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

Hey guys ... Well I'm thinking of buying a spare BL-5J battery for my N900, and the prices on eBay are simply too good to resist :P

So basically my question is, are they safe ? I know they are probably not original Nokia stuff (if I'm wrong in assuming this, please correct me so), but still can they be safely used with a N900 ? Do note that even though the model number is the same, all the buyers there currently are only listing 5800 XM as being compatible with the battery .. ?

Any info regarding the above would be greatly appreciated :)

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

I was about to buy some with that external charger, the two pack.

I wanted to wait for a review....I guess we are all playing a game of chicken with them lol.

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

I bought a cheapo battery for my N90 a few years ago, and now the phone doesn't seem to act right (random shutoffs, doesn't charge all the time, etc...). I wouldn't really risk getting a cheap battery for this phone, mainly since it costs so much. Also, I'm not sure but, if something were to happen to the phone while using the "fake" battery, it may void the warranty.

I'd check further into the latter statement, but in any case, I'd definitely go for the quality, OEM battery. That's just my personal experience.

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

So is this one an original Nokia one ?:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002UBIM98

Or should I just get this one ?:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001O5ES0S

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

Hmmm... they both seem to give the impression that they're OEM (the first one actually saying OEM, and the second referring to it being genuine and Nokia warranty, etc...). Why the first one is so cheap is beyond my reasoning, other than it's not OEM. But I could be wrong. So you COULD take a chance on it, and then follow this guide to check its authenticity:

http://www.nokiausa.com/get-support-...k-your-battery

If not, I guess you'd be able to send it back since it was sold under a false pretense. Also, they used to have it where you could just put in the serial number on the battery, and it would tell you if it's authentic, but I can't find that at the moment.

So, all in all, I guess it's just a matter of how much time and money you're willing to spend/waste. :)

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

I bought a battery from ebay for my n95. It was such a good copy on the outside that even the nokia engineer was dubious... except it didn't actually work.

I'd buy from a reputable company for something like that. ;0

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

Not recommended.

I can't see there being much difference between camcorder and phone battery technologies

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

I rarely buy stuff like that on Ebay - in fact I rarely buy anything from Ebay these days.

Things like sd cards and batteries are usually bought from someone reputable (e.g. personally I use play.com) otherwise steer clear!

There is just too many counterfeit and dodgy goods on Ebay to justify any savings you could make.

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

The N900 uses the same battery as the 5800 (I've got both and have swapped batteries without problems).

As for buying cheap batteries off eBay, I really wouldn't recommend it. I'm not a battery expert but I was tempted by cheap batteries for my E61 a few years ago. Did some research first and what I've found is that, at best, cheap battery will work but will only have a fraction of the capacity of a genuine battery (on the N900 which already has a poor battery life, that could mean that your cheap battery could die in a couple of hours). Worst case scenario, the battery could not work, be leaking or overheating. Not worth the risk just to save a few quid.

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

Damn damn damn....I bought one of these off Amazon a week or so ago, never having bought a spare battery before i didn't know how much they were supposed to cost - first one i saw was £5.99, i bought it and have been using it when the original ran out - quite a few times (real heavy user as i now run my online business with it)...it lasts as well as the original but now i think i must bin it and get one from Nokia to be safe....i really don't want to break my new toy!!! Damn again!!!

Ok...checked the battery against the original and with the links above and although the hologram looks good at first glance it's definately different to the original...fake i reckon!...it's going in the bin...not worth the risk for a £20 saving!

as a foot note, i also bought the £3.96 pack of 12 screen protectors from Amazon, they are excellent, easy to put on and no ill effects to the screen sensitivety...and the proximety sensor works :-)...some you win, some you lose :rolleyes:

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

I bought 4 batteries and a desktop charger for a tenner a few weeks ago and they work like a charm, in fact even better than the original. Have the link somewhere if anyone needs it.

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

Please :) :)

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

Yes, mine work as good as the original as well....so the question is, do i keep using it and hope it doesn't go BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM?...for me...no. Not after reading the link in Duffer's post.
At the end of the day it's your choice.

