Roughly at the time you wrote the thread opener message I ordered my HW-C108. It arrived today. Shipment got delayed, first by chinese new year festival activities, then by the coronavirus outbreak. Point being, just gather your courage to order from Alibaba, it's not that much different from other portals. Main difference is that its mainly aimed at resellers and even wholesalers, rather than consumers, but most vendors are happy to send single items, called "sample".
Alibaba offers about a dozen different ways to ship, be careful to select the right one. I wasn't, so Hnet asked back, which led to an additional delay as I did not check my e-mail often enough. They asked if I wanted my device without battery, as my selected way of shipment did not allow lithium batteries, that would have been $6 extra, which in the end Hnet was generous to pay for me. They also asked for the choice of colour (had not realised there is a completely black version) and operating system (there seems to be a proprietary alternative). Needless to say pre-installed OpenWRT is the choice.
There is even no need to worry about unreadable manuals, as there is none whatsoever. 
Superficially, the package and the device inside look just fine (professional, good finish), but I cannot report about the stuff inside as I have not played with it yet.