[Open Thread] Aliexpress Review

[Dew]

I have had zero luck with AliExpress, they refuse to validate my account. I sent them all the requested documents and never(six months and counting) received a reply or a status change on my account. I have just given up on even using AliExpress ever at this point.

Lucky for me, a lot of the same stuff that is on AliExpress is available on eBay for much the same price. That is how I buy most of my miscellaneous electronics from China.

[flamencoguy]

There are fake products on Aliexpress. I am a victim. Some sellers will not refund. The fake products are 64GB microSD cards that sell for about $11 us and 512 GB USB flash drives that sell for about $15 each. Too good to be true. These devices have been hacked to show that amount of storage but you cannot stored more than 16gb on them. Be warned. Search the internet about these devices.

[jlbwcu]

bought 2 [HUAWEI Mate MT1-U06] on ali express back in July.
received in less than a week with e-packet delivery- (it was also free at the time)

great phone, gets H or H+ everywhere i go.
The WCDMA is supposedly 5 bands _ i actually think it is)
used as a GPS from Carolina to Florida with no issues.
|am on the straight talk ATT sim and was able to use in San juan and St. Thomas while on a cruise

I highly recommend these to anyone.

EDIT

I researched these phones for about 2 full weeks before purchasing as well

[gerstavros]

There are fake products on Aliexpress. I am a victim. Some sellers will not refund. The fake products are 64GB microSD cards that sell for about $11 us and 512 GB USB flash drives that sell for about $15 each. Too good to be true. These devices have been hacked to show that amount of storage but you cannot stored more than 16gb on them. Be warned. Search the internet about these devices.

lol man, ebay i full of fake memories too. Just check feedbacks to have an idea of what u buy

[patate29284]

There are fake products on Aliexpress. I am a victim. Some sellers will not refund. The fake products are 64GB microSD cards that sell for about $11 us and 512 GB USB flash drives that sell for about $15 each. Too good to be true. These devices have been hacked to show that amount of storage but you cannot stored more than 16gb on them. Be warned. Search the internet about these devices.

That happens not only in AliExpress. I bought on DHGate many 32GB microSD cards, wich actually had no more than 2GB each. Luckily, I got my money back, but those fake articles will appear everywhere. It is no the website, it is the Chinese who do that. Just make sure you read the feedback before buying, and if it is "too good to be true", then it's just not true

[iFX]

The most important thing to do is to only buy from sellers with a good rating that have a lot of feedback and read the feedback to see if there's any issues with the item or seller.

I haven't had any major problems buying from Aliexpress, but have only bought a few things from there so far.
I bought a 7 inch tablet from a seller - they were quick to reply to any questions I had.
And what amazed me the most was that I received the tablet in only 2 days after ordering it - shipped via DHL to Australia.

About a year later, I got a 5.7 inch Star N9599T phone with 1GB RAM and 8GB ROM from a different seller - there were a few issues with this one, but in the end I'm extremely happy with the purchase. The issues were that the phone was advertised to have an MTK6589T at 1.5GHz, but it only had a 1.2GHz MTK6589 - also the rear camera couldn't focus on anything further than 1m away, so was kind of useless. After contacting, he offered to either send a replacement if I sent it back (not really an option) or he could give me a part refund - since I didn't get the phone as a camera, I didn't mind so much and since the CPU (at 720p) still seemed plenty fast enough for me, I opted for the part refund... but good news was that after rooting the phone and installing the Xposed framework and Gravitybox plugins etc, the camera somehow seemed to fix itself and all of a sudden started taking better photos and video than my old Samsung Galaxy

Also, before ordering, I asked to confirm that he had it in stock so that it would reach me by a certain date (before I left for an overseas trip) and he said he'd send it within 2 days... after 5 days he still hadn't sent it and I was getting worried - he clearly didn't have it in stock afterall. However, just before I was about to cancel the order (8 days), it came up as shipped and 2 days later it was in my hands - so he still kept his promise and it arrived a few days before I left, so I was happy in the end - though a little stressed for a while there

After about 4 months of using this phone now - I'm so happy with it - best phone I've ever had. Everything just works great (after the initial rear camera issue, that somehow fixed itself). Never had any crashes, super stable, stylus is great to use too (though naturally it's not as good as a genuine samsung note pen but still very useful). OTG works great, bluetooth perfect - only thing missing for me was MHL ... but I knew that before buying it.

