How to Tell if Lightning Cable is Authentic, MFi Certified, Original? - Update on Differentiating Between Counterfeit and Authentic Lightning Cables

In my previous post, I talked about how some counterfeit cables have identical looking lightning connectors. This is part 2 of the previous post.
Since I last posted, I have gotten my hands on those identical-looking cables and we shall compare them today.

A couple of my friends told me they found original cables (or so they think) on Carousell. I have since tested them with my tester, and they are all counterfeit. I am not sure how many sellers on Carousell are selling fake cables as original, but since the cost price is much more for the true MFi ones, I would guess that the majority of those being sold on Carousell are counterfeits. 

It frustrates me when I see those sellers get so many positive reviews profiting away from selling fake cables, while I can't be as competitive as them selling cables with original lightning heads due to the higher cost. It sure was very tempting to follow the footsteps of other sellers and sell the counterfeit cables, but I don't think I can bring myself to tell people that the cable is original when it actually is not. 

I chanced upon a post by a Japanese website (use Google Translate) which shows a similar phenomenon whereby the majority of lightning cables in the market are fakes. While I feel some sellers might know that they are knowingly deceiving their customers, I am also inclined to believe that most sellers are unaware whether the cables they have are fakes. As a seller, I believe that it is important to know what you are selling. It seems that if people are buying their cable and they are making money, there is no incentive for the sellers to educate themselves on what they are selling. As such, I hope I can spread awareness about this to the consumers so more people can make informed decisions when buying lightning cables.

TLDR

Below are key points to take note if you find the post too lengthy.

- Lightning cable that comes in the Apple Retail box does not guarantee it is authentic.

- Apple's website on differentiating between counterfeit and original lightning cables is outdated (discussed in a previous post)

- Fake lightning cables also have serial printed on them (discussed in a previous post)

- Current fake cables have identical looking connectors as the original and there is no way to tell unless you use a lightning tester like mine, or take it apart and scrutinise the chips, as:

- Some non-orignal/counterfeit/fake cables have identical looking internal layouts as the original, so you need to look at the chip markings to tell if it is original.

- Counterfeit lighting cables lack overvoltage protection

- Using a lightning tester like the YG-616 is a good and quick way to tell if your lightning cable is original, but there are fake testers out there that will show a counterfeit cable as original.

Packaging

To start off, I highly recommend reading my previous post if you have not done so.

In the previous post, the counterfeit cable featured a blue sticker on the corner with Chinese characters that mean 'original'.

You might think that if the packaging does not feature any blue stickers, it is probably original. You might also have seen (or at least I remember seeing) articles talking about differentiating between the real and the fake using the presence of the orange arrow on the rear pull tab. Those methods are now obsolete.

I managed to get my hands on the packaging. No, not used packaging, but NEW packaging that I can use to put counterfeit cables in.

Brand NEW Packaging

These packagings seem to look identical to what you find in the Apple Stores.

Therefore, the presence of packaging cannot be used to determine if the cable is authentic / MFi Certified.

Lightning Head / Chipset

In the previous post, I found a picture showing those with internals looking nearly identical to the original ones when you compare the pictures with other teardowns.

Picture from previous post, look at 8颗料 vs 美版

As mentioned above, I now have gotten my hands on multiple lightning cables that feature the 8 颗料 internals. I have torn the one I have apart and the layout indeed seems like the one in that picture that I found previously.

Can you tell which one is counterfeit?

Before I go any further, let me explain what I know about the layouts and the chipsets. If you cannot read Chinese, the words in the picture above are not immediately clear. The top right one is apparently the 'American Version', which would mean the original chipset. The other 3 should be counterfeits. 8颗料means 8 components, as there are 8 components on the lightning head, and 5 颗料 represents 5 components respectively. The bottom left one is referred to as 蜘蛛脚 which means spider legs, as the ICs on that lightning head has pins that look like the legs of a spider. 

Now onto the type of chipsets. They go by C48, E75 etc. Found a post online that goes through them which I find clear even though I had to use google translate as the site was in Japanese. 

Now, I will go through the main categories of cables available currently, which I will also call as chipset. There seem to be 4 main types of chipsets.

The first type, the type also showed in the previous post, is what I would reference as Copycat as shown on my tester. Copycat cables can range from the cheapest looking internals such as those $1 lightning cables to those having an identical internal layout as the original cable. 

