Published December 21, 2009 | 
vx9100 Replacement Battery |
So you have had your cell phone for a year, maybe more, and you are starting to notice that your battery doesn’t last as long as it used to. Maybe you have to charge it every night or it wont make it through the next day. It can get pretty frustrating and it can be expensive (or impossible) to get the cell phone’s battery replaced at the cell phone retailer. |
No doubt you have turned to the internet to search for a replacement. You see some on ebay and other websites for as little as $5.00 + shipping and you wonder, are these any good? Can I really get a battery for that cheap?
Well I have personally purchased several replacement cheap cellphone and laptop batteries from amazon.com over the years, and I have to say that they definitely get the job done, well.
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So are these batteries any good? YES! they work great but the quality will never be as good as your brand new factory cell phone battery. I always end up buying one of these cheap aftermarket batteries about 1 year into my cellphone contract. At this point my battery usually lasts 1 day, less If I actually make calls with it (a low tech LG env2 (vx9100) for reference, not a smart phone with wifi). With these cheap sub-$5.00 batteries, they can last close to a week with little calling, however calling does seem to drain them faster than a brand new factory battery would. Do you have to worry about charging it every night if you call a lot? No, not even every 2 days, but you will notice that that battery charge indicator drops faster than you would expect from a real battery. |
You have to ask yourself, how much longer am I going to have this phone. How much longer will it last in general If I DO keep it around (without it getting lost or stolen, or damaged in another way). Is it worth spending $20+ dollars at the cell phone store to get a perfect battery there ($40 in the case my my phone!)? Your phone may not have even cost that much to begin with in a lot of cases!
Extended Batteries – These are aftermarket cellphone batteries claiming to have even higher capacity than the originals. Usually they are larger and stick out of the phone more. These are usually a bit more expensive but can definitely be worth it. At a comparable price to your local retailers normal batteries, these extended batteries can have close to double the capacity.
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In my opinion, these cheap (Chinese?) cell phone replacement batteries are a godsend. I would gladly pay ~$5.00 for a “good” battery to keep my phone functioning for decent charge periods until my contract runs out, than pay $20+ for something only slightly better from the local retailer… I mean, my phone is already over a year old, I’m surprised it still functions anyways, its not worth pouring $20+ dollars into. Buying an extended battery would definitely feel luxurious though. |
Have you had any experiences with these really cheap batteries in cell phones? Or maybe laptops and other devices?
Published December 16, 2009 | We all know facebook has very granular security. You can easily control who can and cant see certain information. Now they have taken it a step further. You can apply security at the individual post level. Not a fan or Karen right now? Maybes shes being a bitch? Tell all your friends how you feel online without her finding out.
That will show her
Published December 16, 2009 | | So there are some amazing deals on refurbished XBOX 360′s these days. Which ones should you buy? Which ones are good deals? How do you know if they are good quality? These are a few of the issues I indent to address in this post. |  |
So what is a refurbished xbox 360? Well this is an xbox that has been returned and repaired. If an owner of a new XBOX finds that theirs is defective, they may return it. Refurbished units are supposed to be repaired and inspected to be “like new” and then re-sold again.
There are different types of refurbished units. You may see “Microsoft certified”, “gamestop / ebgames refurbished” or “factory refurbished”… All of these have separate warranty terms too.
- Microsoft certified units have the best warranty. These come with 1 full year of warranty coverage. However you need to check the date with Microsoft. By default, Microsoft starts the warranty period from the date the unit was refurbished. This may be 6-8 months before the purchase date! You need to argue with Microsoft about your purchase date and have the warranty details fixed to make sure you get the full year of coverage.
- Gamestop / EB Games Refurbished units have a store provided warranty. In some cases I have seen this advertised in store as a 90 day warranty (pretty short if you ask me).
- You may see Factory refurbished consoles for sale on those sketchy 3rd party websites that you have never heard of before and will probably steal your identity when you make a credit card purchase. Good luck dealing with them if your console ever breaks! Any warranty they provide could be extremely difficult to get service with. Check for site reviews (that number in the several thousand) before making a purchase.
So now that you know what types of warranties these things can come with, what types of quality can you expect? Well all of these are supposed to be “tested to work like new” right? How long are they tested, what is the routine they go through?
What happened to me! I scored a great deal on an XBOX 360 from buy.com. $199 for 3 games, a 360 with HDMI, 2 wireless controllers and a hard drive. Great deal in my opinion. Most black Friday deals couldn’t even touch it. Well after waiting 9 business days for it to arrive, I got it home, turned it on, and what did I find? After it being on for 5 minutes, the red lights of death appeared! “Each refurbished system is carefully inspected by Microsoft…. All contents are checked to be in perfect, like-new condition and there should be no cosmetic or functional differences between these and new systems.” – this is obviously a lie
OK, MAYBE my system slipped through the cracks, but the time spent inspecting systems vs time for red light to come on argument definitely makes sense, after doing some googling, its not hard to find other people having the same problems as me.
