Tech Products vs. Their Best Fakes

This is a $1,300 Samsung S25 Ultra. This is a $300 fake. They look almost identical. So, I have decided to buy 10 of the most recognizable tech products. And for everyone, we have found the best fake version on the internet to find out, are the fakes actually sometimes better value.

Speakers: Harman Kardon vs. LP90 Crystal Pro

So, let’s start with speakers. So, this is the real $300 Harman Carden Aura Studio 4. And then this is the $80 2025 LP90 Crystal Pro Bluetooth speaker, Harmon like bass, fourth gen with TF card slot and FM radio. Catchy.

So the fake one is like 15% smaller. It’s got slightly more obvious buttons and the glass the plastic has a bit more of a tint to it. I wouldn’t say anything about it looks or feels worse. Yeah, it’s a tiny bit heavier, but not more than you’d expect given it’s a little bit bigger. Plus, the real one’s plastic, too.

So, really, this just comes down to sound. The real one describes itself as having superior sound performance. And then the fake has shocking overweight bass. Not going to lie, I love it when my bass weighs too much. Woah, that’s sick.

Okay, so this is the real one. It’s It sounds very punchy. It’s got plenty of bass. Not the clearest speaker I’ve ever heard. I give it like a 7 out of 10. And then there’s a whole load of lighting effects that you can cycle through like this. It’s sophisticated.

So now the fake, which I just found out 2 minutes ago, has a battery inside. So it doesn’t need to be plugged in like the real one does. So is it better? What? It sounds just as clear. It’s just as bassy and it’s like louder. The lighting is brighter. How does this happen? Wait, does it still have the lighting moods? Yes. Oh my god, they’re like way braver with the colors it uses, but it’s just more fun. And these are actually syncing to the music that’s playing. So given that this was literally a quarter of the price of this speaker, that is an easy point to the fakes.

Smartphones: Samsung S25 Ultra vs. $300 Fake

What about the smartphone? So this is what the real Samsung flagship phone unboxing experience is like. And the first thing to note about this fake is how it’s kind of better. how even though the Samsung style box doesn’t have space for accessories, they’ve actually gone as far as to send them separately. A very official looking fast charger and then a standard squishy clear case. And then the box itself, it’s got some outer plastic that the wheel doesn’t, but the rest of it is so faithfully recreated that I can’t see how the vast majority of people would ever know any different.

Externally, I actually think I prefer the fake. It’s properly black as opposed to this weird black silver hybrid that makes it look like this back plate is a spare part. I’m really curious about this fake super fast charger. So, if we plug the real charger into a fast charging phone, it’s hovering around 20 W of power. Fine. So, if we plug in the fake charger and that is giving us also 20 W on the dot.

Oh, starts with the official Samsung wallpaper which is also animated. I’ve never seen that before on a fake. The user interface as well is like shockingly spot-on. It genuinely feels like it’s using screenshots of official Samsung icons. And obviously this is not a Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra screen, but it’s not bad at all.

So they’ve kind of recreated Samsung’s camera user interface, too. They’re call photo. And that’s that’s all you need to know.  That sound effect kills me. You know what? The detail is actually not a million miles away. It’s just everything else. It’s making me realize how much difference it makes just having good skin tones.

Oh, wait. The website for this fake actually says show 64 megap really 8 megap. How incredibly self-aware are them? Is actually curious. Does the S Pen work? Oh, no way. It’s actually got S Note. It even tells me my pen is on 100% battery. It’s not as bad as you’d expect it to be. There’s a tiny bit of lag, but actually still very usable as a drawing pad. I was not expecting that.

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They’ve actually semi-recreated like every single one of Samsung’s features. Even things like smart select so you can take customized screenshots. What if you’re a power user? Let’s play a game. Let’s try some Angry Birds. The storage speed here is like appallingly slow. I actually can’t believe how slow this is loading. It’s incredible how the phone seems so okay when you’re on the home screen and then just how quickly it falls apart when you try and do something.

They’ve clearly put $300 worth of effort into this phone, but they’ve put it all into just trying to recreate something that’s better without actually making it better. Oh yeah, they did also say on the website that this fake has a 6,800 mAh battery. The real’s only 5,000. So, just because of how insane that sounds, let’s leave these both running the game and come back later to check on battery life.

Vacuums: Dyson V8 vs. Vacc Pro

Now, we’ve seen tons of fake speakers and fake phones in our time, but while researching for this video, I’ve also found a few surprises. So, this is the $350 real Dyson V8 Absolute vacuum cleaner. And this is the very clearly um inspired by it $120 Vacc Pro.

I mean, it’s not like the Dyson was a particularly fancy unboxing, but this is still lower tier for sure. Oh, no. No. A knife, which was not a knockoff. A few moments later. Anyways, still got tons of pieces and attachments in here, which is very much a Dyson thing to do.

