I recently bought one of these kites from http://www.karmack.co.uk, everyone thinks they are chinakite rip offs but oh, theyre definatly not!
The construction is that of any commercial kite, the dacron was pretty thick, in fact i think it was thicker than most kites looks about 3.9 ounce variety but the canopy was made out of quite a thin material, exactly like the cabrinhas i was told. The strut bladders all had velcro to keep the valve tops on and had little pokers to let the air out the valves quickly, which work very well. The LE bladder has one ball valve and one normal valve that needs pinching(good for deflating)
Seams are all triple zig zag stitched and very neat no loose ends.There are multiple attachment points for tuning and a 5th line attachment that looks super strong, the wing tips inflate.The kite didnt have scuff guards on the L.E like most kites, it has just patches of dacron instead of neoprene but it definatly looks like it'll last.
I'd probably compare the construction of this kite to something like a wipika or caution, good but not top like slingshot or north.
The LE bladder takes quite long to inflate but the kite was super stiff when inflated.
Self launched like a dream in really really gusty wind (10 - 18mph).From the second it was launched this kite is amazingly stable it acted very much like a med AR but actually it's a 5.6 AR which is pretty high.Never flown a 16 m kite before but i think i'd compare the turning to my old wipika airblast 11.8m, maybe a bit slower
The kite has the best depower i've ever felt, but the bar pressure is quite high, this doesnt bother me at all, but some people don't like that.The lift is also the most i've ever experienced, the kite hardly has to be moved to generate apparent wind, it's more of a lenghty lift than a height thing, which i understand is the case in most bigger kites.
For the price this kite is absolutely awesome, if you're not flying one of these kites you're seriosuly missing out, if you're concerned about you're image on the beach though don't get one, it just means i can afford to get more kites and get out much more often.
to the big brands for me!