Re: Anyone tried the cheap BL-5J batteries being sold on eBay ?
 

I have had good luck in buying cheap batteries, but I have had a few duds, too.

It's a great idea to get an external battery charger and put it in a place where a fire won't burn your house down.

If you can look at the battery before you buy it, look for a battery that superficially looks good. My favorite clone batteries just looked great from the moment I first saw them. Quality tends to show.

Watch new clone batteries carefully, and if there is something you don't like about them, throw them out. That's one of the good things about buying cheap ones, you can afford to discard them.

Pay close attention to reports here about cheap batteries and buy from known good sources to the extent possible. But you can get an idea of quality just from a catalog picture, or maybe even from the quality of the catalog itself.

One of the BAD things about the N900 is that opening the back to put in the battery is nowhere near as easy and pleasant as it was with the N800 or N810. So you are not likely to check them as closely, so having batteries you think are reliable is more important than it was with the other tablets.

I think that a lot of the clone batteries are from the same factories that produce the real batteries, so there is no big reason to fear them. And it's in the interest of clone battery manufacturers to produce a quality product for the same reason it is for a non-clone manufacturer to produce a quality product. Shoddy products are bad for business.

Re: Anyone tried the cheap BL-5J batteries being sold on eBay ?
 

The capacity of a lithium-ion or lithium-polymer battery is determined by its physical size. There are no vendors out there with some magical process to create higher-density lithium batteries, so when you see a BL-5J battery announced as 1800mAh, you can be certain about
a) They are lying about the capacity.
And, due to a),
b) Why would you put trust in buying batteries from someone who are obviously trying to push fake stuff to people?

That there are smaller variations in advertised battery capacity is an entirently different thing. These batteries vary by some 5-10% or thereabouts, and, due to how conservative the advertising is, you may see the same battery advertised as 1050, 1100, 1200 mAh, for example. But if you see anything like a bump from the original BL-5J size of 1320 to -> 1800, then you KNOW they're lying. That's the kind of shops I don't buy from.

I did buy a replacement battery for my Palm with higher capacity, the original is 900mAh and the replacement around 1100mAh. But in this case the latter is physically larger and could only be (literally) squeezed in because it's lithium-polymer without a hardshell and it's possible to massage it into a shape that fits the limited room available.

Re: Anyone tried the cheap BL-5J batteries being sold on eBay ?
 

Well, Mugen Power batteries have slightly bigger capacity while keeping same size and they indeed work as expected. So maybe 1700mAh is unlikely to be true, but 1500 is within expected range indeed.

What about those BLB-2's? +30-50% capacity was real.

Re: Anyone tried the cheap BL-5J batteries being sold on eBay ?
 

Has anyone had bad experiences with the chargers that are currently offered?

I agree that for a phone like the N900 original accessories are the way to go, but regardless of money afaik Nokia simply doesn't offer standalone battery chargers for the BJ-5J, so I'm forced to buy from dubious sources. Any recommendations (with shipping to Germany preferably)

Re: Anyone tried the cheap BL-5J batteries being sold on eBay ?
 

I only use the desktopcharger for charging my fake battery. it works good. no problems.

Re: Anyone tried the cheap BL-5J batteries being sold on eBay ?
 

FWIW, I just picked up an "OEM" battery from amazon.com, via one of their vendors, ccmaccessories, for $26. Been using it for almost a week and all "seems" well. Getting about the same battery life, 10-18hrs with calendar, and Foreca weather widgets, (3) email clients all updating every hour, WiFi constantly on at 10mW, and about an hour or two "playing".

Re: Anyone tried the cheap BL-5J batteries being sold on eBay ?
 

I had an interesting experience with my Palm Centro that is actually relevant here! I broke the screen and had to buy another one. Then I realized that since the screen was the thing broken, the rest of it seemed to work ok! And now I use the broken Centro to charge my batteries! It works great!

If you have a broken OR good N810, you might be able to do something similar. If you search, you can find a thread saying that you can shoehorn an N900 battery into the N810 and charge it! I think that's probably true, so I've sent for some cheap batteries (not from e-bay, which I am permanently boycotting) and will try it out. I would expect that an N810 with a broken screen but that actually turns on could be used just as well as a non-broken N810.

Also, I bought one of the cheap chargers for my N800, and it has been going strong for about two years now.

Re: Anyone tried the cheap BL-5J batteries being sold on eBay ?
 

geneven,
you could hack any mobile phone or similar device to do the same.
But WHY when a universal charger can be mail-ordered for a few dollars?
Those gadgets have adjustable spring arms and polarity detection to make it easy. The same DX I linked above has them from $2!

N800 batteries have flat connectors - very different.

Re: Anyone tried the cheap BL-5J batteries being sold on eBay ?
 

I purchased 4 cheap ones on ebay with chargers, etc.

The batteries work great, but the battery life indicator reports as full until right before the phone dies.

Re: Anyone tried the cheap BL-5J batteries being sold on eBay ?
 

Ditto with the one I bought from Amazon for $19.99 (should have known better from the price of "$19.99") :s

EDIT: Not to mention it lasts about 75% as long as the real battery, guessing it is ~1000mAh

Re: Anyone tried the cheap BL-5J batteries being sold on eBay ?
 

