chink gear is very hit or miss. if you know what western branded gear is made in china and 1:1 cloned widely then you can save a lot of money. a lot of tried and true well known western gear are just brand names stamped onto a generic product, or were manufactured in china and got cloned.
- Anything made out of titanium is made with the same stampings with the same titanium from the same smelter in the same couple of factories in china. This means that anything simple like Ti pots, Ti mugs, Ti drinking bottles, Ti foil (wind screens), Ti spoons/sporks, Ti trowels, etc all use the same 1 or 2 stampings and are identical other than the laser etched logo. Aliexpress is always about 50-60% cheaper than buying the same titanium gear from an outfitter/amazon.
- The legendary "dance pants" which are the best non waterproof hiking pants ever made are $10 instead of $30 if you buy them directly from chinks, example:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/3256802225586185.html- This thing is better than my $100 patagonia houdini but there aren't large sizes
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/3256803381552975.html- The legendary $20 aliexpress down hoodie. Its the exact same down hoodie uniqlo sells for $100. Comparable to the decathalon $80 down hoodie.
- Down booties and detachable down hoods and down mittens are like $10-20 instead of $50+ on ali
- Small nickle-and-dime things like tick pullers are $1-3 on aliexpress instead of $5-10 on amazon. Many of these are cheaper at Wal*Mart too especially consumables.
- Chink Z-Lite clone is the same thing as the real one and 50% price. Pretty competitive with decathalon.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/2255800507186687.html- Compressed towel tablets are 1/10th the price on Ali
- You can get that one trekology pillow everyone seems to recommend to budget for half price on Ali under other brand names
- BRS 3000T, contreversial but you can't deny it fills a niche nothing else does. you can get them for $12 on ali.
