Gameboy Advance SP Battery Variants

[austin532 | 467]

Does anyone know if a list exists detailing all of the GBA SP battery variants? Or what the codes on the batteries mean? From what I can tell the first digit is a letter and indicate the year it was made. There are W, X, Y and Z codes.

W = 2003-2004
X = 2004-2005
Y = 2005-2006
Z = 2006-2007

The original DS batteries are the same and use the same lettering.

For variants there appears to be 3 different colors. Gray w/ White Label, Black w/ White Label, and all Blue w/ Printed Text. I believe the gray ones were the very first batch off the assembly line as they don't have any codes on them. The black ones were next but I'm not sure about the blue ones. Obviously they are later batches but I'm not sure where they fit in. Did they come with some 001 models? Or only 101 models? Or are those the ones you could order from Nintendo's website?

[bowser | 598]

I will attempt to give a comprehensive answer for this. It's not based on any published facts but only on my own observations and educated guesses.

Until a few years ago I used to live in India. It is a unique geographic location where it's possible to find consoles from all regions of the world since everything is imported. I found tons of GBA SP consoles over there and I actually managed to collect quite a few batteries from these.

On a side note, it's very interesting to me that about 85% of the GBA SP I found were the AGS-101 model. It's the most common one! The AGS-001 is actually uncommon to find. Also about 90% of the AGS-101 were from Singapore, released by Maxsoft.

Coming back to the topic, it looks like there are FOUR variants for the batteries:

#1) Blue with all printed text

#2) Black with white label

#3) Black with blue label

#4) Gray with white label

 

#1) Blue with all printed text

I have 2 variants, one with USA code and one with ASI code. I distinctly remember pulling these from AGS-001 models. They are also rated at 3.7 volts. All the other models are rated 3.8 volts. This leads me to conclude this variant was the first model.

 

#2) Black with white label

I have 2 variants, one with USA code and one with ASI code. This is the most common variant I found in USA units. I remember seeing them in both 001 and 101 models.

 

#3) Black with blue label

I have only ever found these in units that came from the ASI region. I also noticed most of these were bloated or dead. I think these were the earliest models made for ASI.

 

#4) Gray with white label

I have 2 variants, one with USA code and one with ASI code. These actually have serial numbers too. They are not printed, but rather stamped into the label much like the stamped codes on Gameboy labels. These were mostly pulled from ASI units. It's rare to find these in USA units.

In my experience, the gray with white label versions from ASI were almost always in good condition. They weren't bloated and hold a good charge. They were probably from the last batches.

In conclusion, this is probably what happened according to my observations:

AGS-001 USA - #1, #2

AGS-101 USA - #2, #4

AGS-001 ASI - #1

AGS-101 ASI - #2, #3, #4

[austin532 | 467]

Ok yeah, the gray ones are definitely a later revision. They are stamped in, start with letter A/B which is what DS lite batteries used, and have a -3 revision code. The A would most likely mean 2007-2008.

[Driftwood | 209]

I pulled a few a couple weeks ago...   hope this helps in some way.