Good day all members,
Today, something very unfortunate happened to me. My brother and I each met up with our sellers to purchase our pre-owned Galaxy Note 4's ($730 AUD for mine and $720 for his), both claimed to be 1 week old and in as new condition.
When we got home, immediately we noticed both our Note 4's, while highly identical, are a little bit different. After careful examination and running several tests, I was devastated to find out mine is a very well built counterfeit. It's so well built to a point where I was not even a single bit suspicious that mine was a counterfeit while I was inspecting the phone before I made the cash payment, until I compared mine to my brother in law's. The parts that are supposed to be made of metal are made of metal. Please note that I had used galaxy S2, S3 and Note 3 before I decided to switch to a Note 4, therefore I could tell how a genuine galaxy feels like in my hands. Which is why I have decided to create an account here to create awareness that knock off's of this quality do exist.
Please refer below for hardware comparisons:
The one on the left is the counterfeit. Notice the difference in screen vibrancy and the 'back' and 'recent tabs' buttons are not lit on the counterfeit.
The one on the left is the counterfeit. There are slight differences in the size and shape of the home button and bezels.
The one on the left is the counterfeit. Notice the slight differences in the front camera size and position, the size of the font and the shape of the speaker.
The one on the left is the counterfeit. Notice the difference in colours and fonts of the notification bar. The type on the counterfeit belongs to an older model, Galaxy S4 or so.
The one on top is the genuine copy. Notice the difference in the colour of the sleep button, the one on the counterfeit has silver edges while the one on the genuine copy is all white in colour.
The one on the left is the counterfeit. Notice the difference in the shape of the flash, even the shape of the camera lens is slightly different.
The one on top is the counterfeit. The original battery has a lot more wordings on it. The sim card and sd card slots are also different.
Apart from the above, I have run a spec test on the counterfeit using the app "spec device". The results show that the RAM is 1gb instead of 3GB, internal storage is 16GB instead of 32GB, screen resolution and PPI are also substantially lower on the counterfeit. Which is why it feels laggier than the genuine note 4 and the screen is not as sharp and vibrant. The S Pen is also harder to pull out on the counterfeit compared to the original one.
I also noted that the firmware of the counterfeit has less features than the genuine note 4. For e.g., the camera lacks selective focus and the ability to download more camera modes and there is no option to change screen sensitivity. They both run on kitkat 4.4.4 but after googling the build number of the counterfeit, I found out that the ROM installed on the counterfeit belongs to Galaxy S5. The boot screens are also different, the one on the counterfeit shows an Android Robot with jelly beans instead of the model name. I did not find this out after I got home because the seller passed the phone to me without switching it off. Should I have realised this during inspection I would have been suspicious.
I also did an IMEI search for the counterfeit on several different websites. 2 of them say my phone is a Nokia registered in 2009 and 2 other websites say my phone is an S4.
Samsung Kies and Odin won't recognise the counterfeit but the computer does.
At this stage, I am trying to obtain a refund from the seller but the chances are slim as this was a cash deal so I am not covered by paypal or ebay. Can only hope for the best.
So, beware fellow members! Knock offs are getting better and better. Nowadays they can't be differentiated just by spotting spelling mistakes or build quality. You have to really inspect or know the phone inside out before making a purchase. Lesson learned
Today, something very unfortunate happened to me. My brother and I each met up with our sellers to purchase our pre-owned Galaxy Note 4's ($730 AUD for mine and $720 for his), both claimed to be 1 week old and in as new condition.
When we got home, immediately we noticed both our Note 4's, while highly identical, are a little bit different. After careful examination and running several tests, I was devastated to find out mine is a very well built counterfeit. It's so well built to a point where I was not even a single bit suspicious that mine was a counterfeit while I was inspecting the phone before I made the cash payment, until I compared mine to my brother in law's. The parts that are supposed to be made of metal are made of metal. Please note that I had used galaxy S2, S3 and Note 3 before I decided to switch to a Note 4, therefore I could tell how a genuine galaxy feels like in my hands. Which is why I have decided to create an account here to create awareness that knock off's of this quality do exist.
Please refer below for hardware comparisons:
The one on the left is the counterfeit. Notice the difference in screen vibrancy and the 'back' and 'recent tabs' buttons are not lit on the counterfeit.
The one on the left is the counterfeit. There are slight differences in the size and shape of the home button and bezels.
The one on the left is the counterfeit. Notice the slight differences in the front camera size and position, the size of the font and the shape of the speaker.
The one on the left is the counterfeit. Notice the difference in colours and fonts of the notification bar. The type on the counterfeit belongs to an older model, Galaxy S4 or so.
The one on top is the genuine copy. Notice the difference in the colour of the sleep button, the one on the counterfeit has silver edges while the one on the genuine copy is all white in colour.
The one on the left is the counterfeit. Notice the difference in the shape of the flash, even the shape of the camera lens is slightly different.
The one on top is the counterfeit. The original battery has a lot more wordings on it. The sim card and sd card slots are also different.
Apart from the above, I have run a spec test on the counterfeit using the app "spec device". The results show that the RAM is 1gb instead of 3GB, internal storage is 16GB instead of 32GB, screen resolution and PPI are also substantially lower on the counterfeit. Which is why it feels laggier than the genuine note 4 and the screen is not as sharp and vibrant. The S Pen is also harder to pull out on the counterfeit compared to the original one.
I also noted that the firmware of the counterfeit has less features than the genuine note 4. For e.g., the camera lacks selective focus and the ability to download more camera modes and there is no option to change screen sensitivity. They both run on kitkat 4.4.4 but after googling the build number of the counterfeit, I found out that the ROM installed on the counterfeit belongs to Galaxy S5. The boot screens are also different, the one on the counterfeit shows an Android Robot with jelly beans instead of the model name. I did not find this out after I got home because the seller passed the phone to me without switching it off. Should I have realised this during inspection I would have been suspicious.
I also did an IMEI search for the counterfeit on several different websites. 2 of them say my phone is a Nokia registered in 2009 and 2 other websites say my phone is an S4.
Samsung Kies and Odin won't recognise the counterfeit but the computer does.
At this stage, I am trying to obtain a refund from the seller but the chances are slim as this was a cash deal so I am not covered by paypal or ebay. Can only hope for the best.
So, beware fellow members! Knock offs are getting better and better. Nowadays they can't be differentiated just by spotting spelling mistakes or build quality. You have to really inspect or know the phone inside out before making a purchase. Lesson learned
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I have saved all the sms between the seller and I, hopefully can be used as evidence if i'm going to make a police report should i fail to recoup my money.
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