On the trip I was using the phone (cruising in the South Pacific), sharing it's wifi net connection via bluetooth with my laptop (Acer), my wife's phone (Galaxy Nexus) and the tablet (bought from the Aliexpress) all at the same time with no problems at all. I didn't even know that was possible! Of course I had another friend with an iPhone that was desperately trying to connect, but being Apple, it just wasn't capable of connecting via bluetooth for net access (I think Apple have them locked down to only streaming audio via bluetooth or something like that??).

Sorry for raving on a bit, but I just wanted to let you know how well the hardware bought from Aliexpress has worked for me.

I also bought some screen protectors on Aliexpress (from yet another different seller). I didn't use DHL for shipping this time, just China Post Air Mail, so it took a while to get here, but I was happy with that transaction as well.

Maybe I've just been lucky, but I will probably buy from Aliexpress again in the near future.

Just make sure you do your research on the device as well as the seller before you buy.

Of course there's always the small chance of getting something from a bad batch - even from the good sellers it can happen occasionally - so there's always a risk, that risk being that it's not worth the cost to send back if you get a dud (depending on where you live) - for the prices I got these things for, it was a risk I was willing to take - but wouldn't recommend it for everyone - YMMV

One other thing, that's probably been mentioned already - the sellers will generally tell you what they think you want to hear, so try to read between the lines

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Aliexpress is really just a bit like ebay, but since I have been fairly lucky with the sellers I've dealt with so far, I haven't really had to deal with Aliexpress themselves much at all - so I can't really say for sure how good Aliexpress are when you have a real problem with a seller.

But like ebay, it's a massive marketplace and really comes down to feedback and ratings - picking an honest seller.

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Oh! and one more thing, as a general rule - personally, I would NEVER buy a memory card from Aliexpress or ebay - but that's just me...

Here in Australia, they're cheap enough anyway - and to me, the microSD was very important to be the real thing, as I needed it to be fast since I also use them in a waterproof HD video camera that I take when I go surfing, so also wanted the card to be waterproof and not drop any frames at 1080p 60fps

[apple2005]

I am having very good experience with aliexpress. I bought many times including phones. And every time I got what I ordered.
You should see what people have given feedback about the product and seller. I got quick refunds three times when I cancelled the orders.
There is no PayPal but your money is securely paid to aliexpress and not the seller. And aliexpress keep that money till you are satisfied and tell them to release the money to seller.
One member above has complained about fake memory cards. Yes, but they have clearly written on the seller's pages that these are not the actual capacity but shown in the computer as having the written capacity. If you still buy fake things then it is our problem not the seller's or aliexpress. Do some research before buying and you will be happy with your buy. Good luck.

[patate29284]

Although it is true what you say about fake memory cards, I had the same problem, not at AliExpress though.
However, the seller's page specified that the product were original and real capacity 32GB. When I got them, I realized they were fake.
What I want to say here is that it is the seller's fault to sell fake products, and, MAYBE, websites such as AliExpress should do something extra to stop that behaviour and protect the costumers (us) not to fall into the hands of those sellers. No se

[monicamay]

Hi,

I buy on aliexpress and at moment is good, aliexpress refund my money and I have not lost much money.

I think one of the problems of buying on aliexpress is that some sellers do not know what they sell and there are many sellers fakes.

I buy some smartphones, tablets, clothing, ... and some sellers is very good support but.... another seller was washing hands and this is not good.

There are sellers with a good rating but by surprise one day this seller send me one product not good why?

In my opinion it is difficult to find goods sellers.

Regards and I am sorry for my bad english

[testwater2]

i bought 2 clone S4 from 2 different seller at alibaba,

1st set-
stated mtk 6572 (actual mt6575 1GHz single core)
stated ram 512MB (actual only 256MB (this is a serious concern to me as i cannot surf smoothly )
stated LCD screen size 5" (actual 4.8")
rear camera 5M (actual i not sure as picture file size >100KB)
GPS not working ( seller instructed to reset phone but still unable to work)
below the LCD some glues stains and dirt -- seller insisted checked thoroughly before shipping

2nd set-
stated MTK 6589 1.6gHz (actual mtk6577 1GHz dual core)
wifi poor signal,slow loading and frequent hang.
rear camera 8M ( actual i not sure as picture taken file size only ~500KB)
I tried rooting both but unsuccessful ..