[General Questions and Answers] Igoritza:
Zelendel, but this guy that I mentioned is XDA dev, and yet, chinese are paying him to develop. thats a step forward. a guy from overhere, surely would make devices usable, at least rootable.

And dont put every chinese in the same category. im going to write a small review of those, with the note that they all started as clone makers, and evolved from there.

Chinese CPU/SoC:

Rockchip - was in the game at the begining, guess it died or merged with someone else.

InfoTmic - they made AMRv6 devices, and couldnt push further to CortexA8

Telechips - korean supplier of SoC to chinese, also died

MTK - doing good job with cloning Quallcom, being that their CPU's are even in slightly more known devices like Alcatel. curently only important CPU player from china

Phones:

1. Unknown companies: mostly based in shenzhen, they even clone chinese clones. they have 3 guys doing the optimisation of Android, and couple of guys getting their hands on whatever SoC is saled in lots for small money.

2. Cloners:

- Drois

- HDC (clones HTC mostly)

- Hero (clones samsung, decent devices, bad plastic)

- Zophone (mentioned already, I havent seen them from hand)

- Goophone (known for their lawsuit against Apple, because they released iPhone 5 clone based on leaked images, before iPhone5)

- Star (allaround cloner, makes quick clones of every brand name)

and many more. Cloned devices are like playing in minefield, cause you have no spares, no support, nothing. Usable only if you know chinese in person, and still not the guarantee.

3. "we cloned and copied, but not anymore" category:

Oppo - announced as upcoming big player, they had their 5 minutes of fame when they said they have first 1080p phone, but release date was delayed almost a year (Oppo find 5). they even payed Lenoardo di Caprio 5 mill, to appear on billboard. (for realz)

Meizu - unatractive name, but they kinda made it through, being that Meizu MX is one of the most sold phones in China. They are playing both fields, as they are developing heavily modified Android, called Flyme OS.

Xiaomi - makers of MIUI, they are attacking the market with slight-good quality/low price combo and they sell good in china. no cloning, original design.

4. global known brands:

- ZTE: in my opinion, worst phone maker, only suceeded due to the fact that they supply millions of other electronics. ZTE phones are probably worst optimized android phones from china, including already mentioned cloners. Had 2 of them, reapired 20 of them, uber crap.

- Huawei: in contrast to ZTE, these guys are good, probably best from china. G300 was "Nexus for poor people". has REALLY GOOD build, doesnt break when falls, nice support from company and the community (unfortunately Modaco, not XDA) and the other models are also good, with nice specs. P1 and Honor2 are really nice optimized devices.

5. Euro-Chinese companies:

Many mistake european names for quality, and best 2 examples are Alcatel, and Prestigio, both purchased by chinese rich men. Alcatel is making moderate phones, and prestigio makes really crapy stuff. they are using their brand names to sell chinese stuff.

Would recomend:

- Oppo 5 (if they decide to lower price): great specs, amazing design, but they are pricing it ridiculously high.

- Xiaomi, if somehow you manage to grab one

- All huawei models (really, after G300 experience, im placing them alongside HTC in terms of premium build)

would not recommend clones, unless someone from west with reputation is involved in making them.