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

Kieron here are the links

http://www.suntekstore.co.uk/1320mAh...ell-Phone.html

http://www.suntekstore.co.uk/BL-5J--...sic---N81.html

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

Just stay away from sources like ebay for batteries (and SD cards). Fake, bad, batteries may well be without a protection circuit etc. It's just too mush risk. If you want to buy a 3party battery then at least buy from a reputable source.

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

Thank yoooou

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

I bought a BL-5J from ebay from hong kong. Cost me 1 cent for the battery and 4.59$ shipping. I hasn't arrived yet, but generally about these batteries (I did a lot of reading on the subject before buying):

- Very low risk of "boom" and "exploshuns" and whatever nonsense. This can happen with most batteries, but even after market OEM suppliers are not doing this intentionally. They do have QA, even if the batteries are of inferiour quality.
- Some (but not all) of the cheap aftermarket batteries are in fact the same batteries as sold by the original seller. Same OEM supplier, same internals, different packaging.
- Many of the aftermarket batteries are of weak quality. Expect shorter-then-advertised running time - 60% should not come as a surprise. On the other hand, they're easily only 20% of the price of a genune battery

Bottomline being: Don't be paranoid and don't expect too much of them. My recommendation is:
- Buy those cheap aftermarket batteries as a backup. When your main battery dies, it's nice to have another one, even if it lasts only a couple of hours. It was dead cheap and takes no space in your bag.
- Don't buy those cheap batteries as a replacement for the main one. If after a couple of years your main battery is done for, get a genuine replacement. Of course you could try an aftermarket one, but it will possibly disappoint you.


BTW (!): At the moment, hong kong post has a backlog of two weeks because of missing shipping lines. Many sellers from hong kong have delayed shipping (I ordered my battery 2 weeks ago, I expect it to arrive in another week or two). Here's the official statement: http://www.hongkongpost.com/eng/misc...204a/index.htm

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

Its common for cheap batteries on ebay etc to lack the protection chips for over-charge, short-circuit, over-drain.
None of those are likely in your phone, but be careful if carrying them outside your phone.
And if using an external charger, check it does not overcharge. (4.2V max is normal). I bought one kit that charged to 4.4v - not enough to start a fire, but would significantly reduce the lifetime, and add some risk.
Some cheap batteries come close to original capacity spec's and some are awful.
I ordered a couple from DX. the reviews were good, but you never know there if the current batch will be as good as the last one.

edit: oops, didn't read page 2 of the thread. Like those guys above said ... :-)

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

Even though only a few of the el-cheapo non-protected batteries explode, some definitely do. And the consequences are very bad. Thus, I still maintain that it is not worth it.

One thing is a risk of something cheap just failing. It's an entirely different thing when the darn thing may explode (and again, they do).

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

Official ones too, but I don't know if they do it as often as cheap ones. Maybe that happens more often on cheap batteries, but maybe that's because they're so cheap that you get several.
I have 3 cheap batteries for my N810, 3 for my (to be replaced by N900) phone, bought on DX, I've been happy with all 6 of them. The original battery of my phone has become worthless, that's why I bought them in the first place. They don't hold as much of a charge as the original ones when they were new, but they're pretty decent.

Don't forget that even official batteries have a limited lifetime.

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

Just bought two of these and they arrived within 24hrs

http://www.evertop.co.uk/p/673642/ge...inal-bl5j.html

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

I recieved my deskcharger and not-official bl-5j replacement battery yesterday. I used the battery today and the batterybar stays full for a long time. after looking at the lshal|grep battery data the reporting.design for this non-official battery is 633mAh instead of 1275mAh for the normal battery. IMO this has to be higher and this is the reason why the battery level indicator isn't working. Anyone else having the same problem?

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

just tested the battery desktop charger, managed to charge the battery to 97percent.

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

I received my cheap replacement today. 1c + 4.69 shipping from hong kong.

