What are or would be important differences between genuine Arduino Uno boards and various Uno clones, which show they have the same pin identification and lay out?
The idea is general inquiry and possible demystification for anyone or less experienced people.
In my experience, if it’s an Uno clone with matching pin out , they work just as well with very few exceptions. I must have six or seven non genuine Unos and they are functionally identical.
But I bet there are some that will blow that out of the water 
I’ve got so many of the cheap Chinese Uno clones that I couldn’t even tell you which one is my genuine Arduino brand board anymore without a close visual inspection. I’ve never had trouble with any of them. I also have other clone boards - a couple of Mega2560s, a Leonardo, and a good handful of Nano and Micro boards. All have always worked flawlessly unless I did something stupid to mess them up.
They’re all the same until it comes to quality of the soldering and components, Wait 6 months and you’ll see dirt cheap clones of the X-carve coming from China probably called the Y-carve . There’s nothing wrong with them, just wouldn’t trust them in my important projects. Back in the day it was like opting for a PC clone over a IBM.
That is almost strange they are generally so similar, as having recently had one blow when powering up a fairly standard looking shield for what little inquiry was possible received a lot of lack of information and mentions of unfamiliarity. Though, the similarity is what I first assumed most.
One thing I did notice and stumble upon, having had no experience and found little explicit enough info beyond a certain point, is that specific enough clones or variations will also use specific ‘USB drivers’ depending both ‘mac and pc’ and which particular clone-version or original, etc. it is, in order to get your computer to ‘recognize the port’ in order to communicate with the board, once it has been connected by the USB cable.
For example, I had to use the CH340 / CH341 usb driver for the board I recently had ‘blow’ when connected the shield/board etc. to DC power.
The, usually, good thing about a lot of people using the ‘Model A’ of something is that eventually many people will know of many things which can or may cause various mishaps as a result, and etc.
Somewhat incidentally, does anyone know if the Uno sold by Inventables is a genuine original Arduino ? I had been intending to eventually pick up at least one genuine original Arduino at some point, but now have to pick up another Uno and probably gShield so as to have a better chance of correct connecting confirmation and support if something does not work.
It appears that it would be at the price and titling, but I would prefer to make sure, in the case that it turned out to be an effective and useful clone, while I was expecting to receive a genuine Arduino artifact.
Thanks also for the input and feedback of the inquiry.
The Arduino that comes with the X-Carve is the genuine product.
It’s got a sticker and everything!
Good to go. Thanks guys.
Worth the plunge for the genuine article at least once.
Probably worth saying, hopefully I don’t ‘blow it’ this time.