Some Copycat cables can have scores of above 90

The second type would be the Taiwan chipset. I still don't know how different it is from the copycat chipset, but if my understanding is right, most of them on the market have an identical internal layout to the original (8 components / 8 颗料), but I also found some on the market that apparently have 5 components (5 颗料), which could be either of the ones in the bottom row as shown in the picture above. 

From the prices of Taiwan cables on the market, I would infer that they are generally higher quality, whereas for copycat chipsets they could range from high quality to utter garbage. 

So far all Taiwan Chipsets I've seen have a score of above 80.

The third one would, of course, be the original chipset, where my tester would show original. 

True original chipset

I thought that was all until I recently found so-called original "后贴/后组" chipsets, which brings us to the 4th type. The Chinese words translate to 'back pasted/assembled' chipsets. I will call them half original chipsets in this post. I have yet to take one apart, but I managed to buy 1. From what I understand, these seem to have most of the original parts of an original lightning head, just that the largest square looking component is not original. I do not know the source of such chipsets, but I would guess they could be from faulty original cables or some factory rejects. 

When plugged into my tester, it shows up as original but beeps 3 times. The tester beeps 3 times whenever it detects a counterfeit cable or an original one with anomalies. I have contacted the seller of this tester and was told that this 4th type of cable is not considered original. Later in this post, we will compare the overvoltage protection capabilities. 

Half original cable. Notice the yellow coloured letter A on the bottom right corner?

Now, back to the teardown.

If you haven't noticed, the picture above includes 3 lightning heads, but 1 of them had its head broken off. These lightning heads are very fragile and would almost certainly break unless you are very skilled in taking them apart. I have taken apart a handful by now, but I still tend to break almost every single one I take apart. This is especially when taking off the metal bracket, the step after removing the main outer white plastic. 

Removing this metal bracket usually results in connector part breaking away from the board

Once you successfully remove the metal bracket, you are greeted with a bunch of components on one side, and 4 solder pads on the other side. The side with the components is what we would like to focus on. However, there is a layer of resin/epoxy over the components, hampering the view of the components. I discovered a trick to remove it, which is to simply heat the resin/epoxy using a soldering iron and using a tweezer on your other hand to scrape it away. The difference becomes more apparent when that layer is removed.

Notice the layer of resin on the 3 broken board vs the one with still the lightning connector attached?

If you are sharp-eyed, you might have noticed in the above picture that the internals of 1 of them is not like the other 2. That one with the wire attached is the counterfeit one. The main difference I have noticed is the largest square chip. On the authentic one, it seems to be shiny and reflective on the top (after scraping away the layer of resin) while the one on the counterfeit is black. 

Counterfeit one on the left, original on the right

I have marked out the chip in white boxes. So far, I have yet to see counterfeit cables with the shiny big chip. Therefore, I feel that if you do not have the tester, tearing down and looking at this chip is a good way to tell if the lightning cable is authentic. There is a possibility that counterfeit lightning cables in the future would have the same looking big chip as the authentic, but until then, this seems to be a cost-efficient way of checking your cable, although you are almost guaranteed to have a non-working cable after the teardown.

Other than that big square chip, the only other difference that I seem to find is the colour of the PCB. The counterfeit one seems slightly lighter in green than the original, but I doubt it will be easy to tell if you do not have an original one on hand to compare side by side. 

The last thing to note is that some original lightning heads only have 2 shiny components. 

Boxed in white, non-shiny component

Boxed in white, shiny component

Therefore, other components are not a very reliable way of differentiating between fake and real. The counterfeit one also has 2 shiny components. Below is a picture of 3 original lightning heads for your reference if you decide to tear yours down. 

Assortment of Original Lightning heads for comparison

Therefore, if you are looking at a teardown of the lightning cable, don't just look at the layout of the components, but look out especially for the big square chip before you believe it is original. I am not sure if the half original cable can be differentiated using this method, I will update this post if I tear it down in the future.

From what I understand, the big square chip is responsible for overvoltage protection amongst a bunch of other functions. I decided to test the overvoltage protection, so read on to find out how the counterfeit or half original cable compares to the original.

So, what's the difference since they look almost identical even on the inside?

