When buying an ice cream machine, particularly if it’s your first one there are a lot of factors to consider, volume, pump or gravity, water or air-cooled, three-phase or single-phase, etc. One thing that can get overlooked especially when price shopping is country of origin. This can be one of the most important things to look for because there is a huge difference in building techniques.
Build quality:
When spending a significant amount of money on new ice cream equipment it can seem tempting to go with a foreign manufacturer with low upfront costs. It is a bad idea to anchor a business whose success is predicated on reliable quality products and put that on an unreliable under the built machine. You can see these differences directly in the size of compressors, or thickness of copper pipes. Yes, a smaller compressor from one of these companies will use less power, seeming to be more power-efficient on paper, however, when you put the machine to the test it is quick to see the little underpowered compressor is running at 100% output far longer creating premature failures. Think about it in terms of a bus, buses are required to move a large number of people and be reliable for a long time. This is why they are built with large diesel engines, reliable, overpowered so they don’t wear out as quickly and built to be repaired when something does go wrong. Now imagine putting a 4 cylinder gas engine in that same bus, I am sure with the proper gearing they can get the bus to move, however that poor motor while efficient won’t last long.
Warranty:
Manufacturers need to have a full nationwide service network to truly honor a warranty. It starts with using components with good reliability ratings to minimize failures, to begin with. Then to have technicians and parts standing by to make sure your machine is running. Electro Freeze has a full network of distributors 
stocking parts and keeping technicians ready in case you need them. Especially when your business is not making any money with a down machine. With a life expectancy of 25+ years, Electro Freeze machines not only last through their warranty period but for many years to come.
Value Retention:
If you want to know how well a product is built, look at the secondary market. You will see there how many older units are around and what the value of those units are. That is a quick way to estimate how much your equipment will be worth after a few years of use. Cheaper foreign machines are worthless after a year or two, they are difficult to have repaired and failed often causing the value to drop. Buying a quality machine to start can save you money and headaches on the backend.