I’m probably unusual in that I find this world of cheap clone “shanzhai” hardware amazing. I’m fascinated that someone is out there redesigning existing silicon to make a knockoff that is smaller, cheaper but otherwise near-equivalent – to be used in devices that retail for less than $3.
I’d love to learn more about these secretive industries and the engineers who work in them.
How about you? Do you have any experience with dirt cheap hardware devices? How do you feel about shanzhai competing with regular firms’ R&D by cloning their hardware? Please leave a comment and let me know what you think.
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