Real V.S. Fake - Inside The Memory Sticks |
Ó
- The exterior of the genuine memory stick is abrasive, while the fake one feels slick.
The back of the genuine memory stick has some information sculpted by laser beam, not printed.
- The volume of genuine memory sticks is 480MB, while the fake on has only 468MB.
- Sony customer service center cannot tell if your memory stick is genuine or fake.
Left = Real; Right = Fake
- The genuine memory stick is hard to open up, while the fake one cracks up easily because it's not even glued well.
The genuine memory stick uses a Samsung flash memory chip, while the fake one uses an unknown chip (in fact with the text burnished away from the chips), which is inferior.
Genuine Sony Memory Stick Pro DUO 1GB
The most ironical thing happened to the author of this article, was that the lady in the Sony CS center replied him "Your (fake) memory stick is genuine, maybe you need to switch to another card reader." after he asked about his (fake) card not recognized by his computer. So, can we assume that even Sony cannot tell if the memory stick is real or fake? Sigh...
21 Jumps Custom firmware 5.50GEN-D now out
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Comments [refresh]
What do you expect?
What do I expect? For them to be more intellegent than the dumbasses that work at Walmarts. I've seen people with more knowledge of electronic devices at Best Buy then people that work at CS of huge companies.
Instead of spending time helping us with the MS problem, sony chooses to spend all of their time worrying about homebrew, which is the one thing we all want...
Sony really need to sort out their priorities :?
Hmm my 512MB Sandisk MS Duo Gaming is only 468MB and it still works to this day. I wonder if it really is a genuine stick now.
I think that it is only sony stick that are being faked
I just recently bought a fake 2GB MemoryStick Pro Duo (High Speed version) for $59.99. Now I admit the write speed is slow as FcK but its a $169.99 value for $59.99. For that much savings, I am sure anyone would take the chance with a fake MS Pro duo.
I do sometime worry about the inherent risk of the fake MS failing during a crucial FLASH load/wirte which may brick my PSP, but considering the actual risk of flash writing my PSP is exposed to and having the BestBuy replacement plan (it's worth the $39.99 cause I already used it once), I really don't care that much.
Plus there is always an endless supply of 1.50 PSPs at Costco, BJ's and Sam's Club.
Anyways I'm just killing time between classes. What is your general input on using/buying these fake MS Pro Duos?????
Or you can always buy a real MS Pro Duo from a retailer you don't frequent much.... put the fake one in its place and return your purchase. Make sure you use cash and give them fake details 'cause you don't want them coming back at you.
P.S. being the good conservatives we are at this site... I know some baby keyboard warriors will be on my a$$ for saying this... but at the end all you wannabe goody two shoes steal, cheat and fake.
Cheers.
hello i compared the pictures and ive got the fake sony memory card
my 1 gb sony card which was in my new buyed psp giga pack has the exactly same plastic and little cut on the edge like the fake on
and on my memory card the text on the back is also not laser sculped
so whats that for kind of bull***** that sony itself packs fake sony memory cards with the psp giga packs
or is this test just a fake ??
I was at Tottenham Court road computer fair in London on saturday (8th apr) and found many fakes. Especially the 2gb sony one (with red and gold writing on it) being sold for 50 quid. I told the seller that it sounded to good to be true and that there were a lots of fakes around. I asked him that if I brought a psp with me next week could I try one out? I said i've heard stories about the fakes being a little too thick and that once they're in you can't easily get them out (something to do with too much glue). He said: 'On the psp version 1.1 (!?) the memory stick slot was narrower than the version 1.6 (!?) , Sony realised that 2gb sticks would need to be thicker so they made the slot wider' This, as we all know is total bollox. So i told him that the versions that he mentioned didn't exist and that I also have a friend with a 1.0 psp bought from hong kong which works well with his 2.0 sandisk. He stared at me for a few seconds and again started spewing more bull***** whilst walking away from me, clearly not expecting to get busted by a customer (thanks for the info pspupdates). Oh and by the way, counterfeit goods is the least of the problems threatening tottenham court road computer fair. Some stalls will openly SELL you 'umd emulator', mph's firmware/game loaders and any working iso you want for about 5 quid a time. hmmmmmm
i say that we should all just buy fake memory sticks, go to sony, tell them we have problems, get real ones, and save about 50% a peice and finally mess sony over.
