[ilovecake1984]

Their cars and phones are still second rate. They are, however, cheap enough to be good value.

[crote]

> Their cars and phones are still second rate

So are modern Western cars - and arguably also phones.

If I'm forced to drive in a bug-riddled impossible-to-repair privacy-invading spaceship either way, why would I go for the overpriced outdated Western one rather than the affordable innovative Chinese one?

I would prefer a boring 2000s car with an electric drivetrain, but it's not like anyone is making them...

[rvnx]

About privacy invasion, it works for all countries in the world.

Vendor-lock is quite high, possibly higher in the US.

Look at iPhone, hardware is behind, restricted, unauditable privacy and questionable software in terms of performance (especially starting iOS 26, where you lost the choice for Liquid Glass).

Impossible to reasonably sync AirPods or watches, Macbook or choose the firmware version.

In comparison, the irony is that China offers the freedom (like with Qwen).

On these supposedly evil Chinese devices (phones, headphones, watches, etc), you have an open platform with great hardware, that you can modify as much as you want, and the only people who restrict you is... Google (making sure you cannot root without losing to important apps, so technically you can root, but practically you can't).

All the claims about "China = bad hardware and bad software" were true 20 years ago, but this is not the case anymore.

That being said, should certainly be quite cautious about default setup... you have US surveillance, PLUS, Chinese surveillance.

[throwaw12]

> Their cars and phones are still second rate

What have you tried so far on a daily basis to say this?

Have you tried latest Huawei models?

By the way, Foxconn makes iPhones, does it count as Chinese quality or not?

[epolanski]

Have had two Xiaomi phones in a row, I don't see the second rate.

My in law has a BYD Seagull, fail to see how it lags compared to similarly priced cars.

Chinese cars are incredibly popular in Europe, because they are better cars at the same price tag, even the more expensive ones.

I think it's asinine to think their high end manufacturing is crap, keeps us non competitive, let alone ignoring most of our stuff or large parts of it already comes from China.

And it has nothing to do with wages, modern high end manufacturing is highly automated and skilled engineers are as expensive as in southern or central Europe.