3rd party batteries

I think that is a slightly odd analogy! Brake components on cars are safety critical and could threaten your life if they fail. A battery failing in a camera would not be a life and death situation!

Also, even if you do not buy your brake components from ebay, you could take your car to a dealer in good faith, only for the dealer to fit aftermarket parts and not manufacturer genuine items. For my whole life I have worked in or around the Retail Motor Industry, not in parts or service though but I do know only too well what goes on.

When it comes to 3rd party batteries, I have 6 of these for my K-01/K-5iis and K-3. I have only ever bought one that didn't perform well and as it only cost £5 it is not a big loss. I tend to carry the non genuine ones as spares and use the Pentax ones in the cameras as the main battery, except for the K-01 which has a non-genuine battery fitted all the time. I haven't noticed any problems charging or any performance differences, apart from with a Hama battery which I got free from SRS and is rated at a lower output, but still performs well.

We all pay our money and take our choice, we all have our own opinions. Mine is that I cannot understand for the life of me why anyone would pay £60 for an item when you can buy one for between £5 and £10 that does an equivalent or better job!

Regards
David

My camera is only my hobby - not my job - so maybe have a different view on this than other contributors. What I really liked about the K-30 was the fact it could take 4 AAs in a battery holder. I picked a battery holder up from eBay for £2 and spent another £6 on a set of Panasonic Evolta long storage capacity AAs. I just cannot see how camera manufacturers can justify the price of a battery.

They can justify it as long as people keep paying the prices for the genuine ones

Regards
David

Energizer Industrials are better batteries and you can get 20
for only a pound more.......

Ebay_Linky

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At least the K7 K5 K5IIs use the same battery, so interchange them. Haven't checked the K3 as I won't be buying one any time soon.

No one has been misquoted. it would be disingenuous to misquote someone as you can easily see what they originally said by look at their post

All accessories...not just batteries are where Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) for example Pentax, Sony, Panasonic, Kodak, Canon, Nikon...
make their real money...the cameras are just the vehicle to the real profit which is why OEMs fight 'tooth and nail' to convince people that cheaper must mean less safe or poorer performance. Sometimes this is true...but not automatically so. Like I said, do your research first and you should be able to save a useful amount.

On a similar note. About 6 or 7 years ago I spent about £130 for a Polar running watch with chest strap that picks-up your heartbeat and sends details to the watch. I also spent an additional £50 for the wireless footpod that measures distance run...£180 give or take. Came with a 2 yr warranty which was good and overall have been very happy with it most of the time..the chest strap is a bit unreliable as the contacts oxidise and really only lasts about 2-3 years before it needs replacing
at a cost of about £35. Batteries I change myself every 18 months or so for a cost of about 50p rather than theirs which are about £5-£6. I recently lost the footpod
on a jog..but that's another story.

Imagine my surprise then to find that Lidl were selling something very similar...the watch and chest strap for about £40 ! With a 3 yr warranty!! (this about 2 years ago when the Polar was still the same price as it had always been).

Just goes to show how much 'you' are paying for 'the name'.

To be fair "something very similar" might be a cheap copy as well as it might be the same product though.

However, we all do as we want, and that's fine. You won't be surprised to know that I have watch batteries changed by the manufacturer. They reseal the watch to the original spec and maintain the waterproof qualities.

However, my main watch is kinetic, which solves that problem!

My wife has a Panasonic bridge camera, the batteries are chipped to prevent use of third party ones

I believe that 100% of Pentax batteries perform to Pentax specification and no other manufacturer can match that!

Not impossible, but completely improbable.

As I recall the test published some time ago, even the Pentax batteries didn't meet specification, but they only missed it by a pedantic whisker. The others didn't come close, with some being abysmal.

If someone can pull up the table I'm sure newer readers would be interested.

Yet many people, including myself, are reporting no difference with 3rd party batteries compared to those with the Pentax label on.

Someone did a test. It's vaguely interesting but doesn't corroborate with real life anecdotes and there's no reliable source on how controlled it's conditions were.

Comparing performance with a battery that costs £55 versus one that costs £5 is a little irrelevant though.

It might be a boost to the argument of the "Pentax Labelled Battery crowd" to show a 3rd party battery performs not so good, but you have to factor in the price.

Has anyone actually found a 3rd party battery that only has the 1/10th of the performance of a battery that ha a Pentax logo on it? I thought not.

We get all that, but anecdotal evidence is not scientific.

Amongst all the rhetoric there are facts to be found if we look.

Incidentally, battery care is important. And these days Lithium cells are viewed as dangerous items - just try to post one somewhere. Now that might be overkill, or it might be a real hazard, but it's right to mention it without it being called scaremongering, which clearly it isn't.

Everything you ever wanted to know about Lithium Ion batteries but were afraid to ask...

electronics.howstuffworks.com/everyday-tech/lithium-ion-battery2.htm