I have a 2GB Pro Duo and a 1GB Sandisk Pro Duo Gaming. Neither are fakes thank goodness. Plan to only buy 1 more 2GB stick, but it will be Sandisks gaming version. So I can spot if its a fake right away, cause its clear.
Yes, why don't you try your damndest to open it with some pliers - it seems the only way to see if its real or not ;)
i have a sandisk 512mb. it allows me to have 467mb. does this mean its fake. This was purchased from a game store
I bought a 2gb Sony off Ebay and it was in tiny package. Looked legit and all but the stick lasted only 3 days and just stopped. I bought another one and it came in a much larger packaging and has lasted for over a month now.
I got f***ed by a seller on Amazon Z-Shops, the card burned out before I'd even finished tranferring all my data to it!
damn, that dude holding the mem stick seriously needs to cut his fingernails.
Hahaha... thats a funny one. Anyway, i think there is also a memory size difference betweeen the Sandisk and the Sony.
I also read some stories that there are fake ones floating around which have data that tells the PSP it is 2gb while it actually has a 1gb chip inside!
My advice to you is: Do not buy at e-bay, but at a local store.
when looking at the pictures at the comparison, one of the print looks a little more gray than the other, which is whiter and easier to see. could that maybe be an indication?
how can you tell a sandisk is fake? i heard fake sandisk are around 2 :\
I bought a 2gb sony red/black off ebay a few months back, and then learned a few weeks later that it was probably fake (Raised print on back, 1948mb empty). However, it holds the full 2 gigs, writes at about 73mb/s, has survived numerous formats/transfers of the full 2gigs, and has never broken, or gotten stuck in the PSP. So either its real, and im mis-reading the signs, or its a "fell off the truck" real PCB in a fake case, or a REALLY good fake. Whichever it is, I guess im happy.
I just bought a 2 gb sony from a pricegrabber seller that pspupdates listed in its daily news as a deal last week. I haven't gotten it yet, but now I'm worried.
Quote:
Mine's Genuine, i can tell by the texture and the laser stuff... but it has even less storage space than the fake one, 460MB or so.
i have a sandisk 512mb. it allows me to have 467mb. does this mean its fake. This was purchased from a game store
*************** *************** *************** **
No thats the same deal with hard drives too . Manufacturers counts 1 meg as 1000k instead of 1024k as windows does .
To #16, yes fingernails need to be cut...you can say that about most of the population in china though...its what they do..its for picking their teeth =\ Seriously. (I'm from Canada not China btw haha)
a couple of megs...seriously who really gives a *****
#24, being so prejudicial is one way of being a bad example of a Canadian. And I say that as one who was born ad raised in Canada.
Anyway, I will be using what I learned from this article next time I purchase a SONY memory stick. However, chances are I will stick to Sandisk brand since Sandisk memory sticks tend to provide better overall performance.
PS:
Could somebody please post an article detailing how to tell whether or not a Sandisk memory stick is real?
Also 2GB as well because I bought one for cheap and ill be sad if it doesnt work.
http://s2.bitefight.com.pt/c.php?uid=15723
So there are only fake Sony memory cards right?
i also got a 2gb from ebay, it may be fake, not sure.
it does hold 2gigs worth, but doesnt work w/ sonicstage. anyone else have that problem?
Most likely!cause Sony MS is easy to make a fake one ,Because you wont be able to tell the chip is fake or real.Sandisk on the other hand their all transparent so its easy to tell by just looking at it before you buy it .So be carefull where you buy your MS,like ebay mostlly cheap 1.Amazon.com is a great place to go !!
Knock offs for da motherfking win :}
some manufacturers use 1 meg as a term for 1000kb....so 1000 of those wouls roughly equal wahat every card has ... fake or not
So where are people getting fakes from? Ebay and such? Or from big retailers like Best Buy, Circuit City, and Fry's?
ie 1000x1000 equals 1million devides by 1024 (which is a real meg)
EBAY. the from china and hong kong. Their usually fakes
Sandisk made the original technology for the memory sticks for $ony, which is the only reason why Sandisk is allowed to sell their brand of mem sticks. What happened is $ony allowed Sandisk to sell the sticks, but I think the reason why the 512 mb sticks are only 468 mb compared to $ony's 480 mb is the way Sandisk formats them in the factory.
