Database Users

How to tell fake htc diamond 2 from real?

hey,
There might be already another thread but, the only one i found was one about fake htc diamond not diamond 2.
So, My question how can you examine it before buying like, is the inside different, and outer shape? I have decided on buying one, but I'm scared of fakes "clones".

u can buy it from a trusted place

yeah the thing is i'm buying it used from a local person, and i want to know how to identify if its real before buying it.
btw-the dude is selling it to for $315 canadian

htc fan89 said:
yeah the thing is i'm buying it used from a local person, and i want to know how to identify if its real before buying it.
btw-the dude is selling it to for $315 canadian
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Most of the fakes do not have a 5mp camera.

Another thing I have noticed on the fakes: The zoombar either does not work, or controls volume, so if you can see the volume symbols instead of the magnifying glass with a + or -, then it is fake

I read someone's else thread and he was trying to update to offical windows mobile 6.5 and it wouldn't work, and then he realized his was a fake.
He says fake fake fake don't bother guys, i just realised that the phone I got is a fine fake after diamond 2.... sorry for the trouble and people who want to buy diamond2, be very carefull.... it looks identical, windows is the same etc
the link is http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=627222
I guess it's really hard to tell, by the software if its fake

Genuine or Non-genuine: How to tell.
ABOUT THE BOX & ITS CONTENTS
The non-genuine packing box is approximately 1 centimeter thinner because it does not contain the User Manual. Presumably it is too expensive for the producers of counterfeit phones to produce the 232 page User Manual. (see below)
There must be a serial number sticker on the base of the box and a number of duplicate stickers within the box. These are generally omitted with counterfeit phones.
The box should but does usually not contain the following:-
The HTC Care pamphlet.
An individual Microsoft Windows 6 License number affixed to a small sheet of paper with instructions for synchronizing the phone.
The HTC multi-language Warranty Statement.
The HTC Smart Accessories Smart performance pamphlet.
Screen protector pack (2 sheets)
Spare stylus (1 or 3 pack).
Leather phone pocket or case.
Two FULL SIZED genuine HTC CDs.
A 232 page User Manual.
The Getting started booklet. For T5353 models this is normally written in English. I do not know about other models.
A genuine earphone/headset. On a genuine HTC headset, the moulding extends beyond the earplug in a short square spur. The non-genuine earphones moulding is rounded at the point where the housing joins the round earplug.
A genuine phone wall charger in two parts. The genuine charger is a long rectangular base unit designed to accept the smaller adapter supplied which has the appropriate pins for connection to the supply in the destination country. The non-genuine charger is usually a cheap one piece charger.
ON THE PHONE ITSELF:
Writing near the camera on back of the genuine phone is silver grey, but on the non-genuine phone is white.
The front camera of the non-genuine phone is set approximately 2mm lower and 1mm further to the right than on the genuine phone.
The letters hTC just to the left of the speaker is slightly larger on the non-genuine phone than on the genuine phone.
On the side of the phone to one side of the volume control are the words hTC INNOVATION. On the genuine phone these words appear in fine silver grey lettering. On the counterfeit phone the lettering is smaller and it is black.
On the top of the phone the symbol for the on/off switch is also much less clearly defined, the switch button is shorter on the counterfeit phone and as with the volume control button, it is glossy chrome rather than self coloured as on the genuine phone.
On the base of the phone, the counterfeit phone has a smaller USB symbol, a significantly larger “dot” and a larger and more blocky earphone symbol.
The symbols on control keys for the genuine phone are fine and clear. Those on the non-genuine phone are less well defined and slightly more blocky.
The "Home" symbol, below the end key is considerably more blocky and less well defined on the counterfeit phone.
The tail on the "+" sign for the image enlarger, immediately below the screen, points slightly more to the vertical on the counterfeit phone than it does on the genuine phone.
PERFORMANCE MATTERS THAT REQUIRE INITIALIZATION OF THE PHONE
Camera on the non-genuine phone is usually a low quality camera which does not take 5MP images.
The Photo Zoom area below the screen usually does not zoom images and often zooms the volume instead.
None of the phones I have tested could be hard reset.
The counterfeit phone generally cannot be upgraded to Windows 6.5 because (a) the serial number is not valid which prevents downloading of the required ROM flash from HTC and/or
(b) the phone cannot be flashed with the necessary updated ROM. This may be because the phone cannot be hard reset, a requirement for the ROM flashing process, but even in the rare event that a hard reset is possible the upgrade usually fails for other reasons.
PLEASE NOTE THIS IS NOT AN EXHAUSTIVE LIST.

diagnostic apps

Hi,
I recently purchased my first android device (HTC Incredible S). I’m pretty certain the box was opened and think the phone may be a returned item. What diagnostic apps are available which might help me determine if there are problems with the device? For example is there a way to measure how good the radio is, speed of the CPU, etc?
Thanks,
Kevin

You can run benchmarks, that's about it.
SetCPU will tell you the speed of the chip, I don't think you need root to get that info but the CPU should read the same regardless if it was returned.
Why do you think it was a returned/refurbished item? If you have doubts that makes me think you didn't buy it from a store. If you did buy it from the store, you give some BS reason like poor wifi strength and hope they don't test it in the stores wifi.