And then this is the main body of the vacuum. This is a little bit crazy. They’ve copied everything down to like even the position of all the buttons and the catches. Even the color of the orange tube here feels like it has been specifically color matched to Dyson’s. And I’m not actually sure that’s a complaint cuz it feels exactly the same quality. Everything that’s plastic here is also plastic here.

This really is like the most egregious example of not claiming to be the brand, but absolutely trying to be mistaken for them. Even the way they’ve made the thing lean in the same direction as Dyson on their product page, then surrounding it with even more images of accessories to make it look even better. Hey, if it sucks just as well, then I’m not complaining for spending a third of the money.

So, black rice, got crumbs, and then hair. Don’t ask. 3 2 1 go. Oh yeah. Ooh. No way. Well, that is every bit as easy as I expected. [Music] Okay. Um, I would actually say there’s a pretty clear winner here. And it’s not the Dyson. It just glided so smooth. and one stroke was picking up every single layer of dirt. Whereas in some cases, like with the hair, the Dyson was actually rubbing it further in. So, I guess that’s a clean sweep. Two on to the fakes.

Smart Doorbells: Amazon Ring vs. $30 Alternative

Now, just like the Dyson, the $100 Amazon Ring doorbell is another absolute staple that you would expect to see in a high-end smart home. [Music] But what if you just wanted to be frugal? Or what if your grandma got confused and accidentally bought the $30 video doorbell wireless doorbell smart Wi-Fi camera door phone intercom with motion detection waterproof for home security?

Well, both of them are fully set up here and brownie points already for the fake for actually including the little speaker that will go off when the bell is rung or dingdong as they’ve called it which you have to buy separately for the ring. So, let’s go up one floor.

Okay, so we’ve got both live feeds loaded up. Now, the fake did say that it had a wider field of view than the original. That’s just a lie. The Amazon Ring can see about two times what the fake can, which means, let’s say you have a burglar approaching. It’s so much easier to see them on the Amazon Ring. And the frame rate of this fake doorbell’s recording is absolutely atrocious. I can see like one frame of him creeping across. So, I mean, if you could only pick one of these as your main tool for surveillance. You don’t want it to be this one. That’s a real shame for the fake cuz the website did say that you can have a long and barrierfree distance with super penetration. That is a disaster of a web page and a product. Tut two.

Performance Check: Smartphone Battery and Cameras

Okay, so phones have been on for an hour. So the real Galaxy S25 Ultra is on 86%. The fake is on what? 32. That’s worse than my like lowest possible expectations.

Okay, there’s one final thing I think we should test with these phones and we can do it with our next product. So, this is a fake mini wearable camera. It’s $50 and very clearly copied off of the Go cameras from Insta 360. And then this is the real Insta 360 and actually the next generation of it, the Go Ultra, our sponsor, which is now a square instead of pillshaped.

So, here’s what I want to do. I want to drop test both of these phones to find out if all that investment into materials that we see phone companies talking about every single year actually makes any difference at all when it comes to it. But then the fake phone drop is going to be recorded on the fake Insta 360 camera which is completely hands-free cuz just like Insta 360 you also get this magnetic necklace here.

3 2 1 Ah, there’s a very bad sound. The phone is actually functioning completely fine. Screen is 100% intact. It’s just one corner has been completely pulverized. That is not a bad showing from the fake department. And the footage is absolutely terrible. It’s so grainy and needs like 100 times more stabilization. I guess this is kind of the level of engineering you expect for $50.

So, what about the real phone which we’re going to record with the real camera? Oh, this is cool. So, the magnetic pendant is now adjustable so that you can pick the angle that you want the camera to shoot at, but also you can just mount this camera anywhere you can think of. I could clip it to a railing. I could dangle it from a net. I can hold it using the action pod that comes with it to turn it into a fullsize action camera. And it’s also got a magnet inside. So, could also just do that.

So, let’s record this phone drop using it. And we can do this in 4K 60 frames per second with now a 221% larger sensor than last gen. So, almost definitely a bigger sensor than the one in your phone, which is kind of insane considering the thing is like 53 g.

3 2 1 Okay, you know what? Fair play, Samsung. Significantly less damage to the exterior and absolutely zero damage to the usability of the phone. And link below to get one of these Go Ultras. It has suddenly turned horrible and dark, but it’s doing surprisingly well considering. And first 30 purchasers also get a free extra 256 gig SD card.

Air Purifiers: Dyson vs. AliExpress Bladeless Fan

Now, this is one that I’m interested in on a very personal level. So, Dyson, as well as vacuum cleaners, is also pretty well known for their high-end bladeless fan and air purifiers [Music] like this one for $750. We use a Dyson in our bedroom every day. So, I’m just super curious. What if you spent just $174 on a bladeless fan from AliExpress?

