What's your experience with Hong Kong replacement batteries - good or bad?

The BP-4L battery I just bought on eBay from a Hong Kong dealer has two problems.

1. One of the connectors wasn't making good contact. This was easily fixed.

2. When the battery is charged in the N810, it shows fully charged, but the battery status says 4 days / 3 hours, and battery-status reports 43% full.

Should I give Hong Kong another try, or give it up?

I bought a "new" NIMH battery from an HK seller on eBay a few months ago, contacts were dirty and it wouldn't hold a charge.

My money was refunded, but I wouldn't by from this particular seller again.

Every other experience I've had with HK sellers has been pleasant.

For the record, there have been several threads on this topic. The most relevant I found are:

Battery Replacement N800
Possibly fake Nokia batteries - how unsafe are they really?
Replacement Battery for N800
Any High Capcity Batteries? (I couldn't find any of these for the N810)

This is what someone who knows stuff about batteries told me: Unless you plan on using your second battery almost as intensively as your primary, don't bother buying a second LiIon or LiPol battery; they age by simply lying there and are therefore almost always a waste of money. I should know, I have two spare batteries for my SE P910i that I barely even used and that now hold no charge.

If you do have an occasional need for longer battery life, one of those so-called "emergency" cellphone battery chargers can provide you, depending on how many batteries it holds, with 50 to 100% extra gogo-juice. The (now) added benefit is that there --still? -- are no rules about taking NiMh or alkalines in the airplane cabin.

And now, unless you are an under-the-counter supplier of novocain, go away. I want to die.

I have to agree with Karel when it comes to keeping spare batteries around.. it's mostly a waste. I've given in to the temptation of getting a spare battery now and then, but they only end up in the fridge (at best). For example, I got a great offer for a spare battery when I bought a digital camera, with higher capacity than the original. In 1.5 years I've swapped batteries once. Later I bought a replacement camera, and now I have three batteries.. two are never used.

(As for airplanes - no worries, in-cabin isn't a problem. The restrictions are in checked-in luggage.)

Unbranded HK Batteries tend to be overrated, missold and regularly underperform in my experience. Unless you happen to know which OEM sells to Nokia so you can purchase them directly at cost - I wouldn't bother.

One method they used to advertise over-inflated performance ratings is to specify mAh at a lower voltage and one method of misselling is to use the key words "up to". So for example - they'd sell a 3.7V battery and tell you it has a capacity up to 8000mAh [reading the small print, usually not on the website selling the batteries - the rating of 8000mAh is taken at 1.2V under critical temperatures and the highest density sample - the actual mAh is way lower at 3.7V say for example 400mAh! I'm making up the figures obviously to illustrate.]

At the end of the day I'd stick to official batteries if I needed a critical second battery. Personally I carry around a tiny retractable USB charging cable and keep the IT topped up wherever I can [I even have a small Car Adapter -> USB charging socket.] If I _had_ to be out and about for several hours (and I don't have my car) it's easy enough to get hold of a small "USB" personal charger.

If you want your $10 batteries to last five years, you are probably out of luck. If you are perfectly happy with forgetting to charge your battery and waiting a few hours before you can use your tablet, you don't need a battery.

But I wouldn't be without my $20 worth of spare batteries, all two of them. They have worked perfectly and after almost a year's intensive usage (each battery has typically been charged at least once a day for more than 300 days), I can't tell the difference between the real Nokia battery and the fake Hong Kong batteries.

One thing having a spare battery is especially good for is reviving a Nokia that has gone dead overnight. Just put in a fresh battery and in the time it takes to boot up, you are good to go. (Unless you have a defective tablet, of course.)

I did also invest in a $10 battery charger, which even works on the real Nokia battery. It is also still working perfectly.

As I have commented before, I virtually never plug my N800 in. I have been relying only on the batteries. It seems too clunky to me to be plugged in, so I have to actually unplug if I'm listening to something on my N800 and I want to go down and visit the fridge. Puhlease! I just grab it and go.

Oh, "up to" is the key weasel wording! I see what you mean:

"The rechargable battery provides up to 10 days of standby time and up to 3 hours of continuous Web browsing or media playback."

Oops, that is official Nokia lingo. Maybe "up to" isn't the key to deception...

Hey, no fair! You guys with the good HK batteries didn't vote in the poll!

Geneven, do you remember who you bought your batteries from?

BTW the spare battery is for use while travelling outside the U.S. I plan to use the N810 to grab email at convenient hotspots, including in airports, and then, on long plane flights, read PDFs and check the plane's position. In hotel rooms, where AC plugs are not always conveniently located, I will use it for email, reading U.S. newspapers, and listening to NPR and the BBC. (The sound quality is better than my travel shortwave radio.)

I would sum up HK made batteries in 3 Words. Place them in a sentence as you please.

Cheap ! !

Shite ! !

Garbage ! !.

This goes for laptop batteries ( so called LiIon, NiMh etc ) and others.