I wouldn't buy either. But if I had to, it would be the original just to support the originator of that mod.
What originator of the mod? Do you think Hana came up with the first box mod in history?
I can assure you they did not. They just cloned someone elses box mod, tossed, someone elses chip in it, etched their own logo on the outside and charged $275 for it.
And people like you will pay it. Why? Not because of the design which is NOT original. Not because of the chip which is NOT theirs. You'll pay that much for the logo, because showing off is just that important to you.
I am paying for the device. Sometimes for the aesthetics. For instance, the OliveR by pdib and a Gus Lord that matches an old fountain pen I still use. I do not want to pay companies to rip off other designs.
You're paying for the bling. For instance, can you tell me the precise amount of voltage drop you get from your OliveR right now without looking it up or going to measure it first? No? Then you clearly aren't paying for the function. You're paying for the appearance. The bling. The ability to show off. Nothing more.
Perhaps if you bought an authentic mod, you wouldn't feel that way. Do the research, of course. Even among the authentics, some are made better than others.
Perhaps if you actually did your research you would know more about the problems the majority of authentic mods have. Authentic Nemesis mods have the same crunchy button problems of the clones. Authentic Turtle Ship mods have problems with the buttons and battery rattle. Original King mods have problems with the locking rings. Etc.... If you can find a problem with a 1:1 clone then I can assure you the same problem exists on the original.
Dime a dozen on the box mods? Well, sure, nearly anybody can put one together in an Altoids tin. But to say the Reo or the OliveR are not original designs is disingenuous. One is a rugged work horse, and the other is a beautifully designed, hand crafted piece of highly functional art.
The Reo is just a generic box mod with a bottom feed dripper built in. I can assure you that no one there invented the box mod, nor the bottom feed dripper. In fact the first Reos used cartomizers, and not ones made by Reo. They didn't start using the bottom feed rebuildable atomizer until they cloned someone elses.
Your precious OliveR is nothing more than a Silver Bullet clone made out of wood. Something I could build myself in an afternoon for less than $30.
As Coldrake said, preposterous at best. You either left a ton of expenses out on purpose, or you really don't understand how things work in most countries.
$45 chip. $5 for the aluminum box, $10 in buttons, $10 for the 510 connector, maybe $0.5 in wire and $0.1 in epoxy. About half an hour assembly time.
If you think there's more to it than that then you don't know much about production.
And when you start building hundreds or more of these (hopefully with your own design and look) be sure to let us know. And don't be upset if somebody starts pumping out thousands of copies and selling them on the cheap.
I've already built my own mech mod. It's not hard. Quite easy in fact. Took about 5 hours total. It's not the prettiest mod out there, but I wasn't trying to make a pretty mod, I was just bored one afternoon and thought "what the heck" and built one.
You should try it sometime. Build your own mech mod. Perhaps if you did, and found out how easy and cheap it really is, you wouldn't be so quick to hand over hundreds of dollars to someone who spent 10 minutes cutting threads onto a bunch of prefab tubes you could have bought for $10.