I recently bought a S$50 USB tester from YZXStudio from TaoBao. Those who have searched on USB testers might find this familiar and looks like USB Testers from Power-Z. Apparently, I found out that Power-Z are actually counterfeit versions of the YZXStudio ones and the guy behind YZXStudio is actually the developer. If you can read Chinese I recommend you check out this link where the YZXStudio seller exposes other brands like Power-Z. The listing seems convincing and it seems that Power-Z testers are inferior to that of YZXStudio, so if you're looking to get one you should probably get one from YZXStudio. You might want to read my other blog on how to buy items on Taobao. (not sponsored btw, just thought the original developer deserved some credit.) Anyways, I digress. 

There's a function in it that can test lightning cables.

AppleOldMFi Function

It checks whether a lightning cable is original or MFi Certified by checking its current draw across 2 voltages. This would only work for older E75 and C48 chipsets that do not support fast charging, as the newer C91 chipset that supports fast charging would allow higher voltage to pass through so this test would not work.

The tests are accurate and mirror the results of my other lightning tester (YG-616).

Cable that came in iPhone box, original E75

MFi Certified Adapter

Taiwan E75 chipset

All MFi Certified and original lightning chipsets draw a current of around 0.41mA when not connected to any device, while non-original and counterfeit ones draw either no current or a lower current. The Taiwan E75 chipset draws 0.23mA, while the 'Copycat' and half original ones do not draw any or very little current (0.01mA). 

If the current is at 5v is around 0.41mA, the USB Tester slowly increases the voltage to check if the current drops at around 6.4v. I realise that for counterfeit chipsets, the device does not increase the voltage to check for a drop of current at higher voltages. Therefore, I wanted to see how the counterfeit chipsets respond to a high voltage. 

This USB tester has a trigger function for QC3.0 so I can manually select a voltage of around 6.4v to check current draw. Results are shown below. Their respective chipsets are shown on the lightning tester. 

Original E75 Chipset

Taiwan Chipset

Copycat Chipset

Half Original Chipset

I did not include pictures for current draw at 5v to reduce the clutter, so I compiled them in the table below:

Cable Type Idle Power Draw at 5v Idle Power Draw at 6.4v Original Chipset   0.0020W  0.0006W  Taiwan Chipset   0.0010W  0.0019W  Copycat Chipset  0.0000W      0.0000W Half Original Chipset  0.0000W  0.0000W

From the results above, it almost seems like the Copycat and the half original chipset have overvoltage protection as they do not draw any current. However, we do not know if the voltage gets passed through to the lightning connector. To test this, we need to use a lightning device. I happen to have a pair of cheap clone AirPods Pro on hand, so it shall be the test subject for this experiment. 

We can see that the original lighting chipsets do not pass any voltage through when the input is at 6.4v, but the copycat, Taiwan and half original ones pass power through. The half original one seems to pass more power through than the copycat and Taiwan ones. I'm not sure if that means it is more dangerous than the Taiwan or Copycat ones, but it for sure lacks overvoltage protection. 

An article talking about Tristar (Charging IC) replacement goes over how such counterfeit cables can damage your charging IC. Apparently, the phone's onboard overvoltage protection gets disabled when it detects an original cable since the big square chip in the original lightning head is responsible for overvoltage protection. When using a counterfeit cable, it disguises itself as an original, so the phone turns off its overvoltage protection anyways, leaving you with no overvoltage protection at all. 

My little experiment above shows that while higher quality knockoff cables can last long, they ALL lack overvoltage protection, and should be avoided whenever possible. If you experience a power surge when using a counterfeit cable, it would likely fry the charging IC on your iPhone or whatever iDevice you are charging.

Recommendations/Opinions on Choice of Cables

Given a choice, I strongly recommend using an original lightning cable, even though some higher quality counterfeits can last very long, seemingly as long as the original ones due to the lack of overvoltage protection in ALL counterfeit cables I have tested. 

If there isn't a choice, I would say you could still use a high-quality counterfeit cable, but only if I am sure the charger I am using is of high quality. If you happen to be in such a scenario, I suggest you only use a counterfeit cable only if you have the original Apple wall charger. I have gone through in a previous post on how to differentiate between counterfeit and original for UK type plugs, hopefully that method of differentiating still applies. If in doubt just use the one that came in your iPhone retail box if you bought your iPhone new and sealed from a reliable source. 

