Why's My Cell Phone Melting?

[Janak Parekh]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://news.com.com/2100-1033-983867.html?tag=fd_ots' target='_blank'>http://news.com.com/2100-1033-98386...html?tag=fd_ots</a><br /><br /></div>"Cell phone maker Nokia warned Friday that a growing number of its handsets are being damaged by badly made or counterfeit batteries from other companies.<br /><br />The number of phones destroyed by so-called third-party batteries, sold by street vendors or on the Web, have risen enough since December to prompt a warning from Nokia, said company spokesman Keith Nowak.<br /><br />The batteries usually don't have circuitry to shut down the power source once it begins overheating, Nowak said. Enough heat can be generated to melt a phone's plastic casing and the circuits inside, he said."<br /><br />Seems like it happens when the battery is being recharged. Imagine waking up to the smell of a melting phone... 8O

[Daimaou]

In Hong Kong, Where I am coming from, there were some major issues last years regarding this, a girl throw away her ketai (tel) just before he totally brun.... Scary !

Most of these battery where none Nokia one made in China

[vincentsiaw]

will this thing happen to a third party battery issue for the pocket pc? what do you think?

[jeffmd]

vincent, why not?

[vincentsiaw]

vincent, why not?

then, I better buy original battery, than risk it with the third party battery.

[Ekkie Tepsupornchai]

There are definitely infinitely more 3rd party batteries available for cells than for PDAs... I guess there's danger if PDA batteries come with the same "shut-off" type of logic...

Slightly OT, a friend of mine placed his Palm m505 in his laptop back with his still-hot laptop (he had turned it off already, but I guess there was a lot of built-up heat). After a short drive home, he took out his Palm in horror to discover the casing had deformed itself, "peeling" open along the side to expose the its innards.

[gwinter]

Melting is not the worse that could happen. Saw on TV the other day, a man's cellphone exploded while charging in a holder in his car. Both he and his wife was in the car at the time, and the wife's right arm was burnt. He even showed the cellphone, totally destroyed of course.