Published December 12, 2009 | | There’s a pretty good chance that if you bought a 2009 Subaru Forester TX (turbo), or any 2008-2009 turbo Subaru, your engine could prematurely fail. According to Subaru, a stop sale was issued on certain 2008 and 2009 Subaru models. (full story below) |  |
- Forester Wagon 701045 or later 2008/01/08 or later
- Legacy 2.5GT-LTD 222825 or later 2008/02/04 or later
- 2.5GT-B 222958 or later 2008/02/04 or later
- OBK 2.5XT-LTD 353835 or later 2008/02/01 or later
- Impreza Sedan 523363 or later 2008/01/08 or later
- Wagon 825183 or later 2008/01/08 or later
You might be asking How does this effect me? My local Subaru dealer claimed that they were not even aware of the stop sale. Other dealers may not even check the vin numbers. If your dealer thinks they are going to lose a sale because the particularly spec’d forester the customer wants is on a stop sale, are they really going to bypass the opportunity? I don’t think its new knowledge to anyone that car dealers are a little shady. So far it appears that most of the failures have been limited to turbocharged engines.
| What are the problems with these recalled vehicles? The problem comes from Subaru switching the material the engine bearings are made of. Originally they were made of lead, and for debated reasons (environmental / cost savings) they changed them over to silver bearings. The problem with silver bearings is that they require a much cleaner and more precise manufacturing process. The first (few thousand?) engines produced with silver bearings were not properly |
manufactured and can lead to engine failure, anywhere from 400 miles to 15,000 or 30,000 miles (hopefully while the engine is still under warranty for the owners sake!).
In my case my engine failed at 1,700 miles. My family was taking a road trip to Canada, 1000 miles round trip. This was when my forester had about 1,200 miles on it. Fortunately we decided to take our other vehicle because if we hadn’t, we’d be stranded in Canada with a busted engine in a location with no Subaru dealers or mechanics (Prince Edward Island)… Definitely would have ruined our trip! I have heard stories of peoples engines failing in Canada and running into warranty problems trying to get them repaired up there.
| The repair process involves dropping your car off at (or having it towed to) your dealer , waiting ~3 business days for your new engine to arrive (yes they are supposed to give you a brand new whole engine, called a “long block” by Subaru), and another day for the engine’s install. In my case, my engine started to fail about 2 miles from my dealer so I just drove it slowly the entire way there trying to rev as little as possible. |
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How to know if your engine has failed. Well just watch the video I embedded of my failed engine. If it sounds like that (a jackhammer), get it taken to your dealer ASAP. The sound doesn’t really build up over time, its an “all of a sudden” type thing. My engine sounded fine one trip, next time I started it, it started making the jackhammer noise. You will definitely know something is wrong, you wont be second guessing.
Published December 12, 2009 | |
IMMEDIATE STOP SALE ORDER TO: GLR– MAR– NWR– SCR– SDC– SWR Dealers FROM: Subaru of America, Inc. DEPARTMENT: Service DATE: 04/07/2008 |
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Legacy vehicles have been added to the Stop Sale
We regret to inform you that we must place an immediate stop sale order on all of the 2008/2009 Subaru Impreza, Forester and Legacy vehicles equipped with a 2.5L Turbo Engine produced with the beginning chassis number and later as shown below.
Model
Body Type
Chassis Number
Production Date
Forester Wagon 701045 or later 2008/01/08 or later
Legacy 2.5GT-LTD 222825 or later 2008/02/04 or later
2.5GT-B 222958 or later 2008/02/04 or later
OBK 2.5XT-LTD 353835 or later 2008/02/01 or later
Impreza Sedan 523363 or later 2008/01/08 or later
Wagon 825183 or later 2008/01/08 or later
The reason for this immediate Quality Assurance action is that there have been several reports of “Engine Knocking Noise” from other markets on vehicles produced after the production dates listed.
Initial investigation confirms an internal wear issue on the failed units.
In the interest of preventing any possibility of failures for our customers, we have chosen to isolate any potentially affected vehicles by ceasing sales of the potentially affected units until the root cause and correction can be identified.
All the other displacement engines and the 2.5L Natural Aspirated Engine are excluded from this action.
Your region/distributor will be contacting you with a detailed list of affected vehicles assigned to your dealership. However, dealer trades cannot be tracked so please be aware of the affected VIN range.
If you have a vehicle in inventory that falls into the affected vehicle range, please ensure that your sales and service staff are immediately notified that the unit is un-saleable until further notice from SOA or your region/distributor.
If any of those vehicles has an unusual engine noise, please notify the SOA Technical Helpline immediately with all of the details and submit an E-QMR.
Should a customer bring an affected vehicle into your service department for an unusual engine noise, please immediately arrange that they are given the use of a clean SSLP vehicle and notify the Technical Helpline and submit an E-QMR.
You will be contacted shortly thereafter on how to proceed.
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