So, the packaging is very functional. Nothing more than it needs to be. Just a bunch of foam and the product. Oh wow. This really, really looked like a Dyson. They’ve even got the signature Dyson colors, too.

Right. So, just like the speaker situation, the real is about 15% bigger again than the fake. There doesn’t feel like any significant quality differences between the two. Pretty much everything’s plastic here, but then pretty much everything’s plastic here, too. The only thing is really the remote. Like the real Dyson is much swankier and magnetically snaps to the top compared to Oh, whatever this is.

We need to see how well each one blows. Boy, mildly refreshing. 6 out of 10. Okay, the fake. Uh, it’s louder, but there’s more air and the air is colder. 8 out of 10.

But the real test is going to be purification. So, let’s start with the real one, which is on max suction power right now. So, let’s see how it handles this. It’s getting kind of overwhelmed in there. Can still see the thing, though, which implies it is sucking. It’s actually gone and done it. I would actually say that is 100% clean. A little bit of staining down here, but that’s just cuz that was where the smoke bomb was shooting. The actual air inside of there is pristine.

Right. Same test with the fake bomb me. This one’s also on maximum suction right now. It feels like it’s uh drowning in it a little bit more than the real Dyson was. I’m under the water. I just hope it’s okay. I can see the balloon starting to fin a little bit. Even if this takes a tiny bit longer than the Dyson, if it still manages to completely clear all that pollution, then paying like four times the money doesn’t feel like it makes a lot of sense at all.

That is actually pretty shocking to be honest. It’s like both surprising because of how much more affordable it is and also not surprising cuz if it has good air intake and it has a fulls size heper filter then of course it’s going to be able to clear it. Feels like the moral of the story is starting to become if the product’s functionality is simple then it’s much more replicatable by a much more affordable fake alternative.

Smart Lighting: Philips Hue vs. Govee

Now Philips Huegh feel like they have a bit of a monopoly when it comes to RGB lighting in the smart home and they deserve it. They were the first company to actually popularize the idea of controlling your smart bulbs with your phone. So this is their Signi floor lamp. And then this is the floor lamp 2 from Goi, which I wouldn’t exactly call it fake, but there is no doubt in my mind that Goi is at least somewhat inspired by Philips. They pretty much have a 1:1 equivalent offering for every Philips product.

Interestingly, while the Philips comes fully assembled, this is a bit more of a DIY project. I guess that is one way to save. Cut the shipping cost in half. So, this is Phillips. This is GOI. Let’s start with a brightness test. Make the lights bright white. Okay, Philips responded a little faster, but that looks brighter to me. The GOI, both lights are completely smart home compatible. So, I can also say make the lights green. [Music] And actually, in that instance, the GOI responded faster. So, doesn’t feel like there’s anything in it.

This actually feels like a little bit of a no-brainer here cuz this thing is a third of the price. The base lights up, which I just think is such a cool extra. Then there’s also a remote that magnetically attaches onto it in case you don’t want to fiddle around with the app or you don’t have it installed on your phone. But that’s a good point actually. What are the apps like?

So the Philips app is, I would say, very premium and to be fair also quite flexible. Like I can pick any color I want to on here and it responds almost immediately. You’ve got every different temperature of white on here. Tons of different effects and they’re not all static. Some of them have animations tied to them too that look like they’re specifically designed for this floor lamp.

So, what about the GOI app? So, we go into floor lamp. Oh my god, it’s a slight sensory overload. Okay, so you have the same kinds of options in terms of selecting specific colors. Then you’ve got scenes like sunset. Oh wow, that’s really nice. And then rainbow. Look at that. Do you see how it animates from the bottom up? Music. Oh wow. Wait, so this is using presumably the microphone in the phone to pick up my voice and is syncing to that quite responsively. That would actually be such a cool way to like add ambience to a party. Just have a couple of these in the corner.

They’ve even got an option here called finger sketch, which if that is what I think it is, means you can effectively draw on exactly the LEDs that you want to be lit and in exactly what color you want those LEDs to be lit in. And then even the base down here I can tweak from my phone one LED at a time. So if I wanted to do blue mixed in with white and it’s animating. Oh my god, I’m having a nerd casm. Bear with me. Okay, that’s just like no competition at all. Point to the fakes.

Gaming: Xbox Controller vs. $25 Alternative

The cost of buying official gaming controllers can really rack up. Like a basic Xbox controller, $65. You want four of them? That’s $260. You can nearly buy a console for that much money. So, what if you spent just $25?

Well, this actually looks like the exact same box if you just made it slightly worse from every single angle. How do all of these products look like there’s some sort of internal requirement to sit on them before shipping them out? [Music] So, when you look at both of these controllers, it’s very obvious which one’s which because the fake one has a home button instead of the Xbox button on the real one. But apart from that one detail, they look absolutely identical.

