[Question] Which chinese phone manufacturers have good/bad support?

[linr76]

There are many companies which just throw a phone on the market and then forget about it.
I'd like you to share your thoughts about which companies are not like this or share your phones story good or bad.

your contribution is valued and it might help someone to not fall into the same "trap" or help him decide on a valuable phone.

[aus9]

Can I add something about support?

Does the reseller or maker supply an English manual?

2) Do they have a download link for the kernel source?
b) How old is their kernel version?
eg 3.0 series is older than 3.4 series

3) Do they offer Over The Air (OTA) updates?
----only while you have not modded the phone.

4) In terms of "potentially" misleading customers, does your AnTuTu result closely match theirs?
----where you have not made any changes to firmware or settings

[linr76]

that is a bit more technical, but why not.
not every user cares much about the technical aspects, but most are interested in getting bugfixes.

[tkitts]

Kernel source? Unlikely from any China mtk company, so that is an unrealistic goal. Do you have a mtk phone? Do you have the kernel source? I bet the answer is no!!!!!!!
Updates are most likely the only support that one might receive.

[linr76]

not all chinese phones use MTK chipset. probably 90% do, but there are some with Exynos, Qualcomm and others.
MTK is only in the vast majority of phones because it is dirt cheap.
But even so, there are some companies who do bugfix and even bring new Android versions for at least some of their phones.

take for example Xiaomi - they support and bugfix ALL their smartphones, even the almost 4 year old MI1, and have just confirmed that even the MI2 (more than 2 years old) will receive MIUI v6 based on Android 4.4.4
i may be a bit biased since i own 2 Xiaomi phones now, but even my wife was convinced by the fairly cheap Redmi 1s (and my wife usually absolutely hates chines phones and has only ever used mostly high end Samsung smartphones).
There are of course other manufacturers, like Oppo, Meizu, THL, Huawei, etc. pp. but all these are more expensive than the otherwise usual chinese phone.
I wonder if Doogee will join these ranks, they sure seem to be very serious about it.

you may want to see it from this perspective:
if you buy a phone for 100USD or less, probably you cannot really expect much support.