Beware of Counterfeit OEM Batteries
Last year I bought a third party battery on eBay rated 33% higher than the OEM. I was fascinated by this claim as the battery was of the same dimensions as the OEM so I spent over ten times as much money on equipment to make sure this company wasn’t pulling my leg (that’s how my mind works) and it turned into a community service project. As you can guess these guys fib quite a bit on their numbers (the question being by how much, which is what I’ve been after) and I’ve been holding off on telling you the specifics until I had tested another handful of batteries.
But I came across something you should be aware of as, and maybe I’m just naive, it never crossed my mind until I finished testing a battery identified on eBay and labeled accordingly as belonging to HTC that there are counterfeits out there. In this case, what I’ll call its voltage fingerprint was consistent with a no name I had previously bought and in addition to being a fake, incidentally it was the poorest performer.
The OEMs aren’t cheap but are still desirable for reasons every third party battery I’ve tested so far have illustrated. If you want one, do not try to hunt down a deal on eBay. Get it directly from a source you trust. Even if the guy has four thousand positive ratings, presume you’re buying a random no name that will perform accordingly otherwise you’ll feel violated and saddened as I feel right now. Yes this one was cheap and not that bad a deal even for a no name of similar performance but damnit I wanted a new OEM, not a lookalike which performed 10% worse than my seven month old OEM.
Especially do not trust the seller if the battery, allegedly OEM or otherwise, in question will be shipped from China which, as I found out very awkwardly the other night, is not Taiwan. Just when you think you’ve lowered your expectations sufficiently about a country… man.
Doug Simmons
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Doug Simmons
Biographical info.. hmm. I have a history of not being able to strike the balance between what is "safe" to put into these forms and what is, in my mind at least, funny. Can't do it.
I just picked up an extended battery for my HTC EVO on ebay. It shipped from china. I don’t have a way of testing these batteries out or anything. Truth be told, I’m somewhat suspicious as to how well this particular battery performs. I’d be willing to post awake times etc on my device if that is of any interest to you.
Thanks Andrew but I think the data that’s on there is enough to make its point, what to watch out for, how to decide which way you want to go as a battery buyer. No need for further specifics. Though I do appreciate the offer. If you think there’s interest out there for more data and would like to indefinitely borrow the hardware I use in order to liven the site up yourself, I’d be interested in that.
Based on my experience my guess is that the battery you bought is likely to perform roughly 20% worse than the stock battery but was a more cost effective purchase. If you’ve had that phone for a while and have really put a lot of mileage on that stock battery and think you wore it out a bit, you may be overestimating its degradation. Those things last.
So assuming the battery isn’t a legit OEM which was stolen out the back of a truck in Taiwan by the Chinese eBay mafia, I’d advise using the thing as your secondary/spare and switch to it when you do heavy lifting things like extensive tethering while plugged in or GPS for road trips to protect your presumably better battery.
I bought a “3500 mAh” battery from china. I took the sticker off to find that it was just two 1200mAh glued and jerry rigged together. I tell them, and they send me another. GUESS WHAT? This time the 1200 mAh was glued and hooked up to a hollow square. Luckily I got my money back, but finding legit batteries is tough!
My original 1500ma battery is over a year old and doesn’t last a day and also slow to charge.
The Mugen 1800ma battery I bought only performed similar to my OEM 1500ma..
It was also was more expensive, but still, less expensive than seidio for similar size.
What a waste of my cash! Not worth it in the long run.
After looking at your batteryboss site,
I am convinced all after-market batteries are not as good as original OEM.
I have to go much, much bigger to notice anything over the standard battery.
But I don’t want to spend money again on an old phone.
So I just bought a compatible 3500ma Evo extendid battery for my TP2…
I figure if I can get at least 2000ma, then it would be worth my 10 dollars(!)