Right. So, it’s got the grips on the back. It’s got a nice weight to it. Really soft triggers. Nice joysticks. Let’s try the other one. Oh my god. It feels the exact same. What the hell? Also really nice joysticks. No. Come on. What the hell? Whichever one of these is the fake, they have done a masterful job at not making it feel like one.

The D-pad also feels very responsive. This one feels a little bit more like it’s just got four buttons, one in each direction. So, this one’s got to be the fake. Goodness sake. This is such a clear win for the fake. And it’s just as responsive. It has USBC charging. It’s got replaceable batteries. They even both have rumble. And it feels the same. You’re not missing anything.

Tablets: iPad Pro vs. $160 Fake

Tell you what, though. I have absolutely no idea what to expect for this. So, this is Apple’s official 11in iPad Pro, and this is a $160 fake. Wow, this is very interesting cuz, well, first of all, it’s easily one of the most convincing fake boxes we’ve seen. But also, while they still have the new iPad imagery and packaging style, they’ve actually gone as far as to specifically make the box thicker than Apple’s, I assume, to fit more inside.

Apparently, we have 1 terabte of storage here. If that’s true, this thing can instantly win Hall of Fame status, no questions asked. And even the Apple style peels. Not quite there, but they tried. And then iPad on top. There’s a cable here. And then I feel like I’m on one of those Tik Toks where someone’s telling me that Apple’s been secretly hiding accessories in a separate compartment in the box. Oh, it’s not a charger. This is a case. A proper Folio case.

Moment of truth. [Music] They’ve done a very good job at making sure it looks like the iPad. What they haven’t quite kept up with is how thin the iPad is and how light it is. I would say this is about 1.8 times chunkier. The fake iPad actually has a slightly different aspect ratio to the real iPad. And I assume because this is a more conventional aspect ratio, so they can get this screen made cheaper.

They’ve even remade the entire add new wallpaper page, but like you can’t actually click on anything. And then just like the iPad, you can pull down from the top right to get the control center, but it’s like every single animation has been completely stripped. And half of them don’t even work. Like this is the brightness slider going up and down, which it’s animating, but it’s just not doing.

I guess the real question is, does it still allow you to do what most people would use their iPads for, to watch videos? Not really. It’s a 720p resolution and not a great one. And I guess while it is vastly cheaper than a top- end iPad Pro, it’s not actually that much cheaper than just a basic iPad. And that still has a far better viewing experience than this.

Oh, yeah. We need to see how much storage we’re actually getting here. So, iPad storage. No, it says 161 GB of 1 TB used. I can’t have used 161 GB. I haven’t installed anything. I’ve installed one app and it’s YouTube. Okay, so I’ve run an actual storage analyzer app and sure enough, 32 GB of which 9 GB is used. The layers of deception here are insane. So yeah, just like the I thought I full send it there. Just like the phones, don’t buy fake tablets. Bit of a waste of money.

Headphones: AirPods Max vs. AirWatch

And now we’re on the subject of Apple products. AirPods Max, which are a very nice looking pair of headphones for sure, but I still haven’t managed to get over their $549 price or the fact that they haven’t actually upgraded the product since 2020. H also one of the few times where it doesn’t feel like Apple has nailed down the slickest unboxing and first impressions experience. [Music]

Then these are the $60 Air Watch headphones, which feel like they’re shooting for the worst first impressions experience. Genuinely looks like someone did the sit test about 50 times on this one. Oh no, that wasn’t good. Well, I guess that kind of does our unboxing for us.

The AirWatch website is very intriguing. Experience music like never before. Superior noise cancellation. They are just the best headphones I’ve ever owned. He’s got to be talking about the real AirPods, right? And is his name even Jacob? Oh, it’s just so unbelievably sus. Well, let’s see what the fuss is about then.

So, these are the fakes. They come in a Yeah, definitely not leather case. Very interesting. And then these are the reals, which come in a slightly nicer, but still very strange case for an Apple product. Honestly, the interesting thing about this is never have I seen a fake that looks so similar to the real but feels so different at the same time. Like these cushions feel absolutely terrible. The material looks metallic, but I assure you it is not. This is like as cheap as plastic gets. It’s like creaking as I put it over my head.

Are you freaking kidding me? The cups don’t go around my ears because they are pointing diagonally outwards. I’ve never had a pair of headphones do that and it just completely ruins the seal that you would normally get. So this is what the real sounds like and it’s like very good but nothing special. Then the fakes. Oh man, it’s actually such a shame because sound quality wise, no complaints at all. I just can’t with these elephant ears. So, this one is a win to AirPods Max.

Final Results

That’s five points each. It’s a draw between real and fake. What’s not a draw though is the best fake product of the video. It’s got to be the GOI floor lamp. The lamp itself ain’t going to fit. So, this is how we commemorate. Congratulations, Goi.