Sometimes we feel like dying when we get our latest mobile phone bill, but that's usually as close to life-threatening as things ever get on account of our phones. While we'd hardly call having to pay that bill "lucky", it sure seems like it when compared to the actually life-threatening situations some people find themselves in as a result of malfunctioning phones. In the latest incident from China, a young man just put a new battery in his phone when it exploded in his shirt pocket, killing him.

This isn't the first death from exploding phones, as another Chinese man was killed in 2007, also from a phone kept in his shirt. In that case he worked in an iron foundry, where it's thought the extreme heat or a stray spark led to a catastrophic failure, critically injuring him.

The culprit in these cases is apparently the phones' batteries, which contain the highly reactive element lithium. Pure lithium reacts even with water, giving off flammable gasses. In a well-made battery the lithium is safely contained and shouldn't ever cause problems. A big concern in countries like China, with extensive counterfeiting industries, is that cheaply-made batteries of low build quality, lacking proper safety devices, will be passed off as legitimate. Manufacturers use things like serial numbers and holograms to make it easier to identify their properly-made batteries, but even holograms are easy for a sophisticated counterfeiter to copy.

We're not trying to scare you, though; don't switch back to a landline just yet. If you buy your phone and accessories from legit sources, you should have very little chance of picking up a fake battery. That means staying away from eBay and other resellers; get your batteries straight from your mobile provider, if possible. It might be a little more expensive, but the alternative doesn't sound too appealing.

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