Adventure Nomad

Adventure Nomad

Thursday, August 16, 2007

Caveat Emptor

- Otherwise known as ‘let the buyer beware’. This is advice I should have heeded when I went out to buy a second EN-EL3e battery for my Nikon D200. Well, the original Nikon batteries are in short supply, so I decided to try a battery from a third party manufacturer. The package said 1800 mAh, and Nikon original battery’s capacity is rated at only 1500 mAh. Worth a shot, I thought, since it was half the price of the original battery.

For the longest time, it read 100% charge. At around 180 shots, it said 65% of charge remaining. Great, I thought, I’ll be able to get about 400 shots per charge. That’s way better than what I’m getting from my original Nikon battery. I’ll go buy another one. At 194 shots, the battery went flat. 0%.

The moral of the story is ‘if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is’. While I’m probably getting the same number of shots per charge as compared to the original Nikon batteries, I’m not getting a realistic indication of the battery charge remaining. Which brings me to my last quote: ‘You get what you pay for’.

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