Third Party Batteries for K5

That kind of thing happens with products from all kinds of companies. Capitalism doesn't care about people it cares about profit

Maybe so, but by paying full price you are taking reasonable precautions to avoid it rather than actively soliciting it.

I am sure that Pentax would like to be seen as an ethical company and using sweatshops is a quick way of loosing this accreditation.

not really

The raw materials use in all electronic products, including cameras and their batteries are mined by extremely impoverished people who ave no workers rights and are often living in places where the rule of law is a kalshnikov.

We'd never get our products at the prices we do if every part of the manufacturing chain was enjoying decent wages and rights.

Sony have not only made batteries for Apple - "The PowerBook 100 was released alongside the 140 and the 170. While these two models were based on the same motherboard, the 100 had a more simple motherboard design, and was desiged and manufactured by Sony for Apple. From: http://www.apple-history.com/

Vic.

John Riley wrote: -

''Two were Pentax ones and three couldn't be identified because all the printing had worn off them. They looked a wreck. The two Pentax ones were almost unmarked. This sort of thing to me indicates a particular quality level for these items, and in the case of the cheap batteries it could be very debateable what we were buying. Those are the ones I expect to leak or burst into flames''

The fact that the printing came off easily only means that the printing may have not been top quality. It certainly does not indicate overall poor quality NOR does it indicate that the batteries will leak or burst into flames! To date as far as I can tell there is no definitive proof that there is any more than isolated instances which can happen on ALL products, Pentax Bodies included.

My second battery, a cheap one off ebay, lasts far longer than the Pentax one.....

Just taking up the comment from Paul, who seems to have resurrected the battery question, I would say overall finish and attention to detail do actually have a bearing on identifying the overall quality levels applied.

If the covers and pieces of our Pentax cameras didn't fit very well and the batteries arrived with labels peeling off we would probably think this was a low quality product.

Anyway, that's how I feel about it.

John, you are right that 'If everything about a product was shabby' then we would perceive poor quality. If only the printing say, wore off a little quickly would we condemn the whole product/performance? Isnt that 'Judging a Book by its cover' rather than by the contents?

You've resurrected this one from ages ago Paul, but I can tell you that the batteries in question were a disgrace. The Pentax one had stood up to what was clearly hard use, the third party ones had not. I merely report what I observed. There are many types of third party battery and I can't tell you at this juncture what these were.

As for the book and its cover, it's an interesting comparison but no, I don't think so. We would judge the book later if all the pages fell out of one edition, but another edition was still in good intact condition. If we want to complete the analogy, the faulty one would perhaps be a cheap paperback and the good one perhaps a Penguin Book.

Of my three batteries, the 7-day shop ones are definitely a little shabbier than the original Pentax one, in terms of the label. However I can confirm that the quality of the label does not appear to have an impact on performance, which is definitely in the same ball-park as the Pentax.

I'm torn on this issue. On the one hand, I want to help fellow Pentaxians save their hard earned £££. On the other hand, every original Pentax battery sold must represent a very healthy profit to Pentax, so is good for the brand!

Well you can always send Pentax a donation if you'[re worried about their financial status

Yes I can confirm there's no correlation between performance of the respective batteries and the quality the label.

And ...... just wait for Mark Newson designer Pentax batteries