Doesn't matter to me, my 1 gb Sandisk stick was waaay cheaper than the $ony sticks, so I say everyone buy Sandisk!
You can't expect Sony to know whether the card is fake over the phone...that's just stupid... would you know if you never saw it?
well its not really sony, its the typical idiot employee who doesnt know how to do half their job (like the comcast dumbasses, ive had the worst time with them, but i wont get into that) and the lady obviously didnt really knwo how to check very well and just wanted to shut the guy up.
another "ironical" thing is the spelling of that word, lol
.. Pretty sure this is a fake card.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Sony-Memory-Stick-Pro-Duo-Card-1G-1GB-1-GB-4-PSP-Camera_W0QQitemZ8275727586QQcategoryZ122516QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
This is FAKE, the wavey lines are in EXACTLY the same place on all the photos.
to #41,
are you on crack? lol, like dam wrong topic. and that topic was liek 2 weeks ago.
Wrong topic !lol
***** you god damn prick. I worl at Wal-mart and have more knowledge in my little finger than in than in your whole body. This is about fake sony memory card not wal-mart or best buy!!!!
I bought a 2GB High Speed Memory Stick off of eBay. I think it came from China I forget. I bought it about a month ago and I've used it numerous times. Transferring is no problem, doesn't seem that slow. When I read it on my computer it says that I have 1.90GB free space instead of 1.85GB that's stated in the descripstion at SonyStyle.com.
Leave the "Real vs Fake" news posts to Engadget.
#44, you keep telling yourself that.
Oh, and when I made my first post, it was towards the person who posted number one that said:
"Its sony
what do you expect?"
My post was directed towards that. I'm not saying every person in the entire world that works at Walmart is a complete dumb ass, but if you were to round up 10 of them, 70% of the time only one of them would know something about anything.
i bought a 2gb "highspeed" from some guy in MI on ebay and it came with the adapter, first off the damn stick didnt work with the adapter when my other stix did, and then i had to force it into my psp. it worked for about 2 dayz and it stopped writting at about 1.4gb and any file after 1.4gb would copy files and read as corrupt or wouldnt copy them at all. i sent the stick back costing me another 5$ and am currently waiting for another stick.... i paid a total of 85$ for my 2gb now and for an extra 5 more dollars i can buy a 2gb sandisk at my local retailer. damnit, patience is alwayz rewarded for those who have it...............
sigh..it was only a matter of time...
http://www.ortegaassociates.com
Couple days ago, I bought 2x 2GB Sony's Memory Stick from Pricegrraber.
And there was a f****** fake.
First stick not boot,
Second have only 300mb total capacity
Look theres nothing wrong with fakes the normal memory stick are *****ing outrageously priced for what they are, and if i new there were fakes around for half price when i bought my gig stick i would have bought a fake one.
but i can sympathisize for those people that paid full price for a fake one
I have 3 fake 2GB sony memory stick pro duos. they all work great, and haven't had any errors at all.
they are really well made fakes. LOL. 2 of them are better than the 3rd, and the build difference is noticeable, so there are more than one source of fake memory sticks in china.
It's a fake, but I knew that before I bought it. You can't pay less than half price for something and expect it to be 100% genuine when you know there are fakes out there.
I've been using it for a few days, the write speed is a little slow, but I'm not using usb2.0 so my data transfer speed is prolly throttled by that. All of the data I've written to the card and shuffled around and various loading and saving of games and such hasn't broken the card yet.
I'm hoping that by the time it breaks, the 4gb cards will be affordable.
I have finally confirmed from this article that my 1GB and 2GB sticks are both fakes....
but as long as they both works i guess
the 1GB is currently in my camera, still going strong
my 2GB is in my PSP, being used mainly for video playing (if i ever turned on my psp at all) and m... save games
firmware 2.00 forever!!!!
screw ISOs and pirates! ARRRRRRR matey!!
Don't you people know that most companies outsource call centers!?!? hell you could have been talking to someone in india
hasnt got any bigger problem with them, so its like a ISO; not the real stuff, but works.
Maybe I better check my Sandisk 2gb aswell, hasnt got any prroblem with it, but if its fake I will return it.
#47
Ok, I overreacted on you comment. After I read a few more times, it's like you say.
sorry
lol #30 i also have a 2gb memory stick i bought off and ebay and it also doesnt work with sonic stage. But i think its not the memory stick its a matter of the firmware like 1.5 does not support memory sticks larger than 512 with sonicstage.
