Hamradiomall.com sent me one of these little radios to review for them. It took a bit to get it up and going, mostly due to the fact that the software isn't readily available. Once I got the link to the software, it programmed up easily enough. Here is the video I made reviewing it.
I agree, but honestly, some of the Chinese radios are high quality radios. I have an AnyTone 878, and it is top notch. Some of the others can be a bit more quirky to program, but they are also less expensive.
I have the 868 and it's not a bad radio either...but I would like a nice mobile. So far I haven't found one that I like. I really need something with a detachable control head and, so far, those are rare if not non-existent except for the commercial stuff. That's one reason I wish the big three would make one for the amateur market - Kenwood and Yaesu both make commercial radios with DMR and they can be re-programmed for the amateur bands - unfortunately, they have a rather high price tag on them.
Although I agree that it would be nice for one of the big three to make a DMR rig, I think at this point, the Chinese own that market because of price. The Anytome D-578 mobile is a nice rig, I have one and there have been no issues with it at all. However, it doesn't have a detachable head.
Actually, Yaesu C4FM radios work very nicely with DMR networks, using hotspots in crossmode. In fact, if you enable Wires-X passthrough in the Pi Star configuration page while in crossmode, pressing the Wires-X button enables Wires-X functionality on DMR. I get more positive comments about my transmit audio using my Ft-70 than I do using my Anytone 878.
I also have the Anytone 868 and it's much higher quality and functions better than many of the other Chinese radios I've had. It also has great audio on analog which is very important to me. I wish Kenwood would have opted for DMR instead of D-Star on the TH-D74A portable. That is a very nice radio with the exception of the D-Star, should have went with DMR. Kenwood would have sold many more of them.
I have a Anytone 878 and it's a well built radio. It feels more rugged than my Icom IC51A. With the Openspot 3, I can crossmode from DMR to D-Star.
I bought a used Connect Systems CS-800D, which is a dual-band DMR/analog mobile with a detachable head. It works quite well for me, but I have been using it as a base radio so far. The head connects to the main unit with a standard CAT-5 Ethernet cable, and other users have reported that they have used some pretty long extensions without problems. I also have an AT-D878, and really like it.
With a Shark OpenSpot3 you can crosstalk with darn near anything. I plan to do just that with a FT-3.