With the recent boom in smartphone selling, the number of fraud cases also get increased. Nowadays, smartphone manufacturers are ready to give flagship-grade features at cheap prices. Though the authentic sources only sell original items, if you are planning to buy a new smartphone from a less-known source or from an unknown person, you have to be more careful. Today, I will explain some easiest ways to check if your smartphone is original or fake.

Talking about the current market, the number of fake smartphones and cloned smartphones have increased too much. You might be thinking what’s wrong in buying a cloned mobile phone? I agree, there’s nothing wrong with buying clone phones knowingly. The problem arises when people cheat customers by selling these phones like the original ones.

These fake phones sometimes look so original that it’s impossible for a normal user to identify the difference. But, most of the fake phones’ manufacturers are so lazy that they even do spelling mistakes, printing mistakes, and other silly mistakes on the product packaging. Just by looking at the package carefully, anyone can spot these mistakes.

In this article, you will learn how to check if a mobile phone is original or fake in the easiest way. Every genuine smartphone company releases the phones with a unique IMEI number. IMEI or International Mobile Equipment Identity is a 15-digit number which shows the legitimacy of the device. Every phone requires this number in order to register the device on a carrier network.

The IMEI number consists of three things – the first 8-digit is known as TAC (Type Allocation Code) represents the device model, the next 6-digit is SNR (Serial Number) and the last one digit is called CD (check digit) or SD (spare digit). Some phones even have a 16-digit IMEI number, where the last two digits represent the software version.

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How to check if a mobile phone is original or fake?

Fake mobile phones usually don’t have an IMEI number or use a fake one. So, You can use the IMEI number to check the legitimacy of any mobile phone. Follow the steps below:

  1. Just look at the box or below the battery (if removable) or simply dial *#06# to find the IMEI number of your phone.
  2. Open imei.info, enter the IMEI number at the box and press enter.
  3. If the website shows all the details of your phone, your phone is original. Otherwise, the website will show “Invalid IMEI” and that means your phone may not be original or someone has tweaked the IMEI number manually.

How to check if a mobile phone is original or fake

If you want to check the authenticity of an iPhone, just follow the steps below:

  1. First of all, find the serial number of the iPhone. You check look at the box or at the back panel or just navigate to Settings > General > About.
  2. Then, visit checkcoverage.apple.com, enter the serial number and captcha and click on continue.
  3. The website will show the warranty status of the device, and also verify whether it’s original or duplicate.

How to check if a mobile phone is original or fake

Also Read: 5 Best Websites to Buy Fancy Mobile Covers Online

I hope the above two methods will help you find whether your smartphone is original or not. If you know any other way to check the authenticity of a smartphone, do let us know in the comments section below.

8 COMMENTS

  1. Thank-you for the info. Cant a fake phone use the imei of an original soo that when you check via the imei.info you get the details of the original phone they have counterfeited? Is it possible?

    • First of all, changing IMEI is not legal in every country. It’s possible but again no two phones can use the same IMEI.

  2. i do check the imei and theres no such “Invalid Imei”. What i want to say is i bought a phone Oppo A7 and did check imei but in imei.info the result are different. It shows the details of Huawei Nova 3 PRX-L even the imei is from my phone Oppo A7, is it my phone is a fake?

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