No problem. Buckle up, get a cup of coffee or take notes or something.
I have 2 main ones that I cycle through right now, a Perfine 4100 mAh battery (out of stock on Amazon) and a Taeozi 4200 mAh (delisted). I've purchased more, I'll list them and their fates below, kinda chronologically, especially because I'm going to make a bigger post soon outlining all of them once two packages come in.
The one that came with my phone. I used it once - when I initially got the phone. Drained it to 40% and put it back in the box, for when the inevitable batterypocalypse happens.
It's good, it still works. I keep it at my parents' place charged to 50% as a spare. Finding an actual OEM LG battery is another story.
Complete shit. Bought it on Amazon. Degraded faster than any of the other 3rd party batteries, like literal weeks before it was shit. It was actually cheaper than all of them too. Phone lags below 50% charge, probably due to voltage sag. Recycled. Was either a fake, really old, really used, or all 3. No recourse or refund with something like this - the 3rd parties on Amazon all honor their warranties in my experience.
Came with one of those black wall chargers. One battery gave random "invalid battery" errors out of the box upon booting and would just shut the phone back down. I contacted the seller, they gave me a 50% refund, no questions asked. Bizarrely enough, after really cleaning the contacts on Invalid Battery, it works great now. ~2800 mAh real capacity. The one that was "OK" out of the box degraded, I recycled it after a few months of use.
Same deal as the now dead TQTHL, barely 2000 mAh actual capacity after ~6 months, slowdowns if it's below 50% charge, etc. Contacted them, they offered to send a replacement or a prorated refund based on the 18-mo warranty. Pretty sure aexpower and SHENMZ are the same "company".
I'm about to RMA one of them because I get random "High temperature warning ⚠" screens but only with that specific battery installed. It was the 1st one I bought, and I may or may not have rolled over onto the phone, plugged into a USB-PD charger, with the brightness on max. The 2nd battery I bought a few weeks after that when they were back in stock still works great and AccuBattery estimates 3800 mAh capacity on it. The wonky one has also always been much harder to get the battery cover to close over, so it was probably a dud on Day 1 that's just now manifesting.
Tough to get the cover over, but it doesn't give me any trouble. Only bought it because it was a good deal cheaper than the Perfine at the time, and was also in stock.
Almost free, I bought it using the refund from the aexpower. Voltage sag below 50% charge after 6 mo, not going to bug them for a refund tho, will recycle it next time I go to Best Buy.
They legit seem identical to the very first set of TQTHL batteries, from the packaging, to the charger, etc. These Chinese battery "companies" are all just different names for the same shit in my opinion lol. I keep one in my desk and one in the car, and tbh I bought them for the charger. They're probably safer to keep lying around than these sketchy LiPo packs anyways.
On the way because Perfine is out of stock. Technically the cheapest LiPo on Amazon right now. Technically what I'd recommend.
3 wonderfully ridiculous 3800 mAh "Gold" batteries are on their way from eBay. It was like $24 for 3. I bought them just to see what they were.
There are a few more ridiculous sounding brands of battery on eBay, including one that doesn't even appear to have a "brand name" but has a Chinglish message printed on it about "Supporting US Taxpayer Company" and boasts a 4520 mAh capacity! Make BL-44E1F Great Again. And then this 4200 mAh "LOSONCOER" that is more expensive than all of the 4200 mAh batteries on Amazon but ships from China. No thanks. Others include a "Sporting" 4520 mAh and an ACESOFT 4520 mAh, and one that's completely unbranded, possibly the elusive "original" battery that all of these fuckers are buying boxes of to slap labels onto. They're dirt cheap though, $12 or so.
I also bought a MAXXJUICE to see what that's about. I doubt it will be any different from the other 4Ah batteries, and it's a great deal more expensive, but it comes with a case. Also no sales tax because lol Singapore. Yay.
If for whatever reason you want an original LG OEM battery, I've only found 2 legit sources, neither are cheap.
The first is easier, local, quicker, but way more expensive. Find someone selling the retail BCK-5200 package - the battery inside is real and unused. Buying an OEM battery from someone selling the loose BCK-5200 (cheaper) is hit or miss.
The 2nd is an Israeli eBay user that appears to be operating out of a cell phone shop in Bnei Barak. They also still have the LG Quick Cover in stock lol. Everything I ordered from him has a little sticker on it - they were accessories imported for a carrier over there. That's "OEM LG Battery #2" from earlier. It's over a year old. Still works fine.
Just to add something onto SoT not being an important metric, there's another pretty important thing I've started checked for with replacement batteries. Sleep behavior.
Yup. I have 1 "OEM" battery and 1 "aexPower" battery that both start doing the same weird thing - they don't let me wake the phone from sleep. Holding the power button to trigger the shutdown options always wakes it. The quick cover does not. Plugging something into the USB port does. The phone isn't frozen, because I can use BT media controls from a headset or my Pebble, but it won't wake unless you wait ~5 seconds.
That also usually translates to really sluggish I/O and weird general fuckery. The aexpower battery is exceptionally bad, I tried downloading an app from the Play Store this morning with it in at 95% charge and it wouldn't go. The "OEM" battery that also has the wake problems but only <50% charge doesn't have any of the other weird issues.
I'm not saying that it's specific to aexpower or that all of their batteries do that, I'm just saying it's the mark of a junk battery. Probably some serious voltage sag that's making the SoC act up. I have two TQTHL batteries as well - one randomly gives me "Invalid Battery" errors but is otherwise identical to my good OEM battery, the other never says it's an Invalid Battery but acts just like the aexpower one does.
It's fuckin' hit or miss with this shit. EDIT: looks like aexpower is going by "SHENMZ" now and they also have a new "upgraded" >4000 mAh LiPo pack. Further reinforcing my old hunch that the 3300 mAh batteries we were all arguing brands about were actually coming out of the same fucking factory and it was all down to luck of the draw, QC, or batch numbers.
Small world BTW, I literally just ordered what is most likely the same LiPo cell this morning after deciding to recycle the two bad ones. I'll order the Perfine too. Thanks for posting this OP.
Thank you for the post BTW.