mediocre customer service. Don't reward that; only buy from a company (Chinese or not) that takes the time to build a reputation. Most of the consumers I've seen buy that stuff are either buying a second unit they don't want to spend money on, or want something badly enough that they can't afford, that they're willing to make a poor choice. It makes me think of people who bought the first-gen Kia Sephia (and similar) cars because "I *really* want a *new* car, but can't afford it". I had a buddy who owned one and found out the hard way that a 4-5 year old Honda would have been an incredible buy in comparison.

Hyundai-Kia survived in the US market because they realized that the market wouldn't tolerate crap cars and corrected. If the market doesn't tolerate crappy electronics, a vendor will change, or die.

@ronch - Lenovo is a big Chinese brand, albeit one that formerly had strong ties to IBM (as their contract manufacturer when IBM was still in the desktop/laptop business). Lenovo makes quality products.

I have more to say, but the used car market still figures that Hyundai and Kia are not good cars based on resale value. Their initial quality might be much better than in the past, and I suppose for perpetual lessees they are fine, but I didn't even consider them when buying a car a few years ago.

just brew it! wrote:

@ronch - Lenovo is a big Chinese brand, albeit one that formerly had strong ties to IBM (as their contract manufacturer when IBM was still in the desktop/laptop business). Lenovo makes quality products.

Like I've said, not all of them make crap. Lenovo is pretty good, IMHO, but I suppose the IBM lineage helped in no small part.

Bottom line here, is that if you're buying appliances for a big, posh mansion at Beverly Hills, I don't think you'd get a Changhong TV for the living room, Haier air conditioners throughout the manse, or a Dong Feng Fengshen S30 (I had to check Wikipedia for that). Don't matter if these names are big in China or they're the top producer of fridges or if that S30 is propelled by a motor from Ford or Cummins. You just don't. Cheap sells, yes, but if everyone had money to burn, (most of) these Chinese names wouldn't stand a chance. Harsh, and merely a theoretical scenario, but it's true, isn't it?

What irks me more is how many Chinese brands blatantly copy those made by foreign companies. Ever seen a Lifan 320? Utterly shameless.

ronch wrote:

Bottom line here, is that if you're buying appliances for a big, posh mansion at Beverly Hills, I don't think you'd get a Changhong TV for the living room, Haier air conditioners throughout the manse, or a Dong Feng Fengshen S30 (I had to check Wikipedia for that).

Nope. What you'll get is something with a different nameplate on it, but manufactured in the exact same factory, to higher quality standards (if you're lucky)!

just brew it! wrote:

ronch wrote:

Bottom line here, is that if you're buying appliances for a big, posh mansion at Beverly Hills, I don't think you'd get a Changhong TV for the living room, Haier air conditioners throughout the manse, or a Dong Feng Fengshen S30 (I had to check Wikipedia for that).

Nope. What you'll get is something with a different nameplate on it, but manufactured in the exact same factory, to higher quality standards (if you're lucky)!

You just supported my point using different words, except they likely wouldn't be made in the same factory.

"Today's street price in China's cities is tomorrow's global market price." This has been the dynamic for the past decade and if anything is accelerating in most areas.

Domestic Chinese advances in manufacturing capacity and technology builds on the state-sponsored capture of continental markets emerging at a historically unprecedented scale. As Xiaomi VP and former Google exec Barra reveals: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mZsvJUa9FpI

There's a specific mentality in China (similar to US businesses 50-100 years ago) where saving pennies at any expense is paramount for the business. Sure there are many exceptions, but it doesn't change that it is the most common practice there.

The 2008 melamine issue with milk was a symptom of this, and it was not a one-off event as it has been a widespread issue for a large number of years prior to its fame in 2008. The market leader in low-cost milk products was simply the main company fingered behind the 2008 melamine scandal. Then it came to light others were adding melamine to powdered eggs, and still others were adding it to the feed that was given to chickens and other livestock. Don't forget the year prior in 2007 pets in the US began to die due to renal failure, again due to melamine being added to the wheat gluten used in petfood. Then there was the common practice of several bread companies going around and cutting deals or paying people to buy up the moldy bread and bread past its' sale date. They would return it to be ground up and re-used as filler in new biscuits and bread. Literally the food issues are endless Lead and heavy metals such as cadmium found in Chinese paint has been and continues to be a major problem for the past several decade. (The US is by far not immune either, a la http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/25/busin ... d=all&_r=0 or the widespread use of moldy/overripe tomatoes used to make ketchup circa 1900 that led to the Pure Foods Act)

I remember stumbling across the Pitchmen show with Billy Mays, some guy was going to get him to sell his new and improved windshield wiper design. During the set up for the take he couldn't get the product to actually work, nor the backups he'd brought with him. Only later it comes to light that the manufacturer in China cheaped out on the formula he specified for in the rubber mixture, so the entire batch of prototypes (and the shoot) had to be scrapped. As a business major I'd read many more case studies with similar problems with Chinese manufacturing's quality control. I've read about still more startups and kickstarters where prototypes sourced from China didn't meet any of the original quality guidelines or made to specs, and a few even took the money and just sat on it.