I ordered this on ebay the other day:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...#ht_4800wt_939

seemed like a good price, comes with TWO batteries, plus all the other stuff. Battery is probably fake right? The main reason I bought it was because of the silicone case and the stand-alone charger which is also a handy AC-to-USB converter. Just those 2 items alone would be worth the price IMO. But anyways ill see how it goes with it comes, delivery time is very slow. About 21 days. 10 day shipping is $20 extra!

Re: Anyone tried the cheap BL-5J batteries being sold on eBay ?
 

i bought my self a genuine battery for $29usd and a desktop charger for it that has AC to USB converter as well for $15usd. right now i'm using the batter and it is great. worth the money though, always go for genuine product. never be disappointed.

Re: Anyone tried the cheap BL-5J batteries being sold on eBay ?
 

i have bought 2 cheap batterys:

http://cgi.ebay.at/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?...=STRK:MEWAX:IT

"lshal | grep battery" says for this battery:
13+2€ for an 800mAh battery+external charger... but the battery shows not the right percentage of charge level.


and:
http://cgi.ebay.at/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?...=STRK:MEWAX:IT
1270mAh for 17+2€ ...but this works normally.

Re: Anyone tried the cheap BL-5J batteries being sold on eBay ?
 

Wll, guys, still no one here who tried batteries that are claimed to be high capacity, WHY? EDITED: oops, i see, the second one is and despite its impressive look is just similar to original 1300mAh. Did you provide the negative feedback this seller deserved?

Re: Anyone tried the cheap BL-5J batteries being sold on eBay ?
 

First i will test the battery a few days, then contact the seller and give a negative rating

Re: Anyone tried the cheap BL-5J batteries being sold on eBay ?
 

Posted this in another thread but want to know what you guys think any experience. I found this solution for my battery.
http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/cellphone/c5a7/

Re: Anyone tried the cheap BL-5J batteries being sold on eBay ?
 

It is listed as 80mah for the solar panel; I assume they mean 80ma. So it will take 20 hours of non time tropical sun to charge its battery, which holds enough to charge the n900 once.

Re: Anyone tried the cheap BL-5J batteries being sold on eBay ?
 

i posted this in the other thread... but though id put it here too...

"OK.... so i though sod it, i may as well do it now.....

Check the following out.... in all the pics with 3 batteries, the middle one is FAKE.... so i dismantled it....

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v1...arauder/BL5J//

Most worringly is the fact it says its 1320mah on the lable.... but inside it says 850mah!!!

most of it was stuck together with sticky foam / glue...

and you can also see what i mean about the hologram colours.

the shape of the face is slightly different....

i also made sure i used 2 genuine batteries from different countries... one came with the N900 itself, and the other from the link i provided earlier.. text does differ between the two genuine ones, so that cant be used to confirm a fake.

hope this helps some peeps out...

®

Re: Anyone tried the cheap BL-5J batteries being sold on eBay ?
 

the link is broken.

Re: Anyone tried the cheap BL-5J batteries being sold on eBay ?
 

link is http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v1...marauder/BL5J/

Re: Anyone tried the cheap BL-5J batteries being sold on eBay ?
 

This is quite common practice :)

Remember: if it's too good to be true, it probably is. (Think price and capacity here).

Re: Anyone tried the cheap BL-5J batteries being sold on eBay ?
 

Link fixed!

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v1...marauder/BL5J/

Re: Anyone tried the cheap BL-5J batteries being sold on eBay ?
 

Got the same (actually two of those). One has an even better hologram but somehow they still seem to be a bit different than the original. Any idea of how to test them?

Re: Anyone tried the cheap BL-5J batteries being sold on eBay ?
 

hey is that hologram missing the dots on the side of the nokia "coin"? There should be 1 dot, 2 dots, 3 dots on the side of it when viewed from different angles. I forget the exact number...

Not that I'd trust the hologram, nokia said it took 3 days before their hologram was copied...

Re: Anyone tried the cheap BL-5J batteries being sold on eBay ?
 

It shows two on the right, three on the bottom and four on the top, none on the left. But I actually have to twist and turn it quite a bit to see them.
The original that came with teh phone also shows one on the left and they are all alot easier to see. The original hologram has much more of depth to it as well.

Re: Anyone tried the cheap BL-5J batteries being sold on eBay ?
 

I saw this listing on ebay. It says 100% original but im skeptical...

http://cgi.ebay.com/100-New-Original...item2a0473536a

any comments?

Re: Anyone tried the cheap BL-5J batteries being sold on eBay ?
 

I was tempted by one of these

It's not the full 1320 mah but it would do as a back up

Re: Anyone tried the cheap BL-5J batteries being sold on eBay ?
 

if this charge via usb, so i can charge this by a miniUSB wall charger? (like on my motoRAZR)

Re: Anyone tried the cheap BL-5J batteries being sold on eBay ?
 

It also says that "strap" thingy is original. Does Nokia even sell such a thing?

Re: Anyone tried the cheap BL-5J batteries being sold on eBay ?
 

got one with an external charger,
works fine most of the time. somehow the phone loses power suddenly sometimes. can't complain ;)