It won't get slower with use or anything, so there isn't anything to detect. If it works it works.

I would check for physical signs, like scratches, wear off etc.
There is nothing you can really chec on the phone. Except maybe browse the data with a file explorer and see if there are any remains from programs that are not stock.

>Why do you think it was a returned/refurbished item? If you have doubts that makes me think you didn't buy it from a store.
Nope, I bought it from a carrier in Hong Kong. When the guy came back form the stock room with the phone box he said something like I was lucky because I was getting the last one he had and that he checked to make sure all the accessories were in the box. I didn’t think anything of it at the time but when I was home I noticed that the box has a piece of white paper tape on the bottom and side. You have to slit the tape in order to slide the inner box out. Upon closer examination the white tape strip on the bottom part does not line up with the strip in the top part indicating that the inside box is different from the outside box. Then it hit me that "checking to ensure everything was in there" was a ruse so I would not be bothered by the fact that the box had been opened. Yeah, I should have been quicker on my toes but it was almost closing time and I wanted that phone.

My biggest concern with a Hong Kong phone would probably be that it's counterfeit. I got an HTC Magic that was counterfeit. The easiest way for me to check it was the serial number. `adb devices' showed it as "123456789abcdef" (or similarly absurd).

shorted out ?

i think i shorted out my s4 trying to charge battery with stripped wires because charging port would not work,so i took all the parts from another activated s4 with a broken screen which is on my family plan and put them into my s4 which would not even turn on and after replacing innards the phone now turns on everything works but wont activate tried soft and hard reset tried both sim cards. My question is after you swap parts out is there something i have to do to get the phone to think all the parts now inside are the original parts. the only parts in my phone that are original are the circuit boards or what i call chips which would have to be heated and removed which i am not willing to do. please reply everything works except wont activate. is it possible i fried the circut boards out?

Hi, I'm curious exactly where you put the stripped wires?
I understand there are 2 leads above the battery that are to support a wireless charging module/case. Is That where you hooked it up?
What exactly happened? did it smoke or turn off suddenly? Any visible black spots?
Also, very important, the main board (directly above battery bay, rear camera attaches to it) stores the IMEI # which will persist with the physical chip. I assume that's why it won't activate, sprint sees it as a different phone instead of your phone.
This might be ok though, as long as your IMEI is clear for activation. In this case, you just need a IMEI change on your account, and you should be golden.
(If unsure, call sprint and ask for ESN/imei check)
If blacklisted/active, then there are ways of repairing your IMEI. Legality of it is in the grey, but my view is if you own both phones, you can swap the imei's. Just don't sell the unused one, or zero out the meid (Google play won't work with 0'd imei so you'll have to make a phony one instead)
I used CDMA Tool, it took a bit of fiddling but with the proper guide, you should be able to accomplish it. (There's some kind of efs backdoor, and you must always first zero out the imei, then write a new one, never write a current imei to a new valid imei. For some reason it won't work, otherwise. (That was my experience, YMMV)
Last, you can buy the USB board that plugs in for about $6 on eBay. (Bought this today) this one is relatively easy. Unfortunately I found out the home button replacement requires removing the digitizer, using a heat gun. The USB board is one of the first things you see after taking plastic back off (9 screws).
Also, let me know how it works out.

Mvmcad thanks for reply, i put the 2 stripped wires in ]between the battery terminal and the terminls on rear of phone under the case it sparked but no smoke and no black spots, phone just would not turn on anymore untill i swapped all the parts .to get a clearer picture if u pop off your back cover and with the battery in place slide wires in between phone terminals and battery terminals at top of battery. would sprint be able to switch IEMI # over phone ?

Oh I see.. Yes sprint should be able to swap a IMEI over the phonr as long as you can provide the correct account information (they probably will ask for old IMEI as well as new IMEI). Gl!