There's no legal recourse or methods to recoup the money those people accept to make a product because hey, it's China. The government is more concerned about and expends more resources covering up the extent of such issues (which has been documented) than it is actually does for stamping out such practices. The laws don't discourage it and neither does their equivalent of the judicial system. For example they lowered the protein % requirement in Chinese milk (which limits how watered down it can be) as their way of trying to discourage melamine tainting. Those cheap electrolytic capacitors that fail within a few years are still widely manufactured for Chinese brands and other budget electronics that are sold here. Those PCBs used in external drives where it's the actual PCB that goes bad first is still a common thing too. Which is ironic because how can a small, solid-state PCB be made so cheaply to fail so darn fast, certainly before the HDD it's plugged into does.

Point is, it's a systemic cultural issue and as long as they continue to profit from it nothing will change. Certainly not until the laws change and the attitudes of those enforcing them change with it.

cynan wrote:

I think many would be surprised to find out where most of their recent electronics were made. And even if it's a company with headquarters in some other nation, chances are many of their products (and many of the components) are made in China.

Oh, just about everything is made there or has a large number of the components sourced from there. But it helps when a major outside corp can afford to build its own plant and exert full control over the entire manufacturing process & source its own raw materials of a certified quality. Chinese plants can make quality products if a business is willing to spend the additional time, effort, and expense to get there...

ronch wrote:

Which brings me to the sad realization that companies like Sony and Toshiba, which have spent decades building a trusted brand by producing quality products, are being butchered by Chinese companies that sell cheap junk.

Ah the circle of life. To be fair, Sony hasn't been relevant for a while, and they're pretty stagnant.

This TV buying experience made me realize that I'd rather stick with proven brands. They may be a bit more expensive but these companies know how to make quality stuff that they can back with respectable service. Of course they're not perfect, but they're probably nowhere near as bad as Hisense warranty service where Hisense personnel just seem to make you go around in circles until your warranty period runs out or promise to drop by on a certain day only to leave you waiting for nothing.

Have you never had to deal with HP tech support?

It's a learning curve. They have the expertise, but they don't have the knowledge. It takes more then being able to slap some electronics into a plastic case to sell products. At a cheap enough price point people will just trash it and get a new one, so it works there. However, once people start spending more then a few bucks, they expect better service.

This isn't limited to just Chinese companies. This could be any company that doesn't put enough emphasis on customer relations or customer service. It takes a lot of money to deal with customers. Building and selling the product is the easy part.

ronch wrote:

Perhaps they're getting there, but for a country that's risen to be the world's No. 2 economy,

No longer:
http://www.economist.com/news/essays/21 ... t-does-not

And what's "R&P"?

I don't know about you guys, but it seems to me the Japs, Koreans, and Western countries have this certain innate characteristic which makes them meticulous and want to perfect what they do, whereas the Chinese are just concerned about making money selling crappy products and worry about customer loyalty later. No wonder Japan and Korea have risen so quickly.

Let's assume you are somewhat reasonable and aren't claiming the chinese are genetically inferior, but at the very least are claiming the chinese are intrinsically inferior in culture and mindset than America and their allies that they boosted post war with technology exchange.

China is following the exact same teething problems of any industrializing country, except you are watching them go through the process now instead of the other Asian tigers twenty, thirty years ago. China also has its own unique problems with sheer size. Chalking it up to a 'penny pinching' is ridiculous considering the main drivers in low quality products are the outsourcing firms, not China itself. What about all the other offbrands competing with Chinese appliance manufacturers? Where's your blame for the American mindset of race to the bottom? What about emerging high quality Chinese brands?

You don't really seem to care about the fact that reviews are intrinsically biased to negative reviews, it helps you you feel that they are lower quality. As far as I can tell, nothing Sony has ever made recently treated people well, including their Vaio division and their phones. Which brings me to what is missing from this discussion: reliability data. This discussion cannot continue in any reasonable form without it.

meerkt wrote:

And what's "R&P"?

There's a separate section of the site for discussions of a religious and/or political nature, which is hidden unless you explicitly opt in. There are no special requirements for opting in, other than posting in this thread to request access. Threads which persistently veer off into overtly religious or political discussion get moved to the R&P forum by the mods; if you notice a thread disappearing from the Back Porch this is typically why.

Speaking of which, I need to point out (not to you specifically, this is a general warning...) that "Jap" is considered derogatory/offensive in many countries, including the US. Please refrain from further use in this thread or a move to R&P is a given.

Japan's post war was carefully designed. Not only did the US help out (the Korean conflict had a lot to do with it) but the Japanese government directly injected private business growth and trade expansion. However its since been abruptly stunted. Link And in some respects the U.S. also has mirrored this 'lost decade'. But the Japanese are doing something about it with its reforms and Abenomics. And it seems to be working for the most part.

This is also has caused an indirect side effect that has given rise to China. There is one resource that China has above all others and that's an endless supply of people/ working class.

cegras wrote:

Which brings me to what is missing from this discussion: reliability data. This discussion cannot continue in any reasonable form without it.

True.

And lastly, FWIW the term 'Jap' is derogatory. NVM JBI covered it.

It certainly appears that this whole thread is inevitably headed to the religion and politics forum.

China is not "intrinsically inferior" for any reasons of race. In my opinion, it is the lack of ethics that makes China inferior to first-world nations. China demonstrates no respect for human rights, no respect for the environment, no respect for property rights, etc. The melamine in infant milk example is just one of many huge red flags. A culture that allows babies to be poisoned for a small increase in profit cannot be trusted. The on-going active espionage and theft by the Chinese government targeting civilian companies in other countries is criminal behavior on a national scale.