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.

Please

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.

Kieron here are the links

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

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

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.

Thank yoooou

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

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 ... :-)

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).

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.