Anyone else feeling very disillusioned with chinese electronic groupsets? I had such high hopes they could make the perfect consumer friendly ecosystem with complete mix and match parts, replaceable batteries etc and adjustable gears. And instead there's always a major dealbreaker to me, either it's not a true mix and match and have incompatibilities, have weird standard bits, have subpar clearance, and the dumbest one yet being locked to 12 or 14 speeds. While not really being that competitively priced in the west compared to 105... I really hope the magene QED being locked to 12 speed is not true
So you expected Chinese electronic groupsets to be perfect, operating with no experience and tiny budgets (relative to Shimano & SRAM or even Campag)? Shimano and SRAM have been at it 20 years (15 in the case of SRAM), and stuff is far from perfect, and features are largely determined by what OEMs, and industry & internal politics / agendas dictate. Expecting the Chinese businesses to be free of those concerns is naive in the extreme.
Shimano and SRAM might sell at a 20:1 OEM to retail ratio, for their high end groupsets (much higher for lower end). Magene will probably be looking at an OEM to retail ratio of more than 50:1. They also have a great chance of taking a BIG chunk out of Shimano (and SRAM) in China, so will do everything they can to facilitate that .. including 'simplyifying' compatibility. Maybe they'll include 11s compatibility, but 10s won't happen and 13s would likely only be enabled later if and when SRAM and Shimano 13s hits a high market share.
Also the biggest issue with Chinese stuff has been software. Shimano's is garbage, and shows its 20 year old roots. SRAM's is adequate, to put it kindly.
And then there's the sea of ridiculously unworthy, broad patents - like SRAM's battery ones.