[Q] I9505: No WCDMA/LTE after phone damage & repair

Hello,
I had my phone water damaged and repaired, but now my WCDMA/LTE doesn't work and I have some suspicions they had a faulty repair on my phone. Here's a timeline of the events to understand why"
1. Bought I9505 (I live in europe, hence the european version). All worked fine, had HSDPA (no 4g when I bought it 2 years ago, since my carrier didn't support it yet).
2. Did a small dent in the phone's screen (cracked glass in the upper corner, near proximity sensor, tiny piece of glass missing [1mm], but touch screen worked fine)
3. Dropped it in water while on vacation. Quickly took out battery, bought a bag of rice and held it in rice for ~20h, hoping the water would be absorbed.
4. Next day I fully charged then turned on my phone, it was connected to 3g, I was receiving facebook notifications, my mother called me at one point and ringtone was working. The only problem: touch screen didn't respond at all so I couldn't answer or unlock my screen.
5. Took it to a local service, they changed my screen (and did a full reset on my phone that I wasn't asked permission for - that I didn't understand why, but I thought who knows, maybe they needed it for the screen change). However, I wasn't upset since I was more interested in getting my touch screen to work, and it did.
6. HERE's THE PROBLEM: yes, they fixed my touch screen, but now i have to use it only in "GSM only" network mode, since the others don't work: whenever I choose any of the other options ("WCDMA/GSM, WCDMA only, WCDMA/GSM/LTE"), I lose signal completely, and I get "Not registered on network" message when trying to call. I should mention that APN setting are correct and I tried the SIM in another phone and it worked. I also tried another SIM in my phone and it didn't work.
7. Somehow I thought it might've been the water damage and I was ok (although upset) with it. But I searched the internet for answers since I thought maybe I'd fix my phone due to a software/bad config problem. I used ODIN to flash different versions of official firmwares with no success.
8. HERE's WHY I'm SUSPICIOUS: I found some piece of information that said the LTE/WCDMA(data) module is embedded in the display, not in the motherboard. Upon further research, i found the USSD code *#2663# that tells me the display is from a SGH-I337 (S4 model used in the US). Thus, if the data module truly is embedded in the display, that would render my data service useless, since the US frequency is not the same with EU frequency.
What do you guys think ?
Is it truly the display's fault or did I get erroneous information regarding the WCDMA/LTE ?
Am I entitled to negotiate with them because they put an incompatible component on my phone for a partial refund or is this my phone's fault ?
Is there any way to force the frequency somehow so my phone works (rooting & modifying some modem files maybe) ?
I'm sorry if I had some presumtious/loaded questions, but it's all information that I had from the internet.
Thank you for your patience to read all of this.

Do us a favor please? Enter download mode (Volume -, Home, Power) and read off the model number listed there. Reason being that I suspect your phone was totally replaced, with an AT&T model.

Did that just now, the product name says GT-I9505. The IMEI is also the same as before (checked with the product packaging it came with when I bought it). Could they have any way to overwrite this stuff ? Because your knack is not unfounded - under the battery, the IMEI/SN sticker seems to have been peeled and re-glued since it's wrinkly and misaligned.
Worst part is they're authorized Samsung service partners, that's the reason I went to them and not another service. (I can find them on the samsung website, when looking for service locations)

It sounds like they simply moved your motherboard into an AT&T midframe. I'd take it back to them posthaste and have them fix it properly. Because LTE isn't working, and it was before they did their work, they are responsible.

Got my new phone today, but I have a question

Just got my new Essential phone in the White color today from Amazon.
Beautiful device!
The question and concern I have has to do with the packaging.
I found it odd that there were no stickers or peel strips keeping the box closed when I got it. In other words I just pulleed the box open without any security stickers to remove, cut or peel.
The phone seems to be in perfect condition but I do not want a phone which was perhaps returned or registered to someone else who returned it.
Is this packaging normal?

Emhdroid said:
Just got my new Essential phone in the White color today from Amazon.
Beautiful device!
The question and concern I have has to do with the packaging.
I found it odd that there were no stickers or peel strips keeping the box closed when I got it. In other words I just pulleed the box open without any security stickers to remove, cut or peel.
The phone seems to be in perfect condition but I do not want a phone which was perhaps returned or registered to someone else who returned it.
Is this packaging normal?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Essentials OEM box has a peel strip on the back of the box along the seam. You can't open the box without pulling this strip.

Thats what I kind of thought.
Sending back to Amazon and they are to send a new one. Will use this one until the new one arrives.
Goronok said:
Essentials OEM box has a peel strip on the back of the box along the seam. You can't open the box without pulling this strip.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse