Rab-Eye wrote:
I generally stick to batteries from the camera manufacturer. However, I chanced across a link online to a Duracell battery that is 50% the cost of the manufacturer's battery for one of my cameras. With Duracell being a name brand, I wonder if it’s worth spending the extra money on OEM? Does anyone have any experience with Duracell brand batteries made for cameras, or in general just have thoughts to share?
Thanks!
If your camera is covered by a "no-fault" warranty, then I would bite the bullet and
use the OEM battery. Yes, the OEM doesn't manufacture battery, yes it is overpriced, but
they have given you a good warranty, and indirectly, they are charging you for it. Fair enough.
But most camera warranties have a long list of exclusions. Most exclude damage caused
by abuse or misuse. If your warranty is one of these, then you could use the over-priced
OEM battery, and if it overflows, they could still claim it was your fault!
I don't think it's fair to require you to use their brand of battery unless they also agree to cover
any damage caused by that battery. But some camera warranties even exclude damage
caused by
any leaking batteries!
In that case, threating to void the warranty if you don't by their over-priced rebranded battery is
basically extortion. Using a different (and possibly superior) brand of battery is not abuse.
By the same argument, they could force you to buy OEM memory cards,,,,or camera straps.
If the camera strap breaks, the camera could fall, causing severe damage.... That's not a
good argument, it's a rationalization for extortion.
So in this case, the questions is similar to "Should I pay off a blackmailer?"
Heck no. If you need the send the camera back for warrranty work on a problem that does
not invovle the battery, simply buy their OEM batteries and stick them in before
shipping it. Is it OK to deceive an extortionist? You bet it is!
The flip-side is: if you
did cause the damage and are at fault, you should not send
the camera back for warranty work, but should be a mensch and pay to have it fixed.
The flip side: if you truly are at fault -- e.g., you left a dead battery in the camera (or did
anything else that caused the damage) -- admit this and do
not send the camera
back to be repaired under warranty. Be a mensch and pay to have it fixed or replaced.
Now, some background:
It would be nice if there existed batteries that can't leak. But all batteries except zinc-air
have liquid electrolytes and can leak.
Corrosion caused by battery leakage is a major cause of camera failure.
Almost always, it's the user's fault for:
* leaving a battery in the camera during long term storage,
* leaving a totally dead battery in the camera
* trying to re-charge a non-rechargable battery
The question is: what can the camera manufacturer do about it?
They don't want to pay for user-caused damage, but it's difficult
to prove who was at fault. Very few users are going to admit to
causing the damage.
The no-fault warranty is a simple but expensive solution.
The strategy they have hit upon to pay for a no-fault warranty
is to require the user to use vastly over-priced OEM batteries.
They do this with the threat that non-OEM batteries void the
warranty.
Camera manufacturers don't make batteries---it's a very specialized
type of manufacturing. They outsource them. There's a fair
chance that Duracell is making the OEM batteries for your
camera's manufacture. Whoever is making it, they probably just
stick the camera manufacturer's label on a battery they also sell
under their own brand name.
OEM-batteries are just as likely to cause damage as major brand
non-OEM batteries. So it's not really about the battery, it's
about the money.
If a camera strap brakes, it can cause you to drop the camera
and lens, causing severe damage. So by the same argument,
camera manufacturers could require you to buy only OEM
camera straps. Or memory cards. Etc. So it's entirely about
the money.
So it comes down to whether the manufacturer's warranty is
worth the cost of using OEM batteries. If it's no-fault and
covers damaged caused by the battery it is. If not, not.
Note that when you send a camera back to the manufacturer for
warranty work, unless the problem is very obvious and superficial,
the technician will simply take the serial number plate off your camera
and put it on a brand new one, and send that to you. In some cases,
they will scratch the case a little--to prevent you from re-selling it
as new.
Labor is too expensive, digital cameras are too complex and
difficult to test, replacement boards cost too much, and problems
are too likely to be intermmittent, to for it to be cost-effective to
fix your camera.
(In any case, it isn't commercially feasible to repair a modern, surface-mount
printed circuit board.. Even if one know what's wrong, the more pads a
component has, the less likely one is to be able to successfully de-solder it
and re-solder a replacement.)
The stakes are high, and that's why with at-fault warranties it's so important
that the user admit when the damage was his fault.