I was looking to order some more bare atmega328 DIP chips and happened across an eBay listing selling complete Pro mini clones for £1.75 + £0.29P&P, less than I can buy the bare chips from Mouser.
Insane prices.
Yes it is a bit crazy.
I found the same, I have made hundreds of small boards with a 328 chip on, but by the time I have paid for the pcb, xtal, caps and regulator, ( and the chip ) it is definitely a lot more than a pro mini clone.
I ordered a couple to test, and they were loaded with the proper bootloader ( it seems as they work out of the box, ) and they even have a cap on the DTS pin for programming with my cheapy usb/serial adaptor.
I only use the genuine Arduino boards for the lab though, I was just curious.
My genuine Uno is a SMD model. It was bought for me as a present, so I can't complain! I got a Uno clone from China, yesterday, to play about with the chip (If I let out the smoke, at the price I paid, it's no great hardship!) and, as has been said, it worked straight from the box. I powered it up and the pin 13 LED was flashing at 1Hz. I suspect they loaded the flash sketch to test it. I loaded my own sketch and it worked perfectly...EXCEPT... the pin 13 LED is now on all the time! I've yet to try digitalWrite(pin13, LOW); to see if that cures it. But even if it doesn't, it's not a difficult job to remove the LED, if necessary.
Add
digitalWrite (13, LOW);
If not addressed in your sketch, the pin is left as an input, and can float high enough that the op-amp buffer driving the LED can see the input as a good high and drive the LED on.