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Help How to recognised original Google Nexus 5x
- Thread starter NiroshanJ
- Start date
There are fakes of very many devices out there. I've not heard of fake Nexus 5Xs, since the fakers usually go for more mainstream/bigger selling models, but that's not to say they don't exist.
How to spot a fake depends on how much effort they put into faking it. Sometimes there are obvious cosmetic differences, sometimes not. Sometimes there are even functional differences (e.g. dual SIM when the original is single SIM). The first thing I look at is the baseband version: since the hardware inside is different, the baseband firmware will be too, and while the fakers often hack the software to lie about other things they usually don't bother misreporting this (either not knowing how or assuming that this will not mean anything). You might be able to learn something by installing a system info app like CPU-Z or Devcheck, since the fake will invariably have the wrong hardware (processor in particular will not be a comparatively expensive Qualcomm part) - any software already installed will however have been hacked to lie about these things, so you'd need to install your own to check.
Buying from a known and reputable source is the best protection. So if you can buy from Google themselves you are safe. If it's some backstreet phone shop or eBay seller it's harder to be sure. If the seller is in China it's more likely fake than real
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How to spot a fake depends on how much effort they put into faking it. Sometimes there are obvious cosmetic differences, sometimes not. Sometimes there are even functional differences (e.g. dual SIM when the original is single SIM). The first thing I look at is the baseband version: since the hardware inside is different, the baseband firmware will be too, and while the fakers often hack the software to lie about other things they usually don't bother misreporting this (either not knowing how or assuming that this will not mean anything). You might be able to learn something by installing a system info app like CPU-Z or Devcheck, since the fake will invariably have the wrong hardware (processor in particular will not be a comparatively expensive Qualcomm part) - any software already installed will however have been hacked to lie about these things, so you'd need to install your own to check.
Buying from a known and reputable source is the best protection. So if you can buy from Google themselves you are safe. If it's some backstreet phone shop or eBay seller it's harder to be sure. If the seller is in China it's more likely fake than real
.
I am looking at a local shop.
In principle the IMEI check should work (as long as nobody has anticipated that and programmed the system to present the IMEI of a real 5X to the user). Not all online IMEI checks are very good though: I just tried 2, and the first identified my phone as the wrong model (though the right manufacturer).