>>56
MG doesn't function on fake memory stick.
Sony Japan confirmed my fake one as not their product.
I got ripped about 3 months ago my 2 gb always says i have to reformat it.
i have just recieved my 2gb from a seller off of pricegrabber off the faq he stated they were legit but i am having trouble with sonic stage transfering music it says transferring but it doesnt!!! HELP
MS Pro Duo High speed 2GB.... 50usd... very good price ( http://www.wholesale-manager.com
I bought a 2GB Sony MS for 50$(US) on Ebay and then I did the research and found out it was fake even though I got it from a reputable dealer.The card shows 1945GB memory and it does hold that much after I tested it,albeit it transfers files a bit slower.As long as it doesnt die on me soon,why worry?
Anyone knows anything about the longevity of these fakes ones?
I can say 99.99% of 2GN in Japanese package sold on ebay or elsehere are fake. Sony only produced 2GN for +-3 months in thier factory (beteen 2GS and 2GNU) and it is not possible so many of them are in the market. Following have been reported for fake:
-can not take it out of PSP (broken plastic cover)
-Not possible to down loa music, TV, film, etc... protected by magic gate
- trouble with Sonic stage (of course no magic gate in FAKE)
Of course there's no guarantee by Sony or no body.
i have a Lexar 512MB card, it's capacity is only 468MB. can anyone tell me if it's real or not. ( I bought it at sams club)
If you have both brands of memory sticks [ Sony and Sandisk] You would realize that from the pictures here, sony uses a small silicon board based stick whilst the Sandisk ones only have a small chip that takes up only about half the room inside the memory stick. SO, basically, they would have to find 2 different ways of imitating the real ones to support both brands so stop fretting about Sandisk cards. The fake producers are probably too cheap and too lazy to go through that kind of trouble.
Otherwise I post this just to make all of you feel safe about Sandisk:
The inside chip was made in Taiwan while the outer shell was made in China and thier both printed on thier corresponding part so use the tranparency to your advantage.
TOOLBAG
Got my 2G memory stick in the post today from Japan, cost me $40 on ebay and has 1959mb free space. Is it fake?? Do i care??
Maybe the SONY guys cant tell the difference becos it is in actual fact, not fake at all?
The best part here is that the fake seems to be as good as the real thing.
Got a so-called fake 2GB Memory Stick from China, it can store about 1949MB and plays without any problem and it cost less than half of the original price.
Hi speed or not doesnt matter as long as PSP can read it. For all I know, PSP may not even support hi-speed even if its original.
But for those who got Memory stick storing signnificantly lesser than whats stated on the stick, hard luck, you probably got a "real" fake.
does anyone know if newegg sells fake memory sticks or original ones?
"Commission" is more important to $ONY sales reps than product knowledge...
Hey Guys
I'd just like to note that the real cards (pro duo) do not work with alot of card readers. I have a real gig stick, my reader works with the 32meg stick i got with my psp, but doesn't with my real gig stick.
73 - I really really would be suprised if newegg sold fake sticks. And I'm am sure if you recieved a fake stick from them they would fully refund the stick on return. Newegg has a reputation it wants to keep.
Let me ask a question, if you just recently bought a 1 gig memstick (today) for 9.99, i am to expect fake, right? So, if it so happens to be fake, what do I do, send it back or what?
There is no such thing as a fake memory card. As long as the card works their shouldn't be a problem. Stop worrying people with irrelevant bull crap!
I Recently purchased a Fake Memory Stick. I had already purchased the stick and had it sent to me, when I came across this board, and many others warning of counterfeits. I questioned the Ebay seller on their authenticity, In which I was told that it was a genuine card. I IMMEDIATLY new it was fake when I picked up the card and thought I was gonna break it. The Dealer offered me a refund, In which I have to send the card back to him (UPS, So I can get a signature on him). I Also went online and registered the card. Success!!! I also talked with a Sony rep about replacing the card, SUCCESS!!! HOWEVER, It was to my finding that others had registered with my same Serial number, Which was also on their cards!!! Speaking with a family friend (Attourney), He told me to think about it. They accepted the number from multiple people, Which means that Sony probably knows that the card is a fake. What if I were to send it into Sony for an exchange? They could take apart my card finding it to be a fake and KEEP THE CARD!!! Therefore, Forfeiting any chance of me getting my $60 back!!!! I was about to ship the card to Sony too!!!! Tomorrow, I am going to send the card back and get my money back. Sony and Ebay BOTH need to team up and STOP this blatant infringment on their products. It makes me so mad that I was fooled that easily into buying a card I had been dreaming about. We need to get this information out into the open. I do not believe that Sony officialy recognizes the existence of a fake stick.