If using a car charger, you should definitely refrain from using a counterfeit cable, as there is a high risk of 12v being sent to your device if the charger malfunctions. In this case, I would use a powerbank, or route the power through a reliable powerbank (Xiaomi ones seems good) if using a counterfeit cable. Not sure if doing it this way would provide more protection, but I think it does. Do correct me if I am wrong.

I would recommend using a high-quality counterfeit cable only for those using an old iPhone that does not cost much and does not have important data. 

You can ensure that the cables are authentic by purchasing from a reliable retailer or purchase a cable from me and get to use my device to test your cables. If you live in Singapore, you can find me at https://sg.carousell.com/gekjunxu. I currently sell the MicroUSB to Lightning Adapter (MFi Certified), original lightning cables and the taiwan chipset cables.  

Fake Lightning Testers

There are also fake lightning testers out there, made for sellers of fake cables. Those devices will show the fake lightning cables as original, and cost about half as my device does. 

I feel that the tester that I use, the YG-616 is one of the more accurate testers out in the market. The developer of my device releases firmware updates regularly, which ensures that the device is less likely to detect any counterfeits as the original. I personally have doubts about the accuracy of other testers on the market, such as the ATS-618 ones as they don't seem to have a way for firmware upgrades. 

There are counterfeits of the device I use (YG-616). To ensure you are looking at an original device, ensure that there is a watermark on the bottom right corner of the device.

Fake vs Real YG-616 Tester

Conclusion

This marks the end of the comparison for Apple Lightning Cables for now. If time and budget permits, I will take apart more lightning cables such as the 'half original' ones in the future for additional comparison. 

Upgrading my iPhone 6s to 256GB

In this lengthy post, I will share on how I got about upgrading the storage on my iPhone 6s to 256GB, which might be helpful if you're considering doing the same.​

So, why did I want to upgrade the storage myself?

Here my long story begins. TL;DR, my iPhone was slowing down and running out of space.

Last year, I installed an aftermarket high capacity battery from China (its legit, it did help improve battery life) to replace the old failing one. Following that, I heard about the throttling issue on iOS 11 and thought the high capacity the battery is showing might be interfering with iOS, making it confused and in turn throttle the CPU.

However, after the throttle issue was fixed, I still felt that my phone was kind of slow, and thought something else must be causing the slowdown. I did some research and found that larger capacity iPhones had a faster nand, and that the performance of flash storage tends to degrade at about 70% full.
At that point in time, I only had about 10GB of storage left on my 64GB iPhone, which equates to about 84% full. It seems that a larger capacity flash chip was the cure for my slow phone.
I looked around and found a mobile repair shop at Sim Lim Square that offers a service to upgrade the iPhone storage to 256GB, and it costs S$159 at the time of writing. (Fun Fact: iirc, at the time of launch the 6s had a maximum configurable storage of only 128GB.)

As a teenager, that seemed a little too costly for me, and felt it could be cheaper if I did it myslef. I came across a YouTube video by Strange Parts showing how he did it. His video convinced me that it would be possible for someone with little smd rework experience to successfully upgrade the storage on an iPhone. I went to find the tools he used on taobao, a popular e-commerce platform in China, and found the programmer for the nand flash to be prohibitively expensive for it to be viable for me. It costs around 1600 yuan, and that itself was more expensive than the repair shop option.

However, as I was looking through prices of the programmer, I stumbled upon sellers who sell the nand flash alone and they advertised that they are able to program the nand for the buyer. Following that discovery, I did further research and found out that you just need the model number, imei, WiFi and Bluetooth MAC address to be programmed into the nand for it to work, and there isn’t a need for the seller to have access to your device to program the required information.
However, as taobao sellers are mostly in China, you’d need to communicate in Chinese with them if you'd like to do the same. If you're interested to shop on Taobao and do not know how, you can check out my other blog for some tips on how to do so.

With the programmer being an optional item, it is now possible for me to do it myself at a price lower than what is offered at the local repair shop.

The Process

Firstly, I bought a few iCloud locked 6s boards for practice, before buying the actual nand flash for my iPhone. As I already had a hot air station and tweezers, the only tool I bought was a cheap Xacto knife to scape the adhesive away from the perimeter of the nand flash, some flux and a roll of wick. In the end, I practiced on 4 iCloud locked motherboards before moving onto my own iPhone. At that point in time, I intended to buy a second hand 16gb one to try but as I was on a budget I decided to risk it and change the nand on my main phone.

