Anyway, if you've looked at online shops selling the R400, you might've noticed there are tons and tons of cheap "genuine" R400's. I found a shop selling one slightly cheaper than retail, and it showed the packaging with the Logitech logo, and it has hundreds of feedbacks claiming the shop is really good and the product is genuine. All the signs point to it being fake, so I bought one immediately.
Well, I couldn't lose anything. If it's fake I'll just return it, if it's genuine I've got myself a good deal, so here it is. Oops, I forgot to take a picture without the outer wrapper, but it says Logitech R400 on the box, and it has the old Logitech logo. Hundreds of online shops show this genuine blister packaging. Inside the plastic shell it still looks fine, but once unwrapped...
Comparing to a genuine R400. All images has the genuine on the left and fake on the right. I lost my original R400 when my ex-boss stole it. The one pictured in this post is a new one I just bought from an authorized dealer at list price after the fake one turned out to be, well, fake. Click the images to see close-ups.
The genuine one has better plastic and all the silk screening on the buttons as well as the buttons themselves are well-aligned. The genuine one has somewhat shinier plastic on the buttons, but the rest of the body feel similar.
As said above, the bodies feel quite similar, so that's a good thing for the fake one if you just want a cheap PowerPoint remote and don't care much for quality. There are many really cheap "R400-style" presenters being sold without the Logitech logo, but this is being sold as a Logitech R400, so I'm calling it a counterfeit. Notice my genuine one has the new Logitech logo that they started using around mid-2015.
The laser covering of the genuine one is curved and shaded. The fake one is flat and clearer so you can see the hole behind the covering.
The power slider of the fake one is really difficult to slide, and the shape of the switch doesn't quite fit inside the cutout so you can see a bit of green there. On the fake R400, the red sticker that's supposed to be shown when the remote is off is missing.
The battery compartment look similar except for the text, but the springs are lower quality on the fake one, and the batteries don't sit so well. Oh, and the fake one doesn't come with batteries. The genuine one has the newer R-R0008 part number while the fake one has the old R-R0004 part number. The fake one is missing a serial number.
The battery covers look similar, but the genuine one is shiny inside while the fake is matte. The battery cover of the fake one doesn't fit quite well and will fall inside if pushed too hard. Funnily enough the two battery covers are incompatible with each other.
The USB receivers look very similar, but the genuine one is shinier. The fake one appears to have markings that look used, but it came that way.
They come with different storage bags. This is just a difference with the year of production. Older R400's also came with the pouch on the right side, while newer ones have the low cost cloth pouch. The fake R400 comes with the old style pouch, but it feels rough compared to the genuine one that my ex-boss stole.
And finally, this is what a current genuine Logitech R400 packaging looks like. Even though the Logitech website still shows the old logo, but they're being sold with the new logo and new style packaging. And instead of being called wireless presenters, they're now called laser presentation remotes.
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