Sony Ericsson's BST-33 Li-Polymer batteries swelling into a lawsuit?
By Thomas Ricker 
posted Jan 28th 2009 7:31AM
posted Jan 28th 2009 7:31AM
We've seen plenty of swollen and exploding batteries 'round here, but this is the first Li-Polymer battery (a technology generally assumed to be more stable and less prone to swelling and fire than Li-Ion) that we can recall ballooning into such a possible danger. Reader Christian sent us these pics of what's normally a 4-mm thick battery (pictured right) inside his W880i handset now swollen to a full 7-mm. The BST-33 sits at the heart of a long list of SE phones, a list we've included after the break along with one more picture. Do let us know if you're seeing similar issues.
List of compatible Sony Ericsson phones: C702, G502, K530i, K550im, K800i, K810i, M600i, P1i, P990i, W300i, W302, W595, W610i, W660i, W705, W850i, W880i, W950i, W960i, Z320i, Z530i, Z610i, Z750i
Obviously you forgot about the exploding AT&T U-verse cabinets
I used to have a swollen BST-25 (Li-Polymer) for K700i.
i also have one, a k800i with a swollen battery. it damaged my whole phone. and can't be repaired.
Out of interest, how long did it take for your battery to swell up - days or months? I have a year old W960i with this battery but it hasn't swollen... yet!
My K800 has a perfectly fine battery, if you discount the fact that it needs charging every 2-3 days.
My P1i has a BST-40 battery which is perfectly fine :)
I use the BST-33 for my p990i ... and it's "still" ok.
Yep, I'll be sure to let you now.
Actually maybe later.
Since when are Li-Po batteries more prone to fire and puffing than Li-Ion?
deem-- glad im with HTC...
Just imagine that thing exploding, while the phone is in your hand!!!
He just overcharged it, there's too many electrons stuffed into there.
Definitely overcharging. I used to see it all the time when a customer would leave their phones charging overnight all the time.
Yeah, very true. My PSP's battery pack weighs heavier when it's been charged. and lighter when it's dead. The PSP is charging my belly while I am playing it. So I always point my finger at my big fat belly and tell all my friends: "This is one jumbo battery pack, and it's getting bigger and bigger, and someday it's gonna blow. Don't mess with me or you'll be the first one to taste my battery!"
Watch out when they blow, the electrons spill out all over the place and stain the carpet......
w880i with no swollen battery here. it looks just like it should.
Li-Ion is the technology used in many lithium rechargeables. Li-Poly is the soft packaging of lithium-ion. Almost all Li-Ion cells you see swolen or puffed are li-poly. The metal encased ones go BOOM instead of swelling much.
Hmmm, I have a SE K790a that uses the same battery and haven't seen that issue. The controversy is related to fake BST-33 that are sold on eBay. I think if you buy an original battery from SE you won't see it bloating. If you see the photo that is posted, both batteries are different, the bloated one must be conterfeit.
The one on the left isn't counterfeit. I have a Sony Ericsson K800i with it's original battery which I bought from Tesco, the text is of a similar small-print.
The swollen battery on the left is fake (subtle, known as fake, differences in the pictogramms). The markets world wide are flooded with fake or really low quality (aka "oem") bst-33 batteries and SE is doing _nothing_ about them. It's next to impossible to get original bst-33 batteries on the streets and internet, except from SE or SE licensed shops and paying the full price for them.
i bought one at an sony ericsson dealer. and it did the same thing to my battery, it bloated. i hate sony. haha. switched back to nokia.
Not sure where you were educated but in the UK we know that OEM stands for Original Equipment Manufacturer, not cheap shoddy rip off ;). OEM goods are from the maker of the device, not an aftermarket part.
Even OEM's buy up shoddy parts. They can still claim OEM status even if all the components are made by someone else.
The battery on the left is not a fake. My original battery from my K790a is exactly like the bloated one. Except mine is nearly 3 years old and isn't bloated.
I know what OEM stands for. Most shops are selling the fake/low quality (you be the judge if they are fake or a feature sold by SE) batteries as "OEM" since they come in bulk-packaging and not in the fancy SE box.
And there are some differences in the small icons which make the difference between original and "fake": http://www.howardforums.com/archive/topic/1172414-1.html
So if memory serves... this could potentially be Sony's third major battery recall... in the past 3-4 years? Yikes.
On my 3rd SE so far, no problems like this, and I didn't see it happening with anybody around here.
Yeah, I don't think the left one is fake. My colleague here have a SE with the original factory battery, that is just like that.
I have the same issue.
I did'nt use my se k800i since last summer, because i had already a new mobile phone (nokia n95).
But a month ago i did notice that my k800i didn't work and i saw that the batterie had swellt.
I don't know, if my k800i damaged by the swelling batterie.
i agree with you bro...
BTW nice to meet you..
Visit me sometimes, ok.... ^_^
the TM506 has the BST-33 battery too. maybe it'll be bad so i can get rid of this pos phone. also my battery looks like the one on the left, just not bloated.
Removable battery ! How 20th century, don't SE know that the industry standard is now to have one built in so us silly mortals can just pay the manufacturer half the cost of a new unit to sort this out.
But then he could just buy a new battery seeing as he is your only "source" of all this scare-mongering, sometimes batteries are faulty just like phones, if it's under a year old return it, if it's older what the hell is he complaining about ? buy a new original one for very little on your online shop of choice.
