Low end standalone room dehumidifers have some of the crummiest controls in the industry, but no standardization that allows them to be easily repaired. In my limited experience most failures are in the controls. I've rarely seen a dehumidifer fail due to a refrigerant leak. Sometimes compressors will fail (after the warranty period) due to residual humidity that wasn't properly evacuated during manufacture.
After the Kigali amendment to the Montreal Protocol refrigerators and dehumidifiers in Asia and Europe are all using hydrocarbon refrigerants (usually a mixture of isobutane, butane, & propane) rather than R410A I'm somewhat hopeful that the manufacturing standards will improve (to deal with the flammability issues that go alone with hydrocarbon leaks), which may improve the longevity of cheap dehumidifiers.
Only recently did the US EPA increase the refrigerant charge allowed for hydrocarbon refrigerants (from 57 grams to 150 grams) in home appliances, so we should be seeing some of those in the next year or two.
As a refrigerant propane is quite similar to R22, but you'd be crazy (as some people are) to charge your central AC with propane, which would contain enough to reduce your house to rubble in the event of a leak indoors should it light up. A refrigerator or dehumidifier has orders of magnitude less refrigerant and fewer potential points of failure than a split AC system. Some room air conditioners and PTACs in Asia are now running on propane (aka "R290'). Whether a reasonable room AC could be made with only 150 grams of propane meeting the US limit remains to be seen, but maybe.
