A couple of months ago, my mom was searching for an unlocked smartphone on Amazon for her own use. We stumbled upon a particular phone, a CHSLING, that caught our attention because the device appeared to be so similar to a Samsung Galaxy phone. Personally, I have had positive experiences with dupe items (particularly makeup), so I was not too hesitant about choosing this device.

Unfortunately, I was downright wrong (as usual) about my choices. Purchasing the actual device is a lot more worth it than buying a fake version. Sure, the fake Samsung has its pros: it is cheaper, you do not have to purchase a phone plan for a discounted price, the operating system is the same, and the fake product looks the same as its leading best-seller. However, when weighing the cons, the list far outweighs the advantages of a fake device:

1. The money: Yes, I did say that the fake version is a lot cheaper, but the amount of money used to buy the duplicate version could have been used to buy the actual device.

2. Limited Storage: You are familiar with the wide array of storage of choices that come with the leading manufacturers in the market: 8GB, 16GB, 32GB, 64GB, 128GB. In terms of the fake Samsung, you only get one storage option: 4GB. Despite that, one peculiar thing I have noticed is that there is only one gigabyte in the phone. Of course, SanDisk cards are an option, but not all apps transfer over to the external storage (e.g., Kik and Outlook). I only have two downloaded apps on my internal storage, yet it already takes up a lot of storage due to cached data.

3. Camera quality: Funny enough, the camera quality is not that bad, even though it is 0.3 MP. the pictures are not blurry. However, there is a purple tint throughout the bottom portion when taking a picture, both rear and front camera. The tint becomes stronger when increasing the value of exposure, but it does not totally disappear when placing the exposure to the lowest number. When pinching the screen to zoom in, the quality of both video and photo become grainy. Sure, a similar behavior exists in other phones, albeit more than others, but for the CHSLING, the bad image and video quality stands out.

4. Processor speed: On Amazon, you will spot many reviews that claim this phone has a fast processor. (The reviews that praise this phone have been claimed as 'write a positive review and you will get a discount' type of deal, so you may want to take these with a grain of salt. The details I am about to reveal to you about the processor are from my own personal experience.) When I am trying out the filters on Snapchat, the phone slows down to the point where the app immediately shuts down by itself within five minutes. On Instagram, the phone takes a couple of seconds to read my taps on the Explore page, which can be frustrating sometimes because I end up getting a different photo or video instead of what I want to view. When texting, the phone takes a while to 'understand' the words I am typing onto the screen. Usually, the final words that appear on the screen are completely different than what I wanted to type into the message. Typing big words can be bit of a problem, as the final words will either be a bunch of gibberish or some other words entirely. If you are wondering about games, then I cannot exactly tell you many details because I have not dared download any gaming apps. To be honest, I am quite scared of doing so because of the chances of my phone repeatedly starting over. One more thing I should add is that the phone tends to freeze, especially when going back to the home screen multiple times, or switching between apps.

I only listed four disadvantages, but these four are significant. In my personal opinion, I would not put your hard-earned money towards buying a fake version of leading manufacturer. You will be a lot more satisfied and you do not have to worry about fishy customer service.