I purchased a Xiaomi power bank 10400 from the Mushtato deal link
And when i opened it up i found that they were neither Samsung or LG batteries as advertised but Lishen (LR1865SK) batteries from China
Can anyone provide any insight to this? It seems to have passed all the tests for authenticity except the actual batteries themselves.
Thanks in advance :D
Lishen cells are used in Xiaomi batteries as well. If you go onto Xiaomi Singapore, you'd see that they also advertise about using Lishen cells as well.
That being said, I've seen some people taking it as far as talking to the Lishen on the safety of the cells.
To be honest, I don't think they are dangerous, Lishen I think is fairly big company that supplies batteries to many other known companies, as far as I know.
I think it's slightly awful for Mushtato to not advertise the fact that Samsung and LG cells are not the only cells that are used in 10400s, (in fact I am getting the gist that Xiaomi is using more Lishen cells nowadays), they advertise about LG and Samsung cells and don't mention that Lishen cells can be used. It's not like they are not selling the authentic Xiaomi batteries though.
Should be noted that Apple uses Lishen cells, including in the iWatch. So they should be at least acceptable, and certainly not a no-name manufacturer.
Frankly speaking, I have no problems with lishen cells, other than how it being used was not advertise widely (i.e. from Mushtato for awhile, they advertised "Samsung and LG cells").
I suspect that's because that's what Xiaomi originally used and the resellers took a while to update (or never realised they needed to). Not necessarily to mislead buyers.
@elusive: I don't know, if that is truly the case, the retailer would've advertised about lishen cells as well after they've realised the update. I've not seen one that advertises Lishen battery cell yet. I don't think they are doing anything too bad though, they are selling an authentic Xiaomi battery, yaddi yadda. It does feel like they are continuing the misrepresentation for me though.
That said, I find whole this "Xiaomi" brand power to be ironic right now, they started to become a fad, because of the cells used, circuits etc etc. They change the cell and they have not yet lost their brand power. Reminds me of Eneloops and the Japanese and Chinese version in some ways, albeit different in many ways.
Hm, on second look, it seems that Xiaomi advertise Lishen cells on the 5000 mAh LiPo variant, which Mushtato also mentioned in the OzB description. But no-one, including Xiaomi themselves, mention Lishen in the 10400 mAh one. So… yea, bit dodgy there.
@elusive: It is advertised on certain Xiaomi page (Singapore advertises it, I believe). As I said, it reminds me too much of lying by omission (that said, they are reliable so I sorta sit on it).
Looks like they're using Lishen and Panasonic cells in some cases, at least as this rather detailed review claims. It's hard to confirm, though - their en, sg and cn sites all claim just Samsung and LG.
If everything else passes, and the construction looks similar to those photos (note especially the temperature sensor wires and the use of a wide copper busbar between the circuit board and far end rather than a couple wires as fakes do), then I wouldn't worry about it.