Trouble these days is with quality control in China. It's very haphazard and effects all manufacturers.
I have Uniden/Bearcat and RS scanners that are 20yrs old and still humming...you really don't know how well they will hold up...until they do.
So far so good with my 396XT, time will tell.
Tips in general. I've almost always used an adapter of some sort on the antenna connectors to save the built-in connector from wear due to removing antennas regularly. Currently I'm using the included sma to BNC adapter on the 396 and just use BNC antennas. Keeps the constant wear off the internally fixed sma connector. I've done this a lot over the years and have not had a stock antenna jack failure...which are reasonably common.
Also the audio jacks, be careful to strain relief connections so your cables aren't ever pulling on the jacks. Common sense, but keep your power cords and other cables clear...the easiest way to break a scanner is to fling it across a room or out onto the pavement because someone's foot or pet got into the cables while it was plugged in.
One last one, turn the radio off while plugging and unplugging audio connections. The newer stuff is a lot less protected when crossing the contacts in audio jacks and it's not all that uncommon to pop the audio circuit if you plug and unplug while a radio is hot...this is true with new ham gear too unfortunately.