They even cared faking the Nokia hologram. It's not just a picture but a real hologram but I think it's still wrong (the hands should go hand in hand in an animation if I remember correctly). Here's some pictures. Claims to be made in Hungary ;)

Clicky pictures.
http://stuff.moritzg.ch/thm-DSC09926.JPG
http://stuff.moritzg.ch/thm-DSC09927.JPG
http://stuff.moritzg.ch/thm-DSC09930.JPG

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

can you post the lshal|grep battery data?

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

Sorry, I'm still waiting for my n900 ;) Damn, I'll probably receive it in early january most probably...

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

I received two Chinese batteries and a wall (+ USB output) charger from Hong Kong for $12.

The wall charger supplies a very stable 4.2V to the battery and has an auto-off circuit to prevent overcharge. No clue if either the charger or battery has a more intelligent controller (usually required for safe operation of Li-Poly packs) and I'm not tearing them apart to find out.

USB output is similarly stable 5.0V.

I'm going to use these while keeping a careful eye on them. Statistically speaking, the risk of fire or explosion is vanishingly small, so I'm not going to be losing any sleep over this.

Overall, looks to be good quality construction for very inexpensive price.

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

svengalis, if the batteries still perform well a few weeks from now, could you please list the seller here? tia

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

Can you post the output from lshal | grep battery (or equivalently, hal-device bme ) for the chinese battery?

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

I'm N900-less, still waiting for the order to ship from Dell.

As soon as I have the phone, I'll publish the details here, and again after comparing the cheap batteries to the real one.

Alternatively, you could, uh, send me *your* phone in which event I'd be happy to test the batteries immediately. :D

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

Re hologram, IIRC Nokia said it took 3 days until the hologram was copied with such accuracy that their own people couldn't tell the difference...

That said, the Nokia logo is like a pretty tall button, and has round circles on the sides. In the photo I don't see that detail.

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

it's in the mail

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

I bought a BL-5J clone for US$3.72 each delivered.
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.d...691~r.60561251

Capacity is limited, but for the price it makes a good emergency backup.
I got less than 12 hours, including overnight, before it died with little warning. Maybe an hour of music, a little web. Its such a power-hungry phone, that you need as much battery capacity as you can get.
The cell is protected, and it even has a real hologram, but not as nice as the true nokia one.

(disclosure: referall code gives me 1c/battery:-)

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

Good news: I have my N900, and the cheap eBay batteries work. They are, as expected, worth exactly as much as I paid for them. :D

I'll post lshal results and use observations in the next day or two. For now, know that they report a design capacity of ~600 mAh. They hold this charge exceptionally well - after 5 hours of heavy use, still 100% charge. Can't beat that kind of staying power! ;)

Summary: these work, but have less capacity than the OEM and have non-functional onboard controllers, so state of charge (SoC) and voltage are not correctly reported to the N900. For emergency/backup use, I'm fine with this, but I won't be using them under normal circumstances.

Has anyone else purchased cheap batteries that correctly report SoC?

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

Another HK/China seller, focalprice, has BL-5Js, but these are after-market branded, not fake Nokia, and have some packaging.
They are about us$6 each shipped, and _claim_ around 1000mAHr.

http://www.focalprice.com/MB097B/37V...L5J_Black.html
http://www.focalprice.com/MB105S/37V...okia_5800.html

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

Not much more to add on my eBay batteries. They are somewhere in the 400-500 mAh range and fail to report SoC, so they're useless as anything but emergency backups.

For $10, I now have an external battery charger and two emergency batteries. Well worth it! :)

Now to get a spare battery...

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

Dealextreme are now listing "100% Genuine" BL-5J for us$17 delivered. At that price it must be real!

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

guys, would a 1800 mAh capacity batter harm our N900 in anyway?
my place here sells BL 5J with 1800 mAh capacity.
the brand is called Sun Global.

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

Even if the stated capacity was true (it is not), it would do no harm.
Unless it exploded for being dangerously engineered to get that otherwise impossible capacity in that volume.

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

Are you sure it is not true? I purchased "big" replacement batteries on Ebay before and, though maybe the capacity does not match the labeling, it is still way better than original batteries (say,original BLB-2 is 700mAh, if you buy one marked "1200", you may get 1000-1100 or so). The question is how do i pick good ones? Any advices? I want bigger battery for my n900..