I have a henglong abrams with ibu2, recoil, barrel flash, upgraded trannys and 12bolt supply for fast turret and high speed. Lots of work to upgrade, easy under 500 bucks.
Still, the couple tamiya abrams i have seen blow it away and are way nicer.

there is a flaw in the tamiya abrams one of our guys found a nylon gear in each trany that has a D slot for lokcing on a shaft and while drivingh in fast mode the gear spins on the shaft. Dklm makes metal replacmenta for them.

overall, my impression as with most henglongs is the henglong is a toy, the tamiya is machinery. It takes quite a bit of work to upgrade a henglong and they come out quite nice when done well. Still nothing beats just building a kit.