And no people this is not Sony's latest battery fiasco as this is just ONE person's battery and we have no idea what he did with it.
Blogging proving once more why journalists need sources, any law suits yet Engadget ?
I have one. Mines an original that I got with the K800i from vodafone UK it is a few years old and hasn't been used much recently - I only noticed when I took the battery out of the turned off phone to look for an old payasyougo sim card.
You should add the W890i to your list of phones - mine has that battery too. Works fine tho'.
My old k800i batteri swell like hell a couple of weeks ago. I was about to loan that phone to a friend of mine because her phone was broken. i have no pictures of it though. but i guess its more common than the public know.
anyone notice the differences in two batteries? one on the right... the label is a sticker... and u can clearly see the label vs. the casing - which appear to be brushed aluminum or something similar. the one on the left however... the label is not really visible. instead... it looks like the warnings are printed directly on the battery and the casing appears to be the problem. is it fake? not sure. just pointing out the difference.
also - some folks are saying that they bought the battery from a dealer... well - even dealers seem to sell third-party batteries. and sometimes, fake batteries look genuine with "official" looking logos.
in anycase, i'm on my 3rd SE phone over the past 6 years and i have never had this problem. i've only used the ones that came with the phone, i never had to replace the battery.
that is just because it is all swollen.. then it looks like that I guess.. Engadget will probably check their sources before posting something big like this :)
Ok this is a goodbye SE from me now.. I have a lot of problems with the W760i.. this phone is just one big joke!
Let me explain this:
First there was the software issue: constant lagging performance, freezing and only restarting after 10min if you didn't take the battery out.. really handy! then an update made it a bit better..
But then: after 4 months of use it just went awefull: the known production flaw of NO SIM: 3 times a day it would just say: there is no sim and you hade to take the sim out, insert it again etc.. but it also had this without informing you, leaving you offline while you think everyone can call you.. ending up in angry mails like: why don't you pick up?
ok so like every normal person you return it... have to wait a month before they send it back and then: nothing changed, I came home with it and it said again: NO SIM!
great! so you return it the same day back.. 1 month later now and all I know is: we will give you a new phone but we have to wait until we get it so we can send it to the shop etc...
By now they don't make this phone anymore: so their plan is to let me wait for I don't know, eternity?
You would think a big multinational like SE would be a bit more professional.. but clearly they don't care about their customers.
For now I am waiting for a refund from the shop.. but they are looking in to it and there is a possibility they would just pay me the current price, which is half of what I had to pay a half year ago..
So if they don't do any better I will sue SE and the Phonehouse for breaking every consumer protection law here in Belgium..
One tip: don't buy the W760i... On paper it looks like one of the best phones for a nice price.. But it's just rubbish!
more info about the flaw:
This is a known design flaw with the w760i - it occurs when the phone requests info from the SIM (building contact list etc.) and the SIM connection is lost. This would happen on any phone but the w760i has a shock protection design issue whereby closing the slide quickly causes the SIM to disconnect. You should be able to replicate the issue by turning the phone on and slamming the slider shut as soon as the phone shows your network name. Leave the phone on for a bit and you will feel the phone buzz and 'Inactive SIM' will display, the phone will then reboot. (http://www.fixya.com/support/t1025912-inactive_sim)
I've had an m600i for quite some time now and no swelling to speak of.
ok ok. but i think that the one on the right is the fake because the print quality is not fine(original products have fine quality printings embedded on it). it's not that it can't be read, it's because the printing is fine. i have my battery right now(kept it for evidence, haha). as you can see, the one on the right has bolder text than on the left and that is not caused by the bloating batteries thingy.
are there any other sony users with this incident? why doesn't sony talk about this?
i now hate their cellphones, but love their other gadgets. haha.
hey, the batteries have different labels. the left says BKB 193 200/11 R2A while the one on the left says BKB 193 200/1 R2B. is that a revised edition or something? well, my swollen battery is like the one on the left, exactly the same, but looks more swollen. haha.
I have been using SE phones for years and this has never happened to me. Guess I am lucky. Nokia had a problem like this with the Nokia N73 too.
I have a K550i and no problem with my battery.
It looks like the one on the right, silver all the way to the top.
i also had one with nokia. with my n80, another swollen battery, but it's working not like sony's battery which destroyed my phone. argh! bad luck stays with me. :))
My W880i is over a year old, with 145:47:46 talk time on the clock. No sign of swelling on the battery, but it is starting to discharge more quickly. I used to get a little over two days on a full charge. Now I get about a day and a half, and I'm talking at the same density of minutes per diem.
I've seen plenty of fake BST-33s all of which grows into a tiny pillow eventually. This looks like a typical KIRF BST-33 to me.
BOOM, Headshot!
I have a k800i that's about two years old and the battery swelled up to a little pillow about a month ago. I bought one of those $6 dollar POS "950mah" batteries from HK that barely makes it through a days use. I feel bad for SE 'cause they're getting crushed this year with bad news, but i want a new non blown up battery dang it.
Yes!! This is exactly what happened to me, I thought it was just my being nasty to my phone. It doesn't even turn on now, and I get a nasty hard green build up on the bottom of my phone If I dare plug it in. I had the K800i.
No swelling with the BST-37 on a w810i.
I' M Using SE K550i. So, is there a danger of exploding such battery? If So, Is SE Co. is going to take steps regarding that. If there is something , let me Know....