In online guides, they recommend restoring from a new firmware before doing the upgrade but I did not feel it was necessary. I however did deactivate find my iPhone to avoid any activation issues. I'm not sure if it was necessary to disable find my iPhone, but that was what I did and it worked out in the end.

The removal of the nand went smoothly and I did not pull any pads. The chip I bought was pulled from another iPhone so it had some black underfill on it. It was pretty hard to clean it properly and I did not manage to solder it correctly on the first try. When restoring, iTunes gave me error 4013. At that point in time, I was getting worried that I had bricked my phone for good.
Not willing to give up, I tried re soldering it and luckily my anxiety did not make me mess anything up and I managed to get it soldered properly eventually.
During the process, I was a little conflicted on how to solder. In some videos I saw online, they wicked the solder off the pads while others just went through the pads with a soldering iron to tin the pads. I can't exactly remember what worked, but in my opinion it would be safer to try without the wick first as you'd be less likely to tear out the pads.

Then, after restore I faced another problem. Touch ID wouldn't work when during the activation phase. I thought it would resolve after I restored my data, but it didn't. I then thought it might be the issue with the programming and I thought I would need to solder back my old chip for it to work, and my failure on the first attempt gave me some ptsd and I was reluctant to solder the old chip back again. I proceeded to ask the seller and turns out I made a dumb mistake - I did not plug in the home button when restoring. Touch ID finally worked after another restore, but that meant I had to wait for all the apps to reinstall for the second time. Not a significant mistake, but it would've been good to avoid had I known initially.

When restoring my data, the iPhone picture in iTunes became gold (my phone housing is silver). I guess the nand chip seller didn't program it as I forgot to tell them what colour my phone was. I initially thought they were able to find out the colour using my imei, serial or model number. It turns out they won't know unless you tell them, I guess.

After the storage upgrade, I felt that my phone was significantly faster, and a disk speed test I did before and after the upgrade reflected the change.

Old 64GB Speed

After upgrading to 256GB

Amount I spent in total:

iCloud locked practice boards: 240RMB (60 each)
256GB used nand chip: 203RMB (prices have since gone up)
Xacto knife set SGD1.49
Flux SGD3.44
In total i spent less than S$110, mission accomplished! Plus, I get to keep my old flash chip as well!​All in all, I managed to gain experience in hot air soldering and save over S$40 in the process. I'd say it's pretty good.

Should you decide to do the same, here are some things to take note of:

• You should be comfortable opening an iPhone and removing its motherboard
• Definitely definitely get a few motherboards to try on, if you go straight on its likely you'll ruin something. I've ruined numerous iPhones in the past and had put off the idea of upgrading the storage for quite a long time as I was really scared I would brick my phone
• When restoring the firmware remember to plug in the home button to ensure Touch ID gets activated
• Optimally do it on a spare phone so it doesn’t disrupt your daily usage if it doesn’t go smoothly
• Shop on Taobao instead of AliExpress if possible, as the prices are usually better
• Buy a brand new flash chip to make your life easier if your budget permits. You wont face issues with alignment with uncleaned underfill form used ones
• From what I can tell when communicating with the nand flash sellers, they generally do not like selling to people who do not have any experience(like me), so you'd have to 'act' like you know what you're doing. It is possible they might refuse to sell it to you if you let them know you have little to no experience as they feel it would be more likely that you would accidentally damage the chip and blame it on them and get a refund. I guess it might be because they had numerous experiences of people spoiling the flash chip and blaming it on them. I can't be really sure though, but that was what I could tell based on my experience.

Below are my affiliate links to items that may be useful if you would like to attempt this on your own. I may earn a cut from the sales, but it is of no additional cost to you. If you’d like to support me, you can purchase using the links below. 

Hot Air Station: https://amzn.to/2PzGuuX

Cheap Hot Air Station: https://amzn.to/2VJ2Q13

TS100 Soldering Iron: https://amzn.to/2IcVjQ0

Solder Roll: https://amzn.to/2TdVfpi

Solder paste: https://amzn.to/2IfiVmQ

Goot Wick: https://amzn.to/2TdyQIU

Tweezer: https://amzn.to/2VEMeHA

Is your lightning cable a bona fide one?

I’m sure you’ve seen a fake lightning cable before, and differentiating between fake and authentic seem pretty straightforward. Even Apple’s website shows you how to tell. 

But.. I’ve noticed that the fakes are looking increasingly like the authentic ones. So how can you tell?

