This is true, and in particular you can't rely on the tech data to be true. My pure guess on the background to this is that someone, somewhere,makes a perfectly decent flash head.
Someone else copies it, and copies the data published by the original maker, without testing those figures or even understanding what they are and without understanding (or caring) that the cheaper components that they used will affect the performance.
Then someone else copies the copy and copies the data
Then someone else copies the copy of the copy etc etc etc - and eventually it ends up here, sold under an English-sounding name by someone who is just a box shifter out to make a quick buck. Usually, the figures quoted all along the way are actually better than Bron can achieve
For example,
Wrong. Jinbei is a good (and very big) make in China and nearly all of their products are sold within China. I've spent a bit of time watching pro photographers in one district of China and mostly, they used Jinbei products, although foreign makes are also used. The makes that you will NOT see in use by pros in China are the cheapies that are made down to a price for export to people in the UK, where they are sold under different names - only foreigners will buy those in quantity.
I strongly suspect that the reason that
some Chinese Pros buy Elinchrom, Bowens etc is simply that huge status is attached by the Chinese to buying imported products, and the more they cost, the better.
That's why you can see so many luxury imported cars on the roads, even though there is a 40% import tax, and that's the reason why my No.1 son, a dealer in fine wines, makes so much money in Hong Kong and Shanghai - people pay thousands for a single bottle of wine, then mix it with a can of coke
Walk into a food shop and you'll probably see a big display advert in English, for something or other that the shop doesn't sell - a mobile phone for example - why? Because it's in English, which makes the shop international, upmarket and sophisticated - I suspect that that's the reason why foreign makes of flash sell in China, although of course there is nothing wrong with those makes, it's just that people make their buying decisions for perhaps the wrong reasons.
