For those of you who are shopping online on eBay or maybe in offline retail store, you may want to be aware of fake Galaxy Note 4 phones that look exactly like a real one.
Recently, I bought a used Note 4 off eBay and found out that it was one of these fake Note 4 models. (There’s actually many being sold on eBay like this one.)
Worst, if you are not tech-savvy, you may end up using these fake Note 4 phones for months without realizing it’s fake. The fake Note 4 actually bring you many of the features of a real Note 4 but your experience much degraded by cloned software and MediaTek CPU which is many times slower than the real Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 processor on a real Note 4.
So, how do you spot a fake Note 4?
First, be aware of Note 4 model numbers with N910 and SM-N910F. If the box shows just “N910” as model number it’s fake as the official model number on the box should have “SM” in front and additional character trailing it like “SM-N910F” (For T-Mobile, it’s SM-N910T, Sprint is SM-N910P, Verizon is SM-N910V, and AT&T is SM-N910A).
Second, if you take a look at the back of the phone (with the back cover and battery out), you will see “Made by Sansung” instead of “Made by Samsung”.
Third, if you look under Settings->About Phone, you will see Baseband version starting with “MOLY” and also “Custom Build version” as i9228.
Fourth, your camera app should have settings for 4K and 1080P video. On a fake Note 4, you will only see low, medium, and high quality settings.
Fifth, if you power off your phone and hold down Volume Down, Center Home, and Power buttons for 3 seconds, you should see ODIN Download Mode, which also specifies the real model number of your Note 4 on top-left of the screen. If you don’t see this and see some Chinese characters, you know it’s fake Note 4.
There’s probably even more things you will notice with fake Note 4 but if you see any of the mentioned features of the fake Note 4, you will want to avoid it.
I simply cannot believe there are still numerous sellers on eBay fake-bidding fake Note 4 phones to gullible smartphone buyers who may never find out they bought a fake phone for many times it’s worth.
For example, these fake Note 4 can be bought on AliExpress.com for around $150. That means I made the seller $350 in profits by buying at $500! That profit may be a lot more than what Samsung actually makes on each phone!
Overall, it’s disappointing many Chinese companies decide to make clone phones, the Chinese government should step in and regulate these fake companies. It’s unfortunate that companies like this spread bad image to China, I’ve even seen fake eggs being exported from China. The worst is that these fake phones promote scammers/scams to happen. If they didn’t exist, scammers couldn’t scam people.
Buyers be aware, make sure you buy a genuine smartphone, I do not recommend any fake/clone smartphones as they are usually poorly made and will break within months. You will end up spending more money in the long run if your fake Note 4 breaks so just buy the real thing or something that suits your budget. There are plenty of great older model phones I can recommend that are still plenty capable like even the Note 3.
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