The easy to tell ones

These are the basic ones. The lightning connector is not in a single metal casing. These are pretty straightforward to differentiate.

These are the basic ones. The lightning connector is not in a single metal casing. These are pretty straightforward to tell. 

Looking at the above picture, it seems pretty easy to tell eh? But nah, that's just the tip of the iceberg.

I’m starting to see some with a single metal piece that almost seems authentic until you look very closely.

Not so easy to tell ones

There was once I bought an ‘authentic’ cable from someone on Carousell. The box looked identical to the ones in Apple stores, with the exception of the blue sticker on the corner, saying it’s original in Chinese. I then became a little skeptical about its authenticity. I then noticed that the connector became slightly warm when charging. The last thing that gave it away was the documentation(photos below). That’s when I knew it definitely wasn’t original. Luckily, I was able to get a refund. Below are some photos for comparison. 

Packaging looks identical with the exception of the blue sticker

See the subtle differences between the fake and the real? The real one is on the right.

USB connector looks pretty much the same. Apple's official guide doesn't seem really useful..

Notice anything odd? Box says 'Lighting to USB Cable', documentation says 'Lightning to 30-pin Adapter'.  Hmm... seems odd, doesn't it?

There are still some differences in this case, mainly the lightning connector. The fake seems to have more jagged edges.

I then started seeing lightning cables that looked identical to the original ones. Out of curiosity I cut open the connector. What I found was not what other people’s teardown of the Lightning connector.

I then chanced upon this picture:

Chinese counterfeit lightning cable types?

On the top left, it seems like the original lightning connector. I was getting convinced that I found the original one. So I started purchasing a few of these to sell, thinking it was original. (which I later found out wasn't)

Looks very convincing.

Looks exactly the same!

Took the connector apart. Doesn't seem original to me. However the connector(area with the 8 pins) look exactly like the original one.

Not long after, I came across this tester on Taobao, a popular Chinese E commerce site. It was pretty expensive, costing almost S$200. 

It claims to be able to tell if a cable is authentic by just plugging it in. Since I wasn’t 100% sure what I got was original, I bought it just to be sure. 

What I found out with that device is shocking. Even though some can look exactly like the real deal, it registered as a fake on the device. 

Copycat means fake btw.

Look at the lightning connector. Looks like what you get from an iPhone box, but its fake

Cable that came in an iPhone box. Wires are showing so I placed a layer of heat shrink over the cable.

Foxconn packaging. Real? No. Fake. They even managed to program the cable serial number into the connector!

So, how can you tell if what you’ve got is authentic?

The conclusion I got from my experience is that you can only tell if you have the device I have. 

I'm sure not many of you reading this would be crazy enough to buy a device costing nearly 10x of a lightning cable in the Apple Store to figure this out. 

However, if you're in Singapore, you can hmu via Carousell and you can pay me a small fee to test some cables. 

After all, I have to recoup some of the costs of this device right? 😅


Else, what you can do, without the device, is to only look at the connector and make sure the corners are smooth and they look exactly like the original one.
To ensure your cable is an original one, purchase it from the Apple store or only buy MFi Certified cables from reputable brands like Targus and Belkin etc. Make sure the packaging has the MFi Certified logo, where it shows 'made for iPod, iPhone, iPad'.

This would hopefully help prevent you from getting scammed when someone, in a 3rd party repair store for example, tries to sell you a cable that looks exactly like an original one.

Using a fake cable bypasses some protection from the cable and could harm your device. Do check out this video by iPad Rehab I found, for a more detailed explanation.

You may also want to check out this video by mobilereviewseh on the topic of lightning cables.

Differentiating between fake and real Apple Power Adapters

I'm sure you've heard news of those fake apple chargers exploding right? After looking at the news it seems that it is pretty easy to differentiate between the fake and the real right? Well, nope. Those producing the fake power adapters are getting better at imitating the real ones and you have to take a closer look to check if it's real. 

This blog post is going to be a long one so if you're inpatient feel free to skip to the pictures. In this blog post I will talk about the improvements of the fake chargers, and some ways to check if yours is real. 

Ps: if you've got more suggestions or have any points that I've missed out feel free to comment bellow to let everyone know! 

