Why you should be careful with storing batteries... and buying used iPhones
One month ago I bought a new phone because the battery on my Samsung Galaxy S3 was losing capacity. That problem showed up several times before. Here is my story:
After the first year and a half using my Galaxy S3 I had an issue. The battery started to swell a little bit and couldn't keep it's power long enough to last a day. So I ordered a new official Samsung battery on ebay. Installed it and i was good to go. I thought my first battery was just from a bad batch, so I didn't give it a lot of attention.
One year later it started to swell again. I started looking online if other people had the same problem and they did. Apparently the battery tends to swell when the phone gets hot a lot. Indeed the phone got hot a lot using mobile internet. Even so hot that it scared me sometimes when it was in my pocket. I contacted Samsung to address this problem. They said they were aware of it and sent me a new battery for free. It was only a matter of time to see the other battery swelling as well. The newer Galaxy S4's had the same problem, so I decided to get another brand.
(I left the S3 and the battery untouched and it doubled in size as you can see. Thank God it never exploded during a call or anyting.)
Why I went for an iPhone I wanted one of these, because I figured these phones had a better build quality and lasted long (if you don't drop them). A friend of me had his iPhone 4 for 4 or 5 years and it still worked fine. Only the homebutton didn't work anymore (but there is a solution for that).
Buying it used from sellers online was a great idea I thought. (As a student I try to save as much as I can on things that lose value quickly.) I found a guy that was selling his brand new iPhone 6 32gb for €500. ⧫He was selling it because his girlfriend didn't like to use it. I contacted him and a bunch of other sellers, but he was the only one that replied.
He told me to call him. ⧫On the call he asked if I was an iPhone user already. (As you know I wasn't). The call ended and he sent me an address. I arrived at the spot and he asked to sit in the car. He seemed like a nice guy, explained everything about the phone, that it was his birthday today, then he showed the bill for the warranty. He compared the IMEI number on the bill and in the settings. When I swiped a bit and opened a few apps it looked good, so I gave him the money.
When I came home I started to explore. Adjusted some settings, took a picture,... Then I tried to log in on the App store, suddenly the Google Play Store opened up. The minute I realised it was a fake iPhone my heart started pumping so hard. My emotions went on a rollercoaster. I was angry and sad on the same time. The money I just lost was almost half of my savings. I checked to see if the bill was fake as well... and it was. One second I thought/hoped that the phone only had some custom firmware installed or something.
The next workday I went to file this scam to the police. They wrote everything down what I said. The address, how he looked, his phone number,etc.. They linked up the phone and looked for deleted messages. They found nothing. Case closed...
People will call me stupid
After thinking how everything happened I saw the red flags (that I marked with "⧫" before every sentence in my story). People will probably see some extra flags. I didn't spot the red flags because I was super excited to get my first iPhone, plus the fake iPhone looked so real. The software was 95% the same. When booting up it showed an Apple logo, home screen looked exactly the same, firing up the camera showed a square box like the real iPhone, etc... On the outside I can't spot any differences compared to a real iPhone.
It learned me a lesson
*Trust your gut instinct, especially buying used and popular tech.
*Don't get emotionally involved when buying (houses, tech, cars,...) if you want a good deal.
*When it's too good to be true, it probably is.
S3 here. No problems... original battery. Lasts me two days.
I guess you got one from the good batch haha.
I only enable mobile internet, wifi, GPS when I need to use them. Using CyanogenMod 13.
In reality... I maybe make 2 calls a day and rarely use any of the things mentioned above. Battery lasts about 5 hours if everything is enabled and your are actively using the phone. When left idle the battery can last a week. It's all about how often and for what you use your phone.
CM13 is great right. Had it installed on the S3 as well. Tbh who wants a phone that you can barely use? I ditched the S3 man :/ And yes i only enable mobile internet and GPS when I needed it. However wifi was always on.
Received the Galaxy J5 as a gift and because I couldnt afford to spend more money to get a new phone. The J5 lasts 1.5 days using mobile internet a lot and wifi is on all day :)
Bloated battery syndrome.... never good!
I'm scared of them. Imagine they blow up in your pocket or when calling.
Ouch, that's a rough one. I had an s3 and was plagued by other problems. I think after the s6 they started to sort themselves out. I feel your pain losing the cash to such a scam. What a low life
I hope they sorted it all out. Unbelievable that they brought the S4 on the market with the same problems as the S3. My confidence in Samsung has dropped tbh.
I should try the S6 to see if they did better. Thanks for your comment (y).
My friend has the s6, he loves it. Of course he could be a d1ck ;)
Where you from? Meesterboom sounds like its from the Netherlands XD
I be from Scotland, I have had it explained to me that meesterboom roughly translates as teacher tree in the Netherlands!!
Do what I do, buy a chinese phone, but pay attention, not a brand that is not known. Huawei is kind of good, but mostly what you can find on amazon it's pretty cheap and good for the job they have to do. I bought mine off from amazon and it works like a jet! and yes, I knew about the battery of the S3, they could do nothing about it,a friend of mine changed the phone just because she was tired to see that happening again and again.
I'll do more research next time I buy a new phone. Thanks for the tips.
I basically got a new phone for that same reason. The processor and screen resolution were very good on the S3...
Thank you for the comment :)
Hi! This post has a Flesch-Kincaid grade level of 4.6 and reading ease of 88%. This puts the writing level on par with Ernest Hemingway and Donald Trump.
Great post!
thank you :)