Batteries

OK, I'm in the industry but I'm not obsessed, honestly. Nokia have announced that they are to include a hologram on all their battery labels in an attempt to stamp out counterfeit goods. Motorola and Sony Ericsson have been doing this for years. Nokia, due to their market share, always seem to attract the lions share of exploding battery stories which are usually attributed to the user buying fake replacement batteries.

People are practically forced to buy copied batteries due to the ridiculous pricing of the genuine article. I know that Nokia will pay no more than 4USD for a typical Li-Ion mobile phone battery from their suppliers (Sanyo) but in a shop it'll cost you 30 quid!!! Why the huge mark up? If they are so worried about customers hurting themselves with unsafe product why not price the real thing at a sensible cost? To add insult to injury I bet they're making Sanyo swallow the added cost of the hologram label.

Care should always be taken when using Li-Ion batteries as, without proper protection and quality of manufacture they are a dangerous article prone to explosion (or, as one major cell manufacturer who shall remain nameless, claimed "the battery then exhibited involuntary disassembly" in a field failure return report). Oh how we tittered.

Category:

• Battery
• Li-Ion