Genuine or Fake Memory Stick Pro Duo?

[koolbluez]

I recently wanted a 2GB card for my SE800i and went to the "imported goods" shop to have a look. The damn-low prices made me have a look online for distinguishing a fake & an original. They look so real that even supplier can't make out the differences.

eBay has a useful guide on the same.

Anyway... these tips will tell beginners on spotting the fake SONY memory stick pro duo products.

The Prices
The prices of fake MS Pro Duo are very cheap at retail shop...usually ranging about 1800/- for a 2GB one.

Seals
Original Sony Package Seals have Long Staple like Seal, and it is sealed in using heat. Fake one have round seals, and the seals are sealed up using glue.
The metallic stripes, also call the connectors, for fake one... should have black holes seen on the metal stripe as the metal stripe did not cover fully, and this happen the most common on the 1959mb version and the 1948mb newer version. The original one is fully covered to the bottom without showing any incomplete-ness.

Capacity
Fake 2GB MS Pro Duo have 1948MB and 1959MB of memory space when it is shown on devices like PSP. Genuine one have a capacity of 1909MB while some devices will read 1910MB.

Transfer Speed
The transfer speed of real one is at about 80Mbps. Fake one will have slower transfer speed. 1948MB one actually can go on 65Mbps to 70Mbps... 1959MB one ... at most 60Mbps.
Test it by transfering a 1GB file to the stick and check out the time taken for the transfer.

Size
Fake MS Pro Duo is thicker than original one. Try fitting it into an adapter, and you will find that the fitting have problems. It doesn't seems to fit into the adapter.. (feel like squeeze it in). The newer fake version even have problems fitting into PSP.. as reported by Sony as the memory stick is stuck inside the PSP. (newer one are the 1959mb versions)

Prints
The words carved behind the Fake MS Pro Duo card is printed on... while the original is engraved into it. The know if it is printed on or not... just use your thumb to feel it. Fake one.. u feel the wordson it.... the original one u can't feel them.

Package
The Fake package.. actually looks a lot like the real one. Even the hologram looks real!!! Maybe the most visible one, when compared side-to-side, is a higher red tinge on the fake one. Also, on the side of the package there are 4 pictures. In some packages, the pictures are not in a straight line!!
On the back of the package... look at the black printing.. on a fake one... u will see white spots on the black part of the printing. Good quality printing by sony will show that there are NO white spots!

Also... insist on a warranty card if u r getting sandisk one... for the 5 years warranty. Sony one i'm not too sure bout the online warranty status... but keep the receipt!! if u discover that it is a fake one... bring it down to SONY with the receipt!!

__________________________________________________ ________________________

Well, guyz, I bought a fake 2GB MemStick recently. It seems there r 2 types of fake products now. Both easily distinguishable by their round glue seals.

I heard that the 1GB fake cards don't cause probs. The old 2GB one hangs the phone frequently. The new model (one in white) is more stable, i heard. Note:The new one is white in color. The cover too has no red tinge. Looks REAL. Only the price (a kool 1600/-, the original 2GB one costs a bomb.. 3k @ rediff - 4.5k showrooms) & a hologram difference made me believe it's fake!!!

Pics:
Courtesy Sting, the old 1GB one (looks same like the 2GB)



Courtesy KoolBluez, the new 2GB one, picture is enlarged & highlighted @ detection zones

Check out the round glue seal (original has a long thermal seal), fake hologram & lower quality print on memory stick. Common for all types of fakes. Old or new.

[hailgautam]

Nice post buddy!

I wanted to buy a 1 GB and when went to the Sony Showroom, they did not have it and asked me to look at the "imported goods" shop.

I got it finally for just 1200 bucks. Sony price was nearly 5k

[gdatuk]

very useful thanks

[gxsaurav]

i was in the market today to buy a 512 MB Memory stick pro duo for my K750i. I saw a Sony stick but just by looking at the package, it was looking fake. The seal was open, & so was the package.

The price in Sony world for the card was Rs 2,200. Now, in gray market I was indeed expecting a lower price tag, but i was shocked to hear the Price of just Rs 900 for the sony model as said above. I tested it, & after copying files from the computer phone, the phone was having problems & it was crashing & restarting.

I informed the dealer, & bought a sandisk 512 MB memory stick pro duo gaming card, which has a green casing, thorugh which the memory chip is also visible. i got a 5 years replacement warrenty on it, though I had to pay Rs 1500 for it, it's still cheaper then Sony world.

Later i inquired and found on the net that the gaming card are no different then the normal memory stick pro duo which are blue in color with hard casing (like the 64 MB model which came with my phone free). Just cos it is gaming branded, it costs a bit more then the usual normal ones.

One thing, before & after formating the memory card by the K750i inbuilt memory card format option, the total usable memory was shows as 470 MB. Now here is the catch as writen on sandisk website & shown here

Note: 1 megabyte (MB) = 1 million bytes; 1 gigabyte (GB) = 1 billion bytes. Some of the listed capacity is used for formatting and other functions, and thus is not available for data storage. Read more.

About 32 MB of the memory is not shown by Windows. It also contained some NFL Game data, which i saw only after i opened the memory card in Linux VM. Windows was not showing the 10 mb space taken by game data. After deleting, total usable memory is 480 MB

Warning : DO NOT FORMAT MEMORY STICKS USING WINDOWS INBUILT FORMAT TOOL. USE THE DEVICE TO FORMAT THE CARD

[Siddharth Maheshwari]

Thanks budy nice tutorial

[NIGHTMARE]

wat about MMC

[Aberforth]

Originally Posted by koolbluez

Also... insist on a warranty card if u r getting sandisk one... for the 5 years warranty. Sony one i'm not too sure bout the online warranty status... but keep the receipt!! if u discover that it is a fake one... bring it down to SONY with the receipt!!

Sony Memory Sticks have 5 year warranty too.
__________

Originally Posted by gx_saurav

Warning : DO NOT FORMAT MEMORY STICKS USING WINDOWS INBUILT FORMAT TOOL. USE THE DEVICE TO FORMAT THE CARD

There is also a PC format and recovery tool for Memory Sticks available on Sony 's site (Check the package for details).

[techtronic]

Seriously I never knew that Fake Memory Sticks Existed before this post

By the way,does using Fake MMC void phone warranty ?

[gxsaurav]

same goes with MMC & other such cards. It's better to buy from genuine lexar, sandisk or Sony dealers.

U might pay a bit more then the gray market price, but u will get genuine product, & warrenty.

@ techtronics

It doesn't voids the warranty?

@ abeforth, can u plz link to that software?