I have both bought and been given some of these “knockoff” sets, and while the resulting build. The resulting build is pretty, but fragile. The tolerances on the bricks are bad, to the point that some required a lot of force to join, and others are so loose that they can barely carry the weight of the bricks on top. I have also consistently found at least 1 brick that wasn’t molded fully, and was therefore useless, with no spares. The colors are also usually quite uneven. The instructions are usually fairly easy to follow. But the build methods are bad. I often see bricks stacked directly on top of other bricks, with no interlocking, resulting in whole walls being able to easily fall over.
The knockoff are fine if you don’t have the money to spend on Lego, but you really also get what you pay for.
I strongly disagree in general, some manufacturers are terrible - but this is only characteristic of the cheapest sets. Good quality sets are fantastic, I’ve built multiple 1-5k+ sets from china and none of what you’re describing is true of them. I’ve seen poorer quality, but it’s always on the cheapest of the cheap, 1k+ sets for £15.
Minifigs and stickers are often lacking, I’ll grant you that.
Lego is also not the be all and end all of quality - broken brown bricks, mould marks and colour mismatches I’ve all seen on genuine Lego sets.
To say you get what you pay for is patently wrong, 98%+ of the quality for 20% of the price.
I have both bought and been given some of these “knockoff” sets, and while the resulting build. The resulting build is pretty, but fragile. The tolerances on the bricks are bad, to the point that some required a lot of force to join, and others are so loose that they can barely carry the weight of the bricks on top. I have also consistently found at least 1 brick that wasn’t molded fully, and was therefore useless, with no spares. The colors are also usually quite uneven. The instructions are usually fairly easy to follow. But the build methods are bad. I often see bricks stacked directly on top of other bricks, with no interlocking, resulting in whole walls being able to easily fall over.
The knockoff are fine if you don’t have the money to spend on Lego, but you really also get what you pay for.
I strongly disagree in general, some manufacturers are terrible - but this is only characteristic of the cheapest sets. Good quality sets are fantastic, I’ve built multiple 1-5k+ sets from china and none of what you’re describing is true of them. I’ve seen poorer quality, but it’s always on the cheapest of the cheap, 1k+ sets for £15.
Minifigs and stickers are often lacking, I’ll grant you that.
Lego is also not the be all and end all of quality - broken brown bricks, mould marks and colour mismatches I’ve all seen on genuine Lego sets.
To say you get what you pay for is patently wrong, 98%+ of the quality for 20% of the price.