
On Wed, May 20, 2020 at 03:01:42PM -0400, Evan Leibovitch via talk wrote:
In my experience there are a lots of Chinese "brands" but few have much longevity. Anker is one of the few that have stuck around, Ravpower is another that has been OK for me, they have a reputation to maintain. A number of other longtime brands such as "tronsmart" are common in places like AliExpress and Gearbest but not Amazon. In fact you;d be surprised how many different accessories are made by Xiaomi, mainly known globally for phones but in the Chinese market they have a massive product like that is exportable (in fact there are Xiaomi stores in malls across China with the whole range).
The bought-on-Chinese-sites gear often offers better value and similar reliability to what Amazon carries, with the trade-off of (sometimes MUCH) slower delivery time (1-2 months is typical). OTOH, stuff valued under $50 or so is almost never stopped by customs which means no HST is assessed.
Unless it's a name with a few years on it (like one of the above), consider any Chinese "brand" you get to be warranty-free, by the time you can make a claim the brand will be dissolved and restarted under a new name. To some (including occasionally me) it's been worth the risk and I've yet to be seriously let down. Only one device of many I've bough this way -- an Anker 6-port USB wall charger I've head for years -- has underperformed over time. (like Lennart's experience, some USB ports broke before the electronics did).
I have a 6 port anker charger that I have used quite a while. Never had an issue. Only a power bank (which was not anker) had usb ports break. I think it was a monoprice, but it might actually have been one I bought at costco. Hard to remember. :) -- Len SOrensen