Context 

Basically, the best way to ensure yours is original is to purchase from Apple retail stores. But let's say you want to have a few at home and a few at the office, the cost of buying retail adds up really quickly. So you want to buy from someone else who sells it more cheaply and many sellers claim what they are selling is original. The problem is that the fakes are getting so good that even some sellers might not even know if they're really selling the original ones. I myself am selling the power adapters too and to make sure that I'm selling original adapters so I've done some research myself and these below are what I have found out: 

So what has changed?

If you've come across a fake one in the past you'd have realized that the USB port is inverted and that was a good indicator of the authenticity of the adapter. Well, not anymore. All of the fakes have the USB port oriented correctly already so many would assume that a power adapter is authentic if the USB port is oriented correctly. 

They counterfeiters have also become more daring and they copy the exact wordings of an original charger and it would be really hard to tell even if you were scrutinizing it. 

Lastly, weights has also been added to the fake chargers to make them feel like the original ones on the hand, so you can't use weight to determine its authenticity anymore. 

Taking a look at the insides

To know how to differentiate between fake and real, I decided to take apart all different the adapters I could get my hands on. They are divided into different grades: A, AA, 仿(meaning copy) and lastly 原壳(original outer shell). Of course I also took apart an original one for reference. 

This is the 仿(copy) adapter. It has a metal weight on the 3 pin side, where 2 wires connects to the pcb. 

This is the A adapter. Again, a metal weight on the 3 pin side and 2 wires connect to the pcb.

This is the AA adapter. It's weight is under the pcb, in the shell. The 3 pin side connects to the pcb via metal contact when assembled. 

This is the 原壳(original shell) adapter. Did not find any metal weights but the blob of silicone could contribute to the weight. 3 pin side same as the original one but uses spring on the pcb for contact. I guess this is the best out of all the fakes? 

Lastly this is the original adapter. Was so hard to open I had to Dremel it open resulting in the horrible condition of the outer shell. Very sure there isn't any weights on the original one. 3 pin side has an additional white tape. Connects to the pcb with a special connector.

How to differentiate between fake and real?

After examining the adapters in detail I came up with some ways that I think can help you differentiate between the fake and the real.(as of time of writing)

Firstly you can check the sidewalls of the USB port. Original ones all have a little area where u can see white at the back(see the pictures).  Fake ones tend to have either a black background or have a larger visible white background. Hopefully the attached pictures can allow you to understand what I mean. 

Authentic one has a small white part covering about half of the height of the USB port but the original shell one covers about 3/4 of the height

The sidewall of the AA one is black while original one is white

Cutout for sidewalls of USB port in A charger is different from original

Cutout for copy charger is similar to that of the A charger

Basically, just lookout for chargers that have the exact same USB sidewall cutouts as the original one. If its different, its probably a fake.


Secondly, you can check the pins of the 3 pin plug. Most fakes don't have a consistent line between the metal and plastic part. Again, look at the pictures.

 

Thirdly, you can check for irregularities in the printing at the back. Some fakes have misaligned printings, whereby the printing is off center. If you look closely enough, most fakes have a slightly different font from the original one and the shade of printing is darker. However, the printing for the 原壳(original case) one is exactly the same as the original one so beware. This method is reliable against most fakes. 

Font of words are different 

Apple logo is off centre for A charger

Font is different 

Original shell charger looks exactly as the same but still fails the above 2 tests

Fourthly, you can check the current it can deliver. You can use something like a USB load resistor combined with a USB tester to check the voltage. Original/good fakes will be able to sustain 5V under 1A load. The 仿(copy) version's output voltage dropped to 3+V under 1A. Horrible adapter. I also tried to put 2A load on the adapters (it's only designed for 1A load, do so with caution) and realized that 2/3 original apple adapters stayed on with 3+V output while all the fakes and one of my original one turned off. The original one that was has "Emerson Network Power" written on it(its original, probably came with the iPhone 4)turned off but the one with "Salcomp(Shenzhen) Co.,Ltd" and "Artesyn" written stayed on. Your results may vary and original chargers can also turn off when you put a 2A load so this might not be a very good way to check for its authenticity. 

Lastly, you could also check the charger's weight. Original ones weigh between 42 to 48 grams. However the weight of most of the fakes also fall in that range so you could only be certain yours is fake if it weighs 30 over grams or less(one of my fakes weigh 30+ grams).

Conclusion 

I hope you've found this post useful. If you have any suggestions on other ways to differentiate between the fake and original power adapters do comment below :)

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