If you buy stuff directly from a Thai company that you never heard of before just because their product was the cheapest, you'll have to do your own testing and will likely discover some sharp edges.
They don't, though. Sony, like many other companies, makes products for developing nations which are not sold in more affluent Western countries. ("World" products)
Trying to buy replacement Bluetooth earphones in India really opened my eyes on this one. The store I was buying from had a strict NO RETURNS policy, but still bent the rule when the headphones weren't iPhone compatible (scratchy distortion). After opening two more pairs of Sony with the same problem, they decided to stop and just gave my money back.
This wasn't a budget model - it's a model which you'll never see in the US or EU. Their products aren't just differentiated by country of manufacture, but by the intended market. Depending on brand name isn't enough.
As you pointed out: manufacturing standards vary factory to factory and region to region, and quality issues abound in newer manufacturing regions that lack the crazy competitive environment China has (a thousand pots et al).
Counterfeit PPE really revealed a lot about boys these factories operate. Very hard to verify ownership reliably.
But for context I’m basing part of that opinion on conversations I had with factory owners I’ve done business with in some of those countries running import/export. Many Chinese manufacturers see the conflict between the US and China as bad for business and have optioned third party countries to continue doing business no matter what happens. They’re very smart people.
Also, the book "Poorly made in China" is extremely interesting.
ImportYeti
That's helpful. I've always wanted to know where my stuff comes from, from my food to my gadgets. So I encourage other people do ask the same questions on Amazon. It helps other people.
I haven't tried it much though (I'm not in the USA).
https://webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/20069/is-there-a...
Made/Manufactured/Assembled in X country doesn't mean not using Made/Manufactured/Assembled parts from Y country in the process. Take the Cisco router manufactured in Thailand. Out of the thousands of individual components on the circuit boards, not a single IC within it was manufactured in China?
I try to do this when I can, and they're definitely higher quality, but for some products, finding a version not made in China is almost impossible, a problem that's exacerbated by stores like Amazon not being required to disclose where their products are made.
If you spend just a small bit of effort, you can look for items not made in China. They are usually higher quality. Japanese companies (and increasingly large American ones) are moving / have moved their production elsewhere due to an increasingly hostile business environment in China.
Sony makes their phones in Thailand, speakers/headsets in Malaysia. Panasonic produces a lot of consumer electronics in Malaysia. Samsung makes some of their phones in Vietnam, and the high-end ones in Korea. Their fridges are also made in Thailand/Korea. Google makes their Nest line of products in Thailand/Vietnam now. Some Netgear Arlo products are made in Indonesia, (some?) Netgear switches are made in Thailand.
On the enterprise side, Cisco has moved production of a lot of lines to Thailand for example.
This trend is only going to accelerate after the SARS-COV-2 pandemic subsides.