Warning! Beware of fake batteries

[neotalk]

Hi folks, Just a quick warning. After reading somewhere in here about cheap batteries I decided to go out and purchase a few extra spares. Be very careful about buying from suntekstore.com I bought 2 batteries and a charger. The charger was supposed to be usb but was in fact an earlier nokia connector; thankfully the n900 had a convertor when i bought my phone. Only one battery worked and this only worked a couple of time before it packed up. Communication with this company is diabolical. They are very late to reply and when they do they send you around the bush many times. Replies take an age to get with questions like: can you send a photo of the charger or what sort of phone are you using are just a few to hope you will go away. It has taken me 3 weeks to get a rma from them and about 10 emails. Please be very carefu whenl buying cheap batteries. (On another note, the fake one i bought from amazon at the same time works wonderfully still.) I may have been just unlucky but still thought it best to share my experiences with you all. :(

[Dancairo]

Hi - Having already bought a fake from amazon (works great) and a spare genuine from nokia i don't intend buying from suntekstore but i thought you deserved a thanks for bothering to warn others...so, Thanks :-)

[badboyuk]

I wudnt buy a fake battery, they dont perform as well as a genuine 1 wud. And considering this is an n900 it requires a lot of juice for the stuff it does or that u will do it on it.
Also on another note, i wud highly advise folk against using a cheap/fake car charger for the n900 as it causes interference in the audiio quality whilst using fm transmitter an it also never charges it fully. Im gona get a genuine 1.
(i never bought this cheap 1, it was given to me as sme1 had a few)

[DarkPand0r]

Cheap batteries can do far more than just run poorly then die. In the past people have bought fake batteries that have either expanded massively causing damage and in some rare cases have even caught fire or exploded.

The OP should get more thanks, And just to reiterate:
DON'T BUY FAKE BATTERIES!

[CaSPeRFXX]

i saw n900 fake battery it was 4000mhz it was size of 3 n900s from japan crazy stuff thats like carrying a 14cell laptop battery

[patstew]

i saw n900 fake battery it was 4000mhz it was size of 3 n900s from japan crazy stuff thats like carrying a 14cell laptop battery

Wow, a 4Ghz battery. ;)

[cyeung]

When it comes to power, I would only trust a reputable company (even if it means being the idiot that got ripped off). If anybody recalls the laptop battery recall of 2007, we see that lithium-ion batteries do NOT fail gracefully. As a matter of fact, protection schemes are needed to keep the battery from operating outside its normal operating ranges (and to shut them down when something is not right).

[NokiaRocks]

I bought a fake battery from ebay (top-shop-muenchen) and trying everything to get my money back.
Really low quality and only 980 mAH.

[jakiman]

I bought a cheap 1250mAh battery off ebay.
hal-device shows it as only 680mAh. haha.
Also, it ALWAYS reads as being 100% full.
So I can never tell how much is actually left. =P

Still good enough to use it as emergency battery to make a quick call.
It also does work for quite a few hours so I won't be throwing it away. lol

[geneven]

Cheap batteries can do far more than just run poorly then die. In the past people have bought fake batteries that have either expanded massively causing damage and in some rare cases have even caught fire or exploded.

The OP should get more thanks, And just to reiterate:
DON'T BUY FAKE BATTERIES!


Yes, in the years that this site has existed, a terrifying total of one user has reported a serious battery problem that could have damaged his tablet (but it didn't). Has Nokia released statistics on how many problems its users have reported with genuine batteries?

[bonerp]

I dont think risking an explosion with it next to your face is worth the saving of a few £££s or $$$$s. Apart from the fact that cheap chargers can also set fire to batteries is charged incorrectly, its just not worth it.

[Haus3r]

I dont think risking an explosion with it next to your face is worth the saving of a few £££s or $$$$s. Apart from the fact that cheap chargers can also set fire to batteries is charged incorrectly, its just not worth it.

That's precisely why i will not touch fake batteries :)

[9000]

DISCLAIMER I'm not associated with Goki

I'm using GOKI for NK BL5J as a spare battery for N900. Its sticker says "Made in Japan", though I'm 100% sure that it's manufactured in China and packaged in Japan. It even comes with a USB charger in one package. I'm not sure about its price, because it comes with my N900 as a gift pack, so I think it's pretty cheap.