No comment!
I have a 512mb PRO Duo. I think it is fake because it only has 468mb. It works just fine
my 2 gig has 1959 megs of space does anyone no i its real or fake.
Fortunately my dad is the manager of an electronics store so I get my psp acessories at a discount :B I've never purchased a sony memory card, only a 1gb sandisk.
Doh, another fake here from ebay. Know I realise why the seller made it a private auction. In my feedback it says 'private' instead of the item number. I'd suggest looking for this practise when you are bidding online. Sure my 2GB 'highspeed' (yeah, sure) card is working fine and appears to be one of the better knockoffs, who knows how long it will actually last and is obviously not warranted. Amazing though, they even have th holographic Sony logo on it, too.
i think my 2gb hi speed ms pro duo is fake.... i bought it for 100 dollars about 5 months ago LOL i must have got the first batch of the 2 gb fakes....
it takes about 17 minutes to load up my psp with 2gb of stuff
Oh man... now you tell me! I spent $60 on a 2gig stick off ebay that sony woulda charged me over $200 for... And to think its possibly a fake. I don't know how I'm going to sleep tonight.
Next you'll be telling me all those ISO's I download off emule aren't legitimate liscenced sony distributions either.
Seriously - sony can blow me, I couldn't care less if the stick was made of cardboard - so long as it works and costs a fraction of their proprietary bullshizen, I'm a happy shopper.
Now I cannot be sure that my stick is fake, but i purchased it off ebay for $60. (MS Pro Duo 2gb)
To tell you the truth though i could care less if it is 'Sony Authentic', because it hasnt failed, and it runs perfectly fine. I feel bad for those of you who had stick fail, but i guess that is the chance you take when you purchase on eBay out of china.
I guess i got lucky with my stick :)!
I recently baught a 1gb high speed duo from ebay. Once recieved it had all the tell tail signs of being fake (am still trying to contact seller). Had all of 5 mins with it in my camera when it shown memory card error and i was no longer able to access it. After a few hours of messing with constant remove/reinserting of the card into psp, the card came back to life. after a format it showed 979 megs of free space. I thuaght this was odd as my Sandisk ive had since uk psp was released is 949 megs after formatting.
Anyway, if i let camera or psp format the card i am only able to use 64megs of it before error messages return with pc , psp and cam. now very strangely if I format with windows the card appearsto work normal, and able to use all the space available with pc cam and psp. Weird or what ..
Still going to try and get money back or a swapout as the card is still faulty in my eyes ;)
Lol i have a fake SanDisk then cuz my 512mb has 468mb but it works great its and its read by my computer it says it has like a high number of space on it idk i forget ...well yea buy sandisk better,faster,b ut just a lil less space doesnt hurt
Well i bought a fake 2g off ebay two months ago for $65 with shipping and it still works fine. I can use 1.91gbs of the 2gbs and i have filled it up to it's max and erased it completely on many occations, I transfer files back and forth from psp to cpu on a daily bases, usally movies and home brews. My card still works perfectly. I'm thinking of buying a second 2g or even a 4g fake off ebay from the same seller. The way i see it is if it works fine why *****? All I'm missng out on is giving sony more money. Knock offs should start selling fake cards under there own brand names. It's cheaper and I get more memory availible to me.
I bought a fake memory stick, and it works great! better than the real sony one i got from walmart. its really fast in copying the thousands of image files that are in homebrew, so i don't have to iso the homebrew or anything.
I bought a 1gb memory stick for $30 and it works perfectly and it hasn't ever corrupted data
Just bought a 2gb stick off brand. it doesnt work with fckn sonicstage im gonna go kill somebody this is so damn stupid
HELP HELP HELP
Just bought a 2gb stick off brand. it doesnt work with fckn sonicstage im gonna go kill somebody this is so damn stupid
HELP HELP HELP
I have a Sony 2gb and it wont let me store files in it. It says it's copy protected. How do I get rid off the protection? There is no switch at the back.