OEM stands for Original
Equipment Manufacturer. A product made by Nokia for a Nokia
phone is an original piece of equipment from the
manufacturer. Generally, these products will cost more since
they are a brand name product.
You will always pay more for a
brand name product. A company builds its name and reputation
on the quality of its product. To maintain that image, they
have higher expenses in quality control and labor cost. Of
course, there is an extra markup in there since you are
buying the brand name as well. You will hear dealers that
sell OEM products exclusively that you should only buy OEM
products. They will tell you that the quality cannot be beat
and that only original products will work best with the
manufacturer’s phone. They sell these products exclusively.
They most certainly will tell you that you should only buy
OEM products. It is a more limited market with competition
being much lower for customers who will only buy OEM
products.
Aftermarket products can be
compared to "generic" products. The cost is usually
much lower since you are not paying for the brand name. And
the cost can be lower if you purchase from a company that
produces low-grade generic products. To that extent the OEM
dealers are right in saying that OEM products are much higher
quality.
Other companies producing
aftermarket products know that the quality of the product
will make or break them in the US market. Many of the
aftermarket products are rigorously tested for quality
control. They are not going to risk losing a potential
customer base of nearly 400 million cellular phone users
worldwide and growing. The difficult part for you as the
cellular phone user is finding which companies in the US can
be relied upon to offer you the higher quality products. The
price vs. quality issue comes into play. The less you are
willing to pay, the lower the grade of the product you will
receive.
[A surprising fact that we
learned was that some countries creating aftermarket products
also have plants in the same area creating OEM products.]
About the only time you will
be forced to purchase an OEM product is when you buy any
product that is relevant to actual RF transmissions. A
booster kit affects the actual RF transmission. Therefore, it
is illegal in many countries to infringe upon the handset
manufacturer’s license by creating products that use these
frequencies.
