[BNHabs]

What does failure usage mean? I purchased a Seidio battery and all of the sudden after 3 days of use it stopped working all together. I contacted the seller and this is what he said:

We test the product and found the battery is defective when manufacture (not cause of failure usage),

Does this cover the product not working after a few days or what? He will only give me full refund if the batter was defective when manufacture...

[BNHabs]

It wouldn't make sence that I won't get fully refunded because the battery stopped working after a few days. That has to be defective but what does failure usage mean?

[valiantdust]

Well, if your battery died after only 3 days, I'd say it is likely defective (assuming you didn't whack it with a hammer or dunk it in your coffee or something).

"Failure usage" sounds like poor English skills to me, but then you didn't say anything about who the seller is. I have a hunch that "failure usage" is roughly akin to "user error" or "improper usage", or something along those lines.

My best guess is that you'll have to send the battery back, whereupon they will test it to make sure it's actually broken, and if so, whether it's broken by defect or because of some bad thing you did (i.e., hammer or coffee).

Hope that helps. From where I sit, it seems like you'll have to send it back, and they either give you a refund, a replacement, or neither.

Let us know what happens; if they don't honor their warranty, that would be a good thing for your fellow CrackBerriers to know so we can avoid buying from them.

Best of luck!

[BNHabs]

Well, if your battery died after only 3 days, I'd say it is likely defective (assuming you didn't whack it with a hammer or dunk it in your coffee or something).

"Failure usage" sounds like poor English skills to me, but then you didn't say anything about who the seller is. I have a hunch that "failure usage" is roughly akin to "user error" or "improper usage", or something along those lines.

My best guess is that you'll have to send the battery back, whereupon they will test it to make sure it's actually broken, and if so, whether it's broken by defect or because of some bad thing you did (i.e., hammer or coffee).

Hope that helps. From where I sit, it seems like you'll have to send it back, and they either give you a refund, a replacement, or neither.

Let us know what happens; if they don't honor their warranty, that would be a good thing for your fellow CrackBerriers to know so we can avoid buying from them.

Best of luck!

Excellent post. The battery was not mistreated AT all. I did not even touch it. I used it for two days then I went on a trip so I left my phone on my desk for two days. I came back and my phone would not turn on, I tried everything, battery pulls, charging it EXT. I hope I get a full refund!

[BNHabs]

Okay the seller said it means: "That is like dropping, water damage, heat, not proper charging etc". Does that mean if it was cold in my house then it is not covered? I have millions of batteries and all of them work amazingly.

[valiantdust]

Okay the seller said it means: "That is like dropping, water damage, heat, not proper charging etc". Does that mean if it was cold in my house then it is not covered? I have millions of batteries and all of them work amazingly.

Most batteries don't do so well near high heat sources. I'm guessing that is what the seller means. Having a warm house shouldn't be a problem, but putting it next to your space heater or leaving it in your car in the desert all day might be.

I've never heard of cold actually harming gadget batteries; in fact, I've heard of people trying to resuscitate old, dead laptop batteries by chilling them in the freezer. (It doesn't work, don't bother trying it.) Still, I don't know for actual fact that really low temperatures can't hurt a battery, so don't leave your phone outside in Alaska in the winter on my say-so.

Unless you live in a meat locker, though, your home temperature shouldn't come anywhere close to the level of coldness required to hurt your phone battery.

Edit: Just for fun, you might want to check what the battery manufacturer says the proper charging procedure is. It used to be that you didn't want to let your gadget keep charging once it reached full charge; you could shorten the life of the battery that way. Most devices these days stop charging automatically after reaching full charge, though, so I doubt that is the problem.

FWIW: These sorts of batteries (by which I mean lithium-ion rechargeable batteries) come up defective all the time, particularly aftermarket batteries.

Most phone (or laptop/PDA/whatever) manufacturers have very high quality standards that battery vendors must meet before the phone maker will put their batteries into their products. Why? Because the phone maker is the one the customer is going to complain to when the battery fails. The phone maker's brand reputation is on the line, so they require all sorts of testing and low-failure rate guarantees from their suppliers. In order to meet these standards, the battery suppliers do extensive quality control testing to make sure their batteries meet the phone manufacturer's standards -- if they don't, they could lose their contracts, or even wind up being sued for breach of contract. So the supplier tests and tests their batteries, and when they find ones that are duds, they throw them away. That's one reason why buying a replacement battery from your phone's manufacturer costs so much: the reputation of their brand is very important to them, so they want the batteries with their name on them to be high-quality, with a low failure rate. That sort of battery is expensive to make, and therefore is expensive for you to buy.

Aftermarket batteries are cheaper (in part) because they don't have to meet the phone manufacturer's quality standards, which will include a low failure rate. The aftermarket batteries may work just as well, but they are also more likely to fail. The aftermarket manufacturer's sales don't depend as much on their brand's rep, so they aren't as worried about their failure rate being high. If your AM battery fails, you'll send it back, and they'll send you a new one, then they'll throw the busted one away.

That's really the main reason for the price difference between the manufacturer-branded battery and the aftermarket battery: you're paying the phone manufacturer extra to have them throw the dud battery away before you get it, rather than after.

Or, if you like, you can think of it this way: the aftermarket battery maker can afford to charge less for their batteries because they save money by having you do their quality control for them.

(I'm not talking about ALL aftermarket companies here, of course; some are very concerned about their reputations, and go the extra mile to make sure their products are high quality. They also charge you for it.)

[valiantdust]

Wow, that was a lot longer than I thought it was.

Short version:

-- Very high heat is bad for your battery.
-- Very cold temperatures may also be bad for your battery.
-- Your house is probably neither hot enough or cold enough to be bad for your battery.
-- With batteries, you get what you pay for.

(Why didn't I just say that?)

[BNHabs]

The battery was from a very well known company named Seidio. The batter costs like $50. More money then the original. It is slightly bigger giving more battery life. I don't think Seidio is crap because lot's of people have these batteries on the forums.

[valiantdust]

The battery was from a very well known company named Seidio. The batter costs like $50. More money then the original. It is slightly bigger giving more battery life. I don't think Seidio is crap because lot's of people have these batteries on the forums.

*huff* Well, *I* haven't heard of Seidio, so how good can it be?

Seriously though, I don't know anything about Seidio, good or bad; I was speaking generally (and lengthily, it turns out). It sounds like you know more than I do about this particular company. And of course good companies sometimes ship duds too.

In that light, I'd say feel free to ignore the last point in my "nutshell" post above. The first three should still be applicable.

Best of luck!