[Galaxy S III Accessories] iSasha:
I would just like to share some of my experiences with a cheap 3$ eBay battery (like this one), as well as ultra-cheap 2$ USB chargers.

I bought this battery early January to supplement my GS3's main battery. At first I used it as a backup battery, keeping it in my bag in case my main battery dies. This worked great for a couple of weeks until I could no longer be bothered to swap out the battery every time I needed to charge the other one. So I ended up leaving the eBay battery in full time. At this point I have grown to trust it, seeing as I hadn't had any issues.

Months went by like this, but by the end of March, I was scratching my head as to why my phone wasn't lasting as long as it used to. I guess this change was so gradual that I didn't notice it for long. Now this past week, the battery has had even more trouble holding a charge. It took hours to recharge, and barely lasted with me listening to music, chatting on fb and checking reddit several times a day. It got to a point where one night, it only charged to 90%, and then the next night it charged up to 45%. It also would only charge a few percent at a time when daydream was on.

Now yesterday, by the time I got home ~16:00, the battery died. I plugged it in, but it wouldn't charge - a battery with a warning symbol icon lit up when plugging it in. After a few minutes of fiddling, I managed to get my phone to turn on, but then it almost immediately turned off. A few minutes more, I managed to turn it on and finally charge using the original charger. After an hour, it didn't even reach 20%. This enraged me, causing me to finally hot swap the battery to the original one. Surprisingly, it charged up to 70% in less than 1 hour. Quite a nice change.

Since this morning I've been using it more than normally (large FTP download, streaming youtube), and I still have 60% :cowboy:

I suspect that the low quality anode within the battery corroded very quickly due to the high stresses involved with powering the phone, and charging rapidly. The thing that I often see online, is people being afraid of batteries blowing up or damaging their phones, but this is highly unlikely. The phone has the battery charging circuit built into it, and it will regulate the CV and CC charging cycles itself. It shuts off the phone when the voltage drops too low, and it wouldn't go over 4.2v because the phone wouldn't charge above that. The only damage that a cheap battery can do is to leak or vent inside a phone - hence the need for proper circuitry in the phone.

I also have experiences using absolutely the cheapest batteries in some of my other gadgets. Both of my cameras use the cheapest batteries I could find on eBay - without any problems. Ironically, for my point and shoot, the eBay batteries last longer and display an accurate time estimate. With my DSLR, the 2 batteries that I bought (originally to make a cheap power supply for long timelapses), they work identically, charge identically and fit perfectly. I also bought some protected 18650 batteries for various LED projects I was working on, as well as for my flashlight, but about half of them are now dead - I suspect due to the protection circuit. So yeah, those are my experiences with ultra cheap batteries.

Now, as per the chargers, I mostly use only el cheapo dealextreme or eBay ones. I've had no issues with charging my old iPhone, my SGS3, tablet, and my el cheapo 20$ Huawei phone. However, they don't work well with my Raspberry Pi, iPad and my mom's Android tablet (the touchscreen glitches big time).

So yeah. I don't know what the purpose of this is. Just had to speak out :) .