Leaving aside choices such as rim width and wheel size, what's the sensible option for mountain bike wheels?

I'm on a limited budget.

I've been quoted around £330 for a set of 29ers built by a pro builder who's built me some really nice road wheels over the years. They might not have the blingiest hubs and rims, but the builder rates them for quality and reliability at the price.

The other option would appear to be factory wheels from the likes of Fulcrum or DT Swiss etc. They're often discounted online. Are the factory wheels at this cheaper end of the market likely to be unreliable, and use components or construction designs which might be prone to failure?

I'm planning to do some long-ish rides in the Cairngorms, and would prefer to reduce the risk of wheels giving up on me. I'm not that heavy (about 65kg), and I'm not planning to do any stunts. If bike-packing, I think my gear might weigh around 5kg.

Hand built with standard parts, every time. Wheelsets are a daft idea for anything but a race bike imo.

^^^^ This every time imo.

Hubs and rims are all pretty good these days, even the cheaper end of the market. What makes a good reliable strong wheel is correctly and evenly tensioned spokes which a good builder you trust will provide. If the wheel does go out of true you can also take it back for sorting, but a well built wheel shouldn't need this.

2 of my bikes have wheels built by a local dude I trust, much better, and when I stupidly put one wheel out a bit pretending my vintage road bike was for off roading he just trued it for nowt

Factory wheels look swanky till you need them fixed...

Dare I suggest you build your own?

I've had a mixture of factory, built by someone else and built by me. Not had a problem with any of them. As stated, most wheels, especially once away from the cheap and nasty end of the market, are fine for most people. There'll always be some edge cases where mistakes/faults align and clumsy/aggressive riders expose those faults.

My main wheels are factory built Hope Pro 2 Evo hoops, they've done over 10,000km and are still true and on their original bearings.

Hand built have the advantage that you can build up exactly the Frankenstein monster that you want.

Thanks for confirming my thoughts! I'll go for hand-built wheels again. I Just need to decide on the rim width and tyre size question!

I've bought a couple of wheelbuilding 'bibles' over the years but I don't think I'd be very good at building wheels. The pros don't charge much, anyhow, and they do a top job. Most problems I've experienced with wheels have been those which are non-standard, such as smaller wheels for recumbents etc. However, I can definitely see that the ability to true a wheel and replace a spoke might be a valuable skill when riding in the middle of nowhere, so I should maybe buy a wheelbuilding kit and have a go at some point.