Below please find the hal-device dme dumps for your reference:

Orignal Nokia battery comes with N900

udi = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/bme'
info.addons = { 'hald-addon-bme' } (string list)
maemo.charger.type = 'host 500 mA' (string)
maemo.charger.connection_status = 'connected' (string)
maemo.rechargeable.charging_status = 'on' (string)
maemo.rechargeable.positive_rate = true (bool)
battery.present = true (bool)
info.product = 'Battery (BME-HAL)' (string)
info.subsystem = 'unknown' (string)
battery.is_rechargeable = true (bool)
info.udi = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/bme' (string)
battery.charge_level.unit = 'bars' (string)
battery.remaining_time = 7200 (0x1c20) (int)
battery.type = 'pda' (string)
battery.charge_level.percentage = 71 (0x47) (int)
battery.charge_level.design = 8 (0x8) (int)
battery.charge_level.capacity_state = 'ok' (string)
battery.rechargeable.is_discharging = false (bool)
battery.charge_level.last_full = 7 (0x7) (int)
battery.reporting.design = 1258 (0x4ea) (int)
battery.reporting.last_full = 867 (0x363) (int)
battery.reporting.current = 903 (0x387) (int)
battery.voltage.unit = 'mV' (string)
battery.voltage.design = 4200 (0x1068) (int)
info.category = 'battery' (string)
battery.voltage.current = 3947 (0xf6b) (int)
battery.remaining_time.calculate_per_time = false (bool)
info.parent = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/computer' (string)
battery.charge_level.current = 7 (0x7) (int)
battery.rechargeable.is_charging = true (bool)
info.capabilities = { 'battery' } (string list)
battery.reporting.unit = 'mAh' (string)


GOKI for NK BL5J Battery pack

udi = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/bme'
info.addons = { 'hald-addon-bme' } (string list)
maemo.charger.type = 'host 500 mA' (string)
maemo.charger.connection_status = 'connected' (string)
maemo.rechargeable.charging_status = 'on' (string)
maemo.rechargeable.positive_rate = true (bool)
battery.present = true (bool)
info.product = 'Battery (BME-HAL)' (string)
info.subsystem = 'unknown' (string)
battery.is_rechargeable = true (bool)
info.udi = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/bme' (string)
battery.charge_level.unit = 'bars' (string)
battery.remaining_time = 7200 (0x1c20) (int)
battery.type = 'pda' (string)
battery.charge_level.percentage = 94 (0x5e) (int)
battery.charge_level.design = 8 (0x8) (int)
battery.charge_level.capacity_state = 'ok' (string)
battery.rechargeable.is_discharging = false (bool)
battery.charge_level.last_full = 0 (0x0) (int)
battery.reporting.design = 1247 (0x4df) (int)
battery.reporting.last_full = 0 (0x0) (int)
battery.reporting.current = 1183 (0x49f) (int)
battery.voltage.unit = 'mV' (string)
battery.voltage.design = 4200 (0x1068) (int)
info.category = 'battery' (string)
battery.voltage.current = 4069 (0xfe5) (int)
battery.remaining_time.calculate_per_time = false (bool)
info.parent = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/computer' (string)
battery.charge_level.current = 8 (0x8) (int)
battery.rechargeable.is_charging = true (bool)
info.capabilities = { 'battery' } (string list)
battery.reporting.unit = 'mAh' (string)


gdiff of above

~$ gdiff battery_original.txt battery_new.txt
15c15
< battery.charge_level.percentage = 71 (0x47) (int)
---
> battery.charge_level.percentage = 94 (0x5e) (int)
19,22c19,22
< battery.charge_level.last_full = 7 (0x7) (int)
< battery.reporting.design = 1258 (0x4ea) (int)
< battery.reporting.last_full = 867 (0x363) (int)
< battery.reporting.current = 903 (0x387) (int)
---
> battery.charge_level.last_full = 0 (0x0) (int)
> battery.reporting.design = 1247 (0x4df) (int)
> battery.reporting.last_full = 0 (0x0) (int)
> battery.reporting.current = 1183 (0x49f) (int)
26c26
< battery.voltage.current = 3947 (0xf6b) (int)
---
> battery.voltage.current = 4069 (0xfe5) (int)
29c29
< battery.charge_level.current = 7 (0x7) (int)
---
> battery.charge_level.current = 8 (0x8) (int)


Hope this help.