Knifemaster said:
The only bad guy in this is Surefire because they are ripping off their costumers. It is quite obvious because of this clone that their light can be produced and sold at a fraction of what they are charging their costumers. Who ever is the manufacturer of the clone is like Robin Hood he should be admired for exposing Surefire for the price gougers that they are, not looked down on. The only people bitter about this are Surefire owners who let themselves be taken by company willing to milk it's costumers. Yes they make a good product but not good enough to justify their prices.
:touche:
I think Surefire's stuff is a little overpriced, but you're way off base there. Surefire has to recover the costs of their R&D, engineering, and industrial design in each light sold. They use name-brand components from the original makers who also have to pay those costs. They make their flashlights in the US, in a small facility, and (I'm assuming) legal Americans to do the work. And from what I've seen of off-brand imported flashlights, Surefire also uses higher quality materials and production.
The no-name Chinese factories making this U2 fake have none of those costs. Development and design cost them nothing, since SF already did it. They use no-name components produced the same way, and it doesn't have the same features as a real U2. The lights are probably mass-produced by an industrial plant. They likely use inferior materials. And everything from shop space to fuel to food to manpower is far cheaper in China than on the US West Coast.
If you wanted Surefire to cut costs and operate the same way
there would be no Surefire! There would be no U2, no 6P, no Beast, and none of their other products because there wouldn't be anyone to come up with ideas. All they'd be doing is making poor copies of other companies' products.
So if you think the knockoff factories are showing Surefire how it should be done, then think about living in a world where Surefire's entire product line is copies of Mag-Lites--since Surefire is the one who invented the lithium tactical light. It's like any other product.
Most of a product's cost isn't in the materials or assembly, it's in the development behind it. The price of an item sold by the original maker will only come down when the overhead has been paid for, and enough items have been sold to make a profit. Mag-Lite is an example. If you factor in inflation their prices have actually fallen in the last 25 years. That's because they've sold huge numbers, haven't done much R&D (other than the new LED lights) since the Regan administration, and have been able to create faster assembly lines.
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