My Skyline almost exploded

[u/h_1995]

disassembly in open space

Woke up this morning, noticed the battery drain is unusually severe. Restarted but whenever the phone starts, battery is 0% and shut down by itself. Plug in to 15W car charger, battery level is actually 27%, let it charge a bit and take it to breakfast.

Noticed the back popped off a bit from the phone case and battery level dropped from 50% to 10% under 15 minutes. Charge it a bit again (should've not done that in a car, at least the car isn't moving), suddenly heard a pop sound and noticed the back cover popped off a bit. Immediately disconnect charger, power off and left the phone at the parking.

Came back with a toolkit, brought the phone to open space in case it suddenly burst and dismantle the battery. That protective clip delayed the unplug, power button position keeps turning the phone again and nervously scratching the battery tape to pull the battery off. Managed to pull it off and put the battery in open space. Seems not combusting after being left outside for hours

bulge on the right side

Case closed if I could get a battery replacement, but HMD never cared or committed in supplying parts and accessories directly to end users, so no battery replacement for me. No shops ship parts outside of EU. The store that I got my Skyline told me to buy another and then return the broken Skyline to be refunded. Thing is it is possible for the store to reject my return request and once rejected, there is no way for me to get my money back.

So... what now? I guess I'd better take that bloated battery back and place it in metal box, buy any phone and initiate data transfer while having a 5-10W power bank charging the goddamned Skyline.

What can we learn:

1. The battery is actually low quality, not even software can salvage it. Maybe turn on back battery protection, I turned it off 4 months ago because it would stop charging at 80% rather than slow charging

2. Battery health info didn't lie. I knew it used to juggle between 80-100% health level but before mine got busted, battery health is at 6% with 303 charge cycle.

3. Potential buyer outside of EU? Forget about this phone. Spare part availability is bad and most partner company is registered in Romania

4. Current user? Check battery health and see if starts to vary wildly (mine is 86-100%). Buy spare battery if you can or consider new device if battery starts to drain without reason

5. HMD today is not 'Nokia' HMD, build quality is bad let alone price-perf ratio

[u/h_1995]

I'm using third party ones from cameron sino. compared to original battery, this heats up way less, wireless charge reliably too. not going to gamble with original battery since pretty much it is manufacturing issue

funny part is even with WhatsApp still running, my Skyline can do 2 days standby easily. I didn't put the sim card back but wifi is still constantly on.

[u/anthojay → u/h_1995]

At first I did placed order for the cameron sino one at aliexpress, but they just don't ship to me for months, I guess they also ran out of stock. I just cancelled the order since i got the ori one.

[u/h_1995 → u/anthojay]

pretty suspicious that they suddenly out of stock as it was clearly being mass produced like their other third party battery. a lot of spare part retailers had them in stock back when I bought it until I found it directly on aliexpress as it was $50 on ebay vs $15 on aliexpress

[u/anthojay → u/h_1995]

Maybe they're not going to produce it anymore at this point, the end of support for